Your Instructor
Your Driving Instructor in Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam & Port Moody
One ICBC-licensed instructor, one dual-control car, and the same person beside you from your first lesson to the morning of your road test.
Teaching in the Tri-Cities
Google rating
Google reviews
Every lesson
Most driving schools will not tell you who is actually going to be in the car with you. You book, you pay, and you find out on the day.
BuckleUp works the other way around. My name is Farhad Sanaeifar. I started this school out of Port Moody in 2014, and I am the instructor you get when you book a lesson here, in English or in Farsi, across Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody and North Vancouver.
Farhad Sanaeifar, ICBC-Licensed Driving Instructor
I hold a Driver Training Instructor’s Licence issued by ICBC and I have been teaching in the Tri-Cities since 2014. What I have become good at is not teaching people to steer. Most people can steer after an hour. It is teaching people to read a road: to spot the parked car that is about to pull out, to know which lights change fast, to use a shoulder check as information rather than a box to tick.
I teach Class 7 learners, Class 5 road-test prep, Class 4 commercial, highway lessons and refresher lessons. Every lesson is 90 minutes in a dual-control Toyota.
I am also an immigrant. I learned Canadian roads as an adult, in a second language, with a licence from another country in my pocket. When a student says they drive fine at home but freeze at a four-way stop in Coquitlam, I am not guessing at what that feels like.
ICBC-Licensed Driving Instructor · Owner
5.0 across 200+ Google reviews
Teaching in English and Farsi
“ICBC-Approved”, “ICBC-Certified”, “ICBC-Licensed”: What Those Actually Mean
Every driving school in BC puts one of those phrases on its website, including this one. Almost nobody explains what is behind it. Here it is, and you can use it to check any instructor, not just me.
In BC, ICBC licenses the instructor, not just the school. The document is a Driver Training Instructor’s Licence. To get one, a person has to:
- be at least 19 years old;
- hold a valid BC driver’s licence with three years of experience in the class they teach;
- have fewer than 10 penalty points over the previous two years;
- pass a criminal record check and a medical exam;
- owe nothing to ICBC or the Province;
- complete an instructor course at an ICBC-authorised facility, then file the certificate with ICBC’s Driver Training Industry Support Office.
There are two designations. A GLP licence covers the in-car portion of an ICBC-approved driver education course. A GLP/GLT licence covers the classroom portion as well. If you want the ICBC-approved GLP course specifically, ask which one the instructor holds, because “ICBC-approved” on a homepage does not tell you.
To check any instructor in about a minute: ask to see the licence, because they carry it. Ask which designation it is. Ask whether the school is licensed too, because in BC both have to be. If anything does not add up, ICBC’s Driver Training Industry Support Office will confirm whether a licence is current.
Nobody has ever asked me for my licence before a first lesson. Everybody should.
What a 90-Minute Lesson Actually Looks Like
First five minutes: a conversation
You tell me what worries you and what you practised. I tell you the one thing we fix today. One, not six.
Then seventy-five minutes driving
On roads you will actually be tested on, not an empty industrial park. I take you into traffic before you feel ready, because feeling ready comes after.
Last ten minutes: the debrief
Two things that improved, one thing to practise, written down. If something went badly I say so plainly.
Wondering how many you will need? I wrote an honest answer here: how many driving lessons do you need?
Lessons in English or Farsi
I teach in both. If English is your second language, the problem in the car is rarely vocabulary. It is the extra half-second spent translating “take the next exit” while a merge is happening at 80 km/h. Removing that half-second is worth more than most people expect.
More detail, in both languages: Farsi-speaking driving lessons in Vancouver & Port Moody →
Where I Teach
Coquitlam
Como Lake Avenue, Austin, Mariner Way, the Pinetree Way and Westwood Street corridors, and the Lougheed Highway on-ramps that catch out more Class 5 candidates than anything else here. Coquitlam students test at the Port Coquitlam office, so we drive those routes well before test day.
Port Coquitlam
The ICBC office serving the Tri-Cities is at 1930 Oxford Connector in Port Coquitlam. Worth knowing, because plenty of Coquitlam and Port Moody students assume they test in their own city. We drive Coast Meridian, Shaughnessy, Lougheed and the connector in the order an examiner is likely to.
Port Moody
Home. BuckleUp is based on Maple Drive. A good place to learn and a slightly awkward place to be tested out of: St. Johns Street traffic, the Ioco Road curves, Murray Street parking, and the Barnet Highway merge, which is the manoeuvre I am asked to fix most often.
North Vancouver
On the North Shore we work around the 1331 Marine Drive office: Marine Drive, Lynn Valley Road, Mountain Highway and the hills. Hill starts, steep-grade parking and wet-road braking come up here in a way they simply do not in the Tri-Cities.
The Drivers I Work With Most
Teenagers on their L
Usually sent by a parent, usually quieter in the first lesson than the fifth.
Anxious drivers
Adults who put this off for years, or had one bad experience and stopped. We start somewhere quiet and I do not surprise you.
Newcomers with a licence from home
You can drive. What you need is BC rules, BC intersections and what an ICBC examiner watches for.
People who failed a road test
Common, and almost always fixable. The report usually names two or three repeatable errors.
Drivers going commercial
Class 4 for taxi, ride-hail and small bus work.
How to Choose a Driving Instructor in BC
Five things worth checking before you hand anyone your money:
- Ask to see the instructor’s licence. It takes ten seconds.
- Find out who is actually teaching you. Big schools rotate instructors, and consistency matters more than almost anything else in the first ten hours.
- Ask where you will be driving. If the answer is “quiet streets”, ask when that changes. You are not tested on quiet streets.
- Check the car is available for your road test, and what it costs. Turning up to an ICBC test without a car is a wasted booking.
- Take one lesson before you buy a package. Any instructor confident in their teaching will happily let you.
If you go through that list and choose somebody else, that is a good outcome. You will have chosen deliberately. Most people do not.
Common questions
Ask me and I will show you the licence at the start of your first lesson. In BC both the instructor and the school have to be licensed, and instructors carry their licence with them. If you would rather check independently, ICBC’s Driver Training Industry Support Office confirms whether a licence is current.
Yes. BuckleUp has one instructor and it is me. Nothing gets re-explained because somebody new took over at lesson four.
Yes. Lessons run in English or Farsi, whichever you think in. There is more detail on our Farsi driving lessons page.
A single 90-minute lesson is $100. Packages bring it down: $360 for four, $480 for six, $620 for eight. Full breakdown on the services page, and a wider look at Metro Vancouver prices in our 2026 price guide.
Yes. It is an add-on to any package, $50 with the four-lesson package, $40 with six and $30 with eight, and it includes the warm-up drive beforehand.
If you are in Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam or Port Moody, almost certainly 1930 Oxford Connector in Port Coquitlam. It is the office that serves the Tri-Cities, even though it is not in Coquitlam. On the North Shore it is 1331 Marine Drive. We practise the streets around whichever one applies to you.
No, and it is more common than you would think. We start somewhere quiet, go at your pace, and I tell you what is coming before it comes. More on nervous-driver lessons here.
It depends on how much practice you get between them. I will give you a straight estimate after the first lesson rather than sell you a package on day one. Here is the longer answer.
Book a Lesson
A test date, a teenager, or a licence from somewhere else and a growing suspicion that BC roads are their own thing. Any of those, call me.
(604) 441-3677 · info@buckleupdriving.ca · seven days a week, 7am to 9pm