Terms of Service

1. About DriveAU and these Terms

DriveAU is operated by DRIVEAU PTY LTD (ACN [ACN], ABN [ABN]), a company incorporated in Australia with its registered office at [REGISTERED OFFICE]. In these Terms, "DriveAU", "we", "us" and "our" mean DRIVEAU PTY LTD.

These Terms apply to you when you use the DriveAU website, book a driving lesson through DriveAU, or hold a DriveAU account as a learner or as a parent or guardian. "You" and "your" mean the person using DriveAU.

Please read section 2 first. It explains the single most important thing about how DriveAU works, and the rest of these Terms depends on it.

Separate terms apply to driving instructors who offer lessons through DriveAU. Those are set out in the DriveAU Instructor Agreement, not in this document.

2. What DriveAU is, and what it is not

DriveAU is a marketplace. We connect learner drivers with independent driving instructors, and we provide the booking system and payment facilitation that make that connection work.

DriveAU does not provide driving lessons. We are not a driving school. We do not employ, engage, supervise or direct driving instructors, and we do not teach anyone to drive.

Your driving lesson is provided to you by an independent driving instructor. When you book a lesson through DriveAU, you are purchasing that lesson from the instructor, not from DriveAU. The instructor is the person who supplies the lesson to you and who is responsible for providing it.

What we do. We help you find an instructor, we provide the system you use to book and pay, we collect the payment for the lesson, and we pass the money to the instructor after the lesson. We charge the instructor a commission for that service. We do not add anything to the price you pay.

What this means for you. Questions and concerns about a lesson itself — how it was taught, what happened during it, whether the instructor turned up — are in the first instance matters between you and your instructor, because the instructor is the person supplying the lesson. You can always raise them with us as well. We record them, and they may affect whether an instructor can continue to use DriveAU. Section 17 explains how. Nothing in these Terms prevents you from complaining to us, and nothing in these Terms limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law (see section 20).

3. Some words we use

Instructor — an independent driving instructor who offers lessons through DriveAU.

Lesson — a driving lesson provided by an instructor to a learner.

Learner — a person who holds a DriveAU learner account and books lessons.

Parent — a parent or guardian who holds a DriveAU parent account and is linked to a learner's account.

Guardian consent — the consent described in section 6, which a learner under 18 must have before booking or paying for a lesson.

Commission — the amount DriveAU charges an instructor for using the marketplace, described in section 11.

4. Eligibility and your account

Browsing. Anyone can browse instructor listings on DriveAU without creating an account.

Creating a learner account. You must be at least 16 years old to create a DriveAU learner account.

We have set 16 because it is the age at which a person becomes eligible to hold a learner permit in Victoria, where DriveAU currently operates. As DriveAU becomes available in other States and Territories, the minimum age will follow the learner permit eligibility age for the place where the lesson is given.

Your date of birth. We ask for your date of birth so that we can check you meet the minimum age and, if you are under 18, so we know when guardian consent is required and when it is no longer needed. We do not display it publicly. We explain how we handle it in our Privacy Policy.

Holding a learner permit. A driving lesson on a public road generally requires you to hold a valid learner permit. Making sure you hold one, and that it is current, is your responsibility.

Your account is yours. Keep your password confidential and do not let anyone else use your account. Tell us promptly if you think someone else has accessed it. You are responsible for what happens through your account, except where that would not be fair or lawful.

Accurate information. Please give us accurate information and keep it up to date. If information you give us is materially wrong, section 17 may apply.

5. Learners under 18

You may use DriveAU if you are under 18, subject to this section.

Before you can book or pay for a lesson, a parent or legal guardian must give consent. You can create an account and browse instructors before that happens, but you cannot make a booking or a payment until consent has been given.

Once you turn 18, guardian consent is no longer required, and the requirement lapses automatically.

6. Guardian consent, and parent accounts

These are two different things, and it matters that they stay separate.

Guardian consent is the consent a parent or legal guardian gives so that a learner under 18 can book and pay for lessons. It is about permission, not about access to the learner's account.

A parent account with Parent Dashboard permissions is something else entirely. It is a sharing arrangement that the learner controls. A learner can invite a parent to link to their account and can choose what that parent can see or do:

• see the learner's lesson progress
• see the learner's bookings
• book lessons for the learner
• pay for the learner's lessons

Each of these is a separate permission. By default a linked parent can only view progress and bookings. A parent cannot give themselves more access, and a learner can change or revoke the permissions at any time.

A linked parent cannot cancel or reschedule a learner's lesson. Only the learner, the instructor, or DriveAU acting on a request can cancel a booking, and only the learner can reschedule one.

Giving guardian consent does not create a parent link, and a parent link does not amount to guardian consent. DriveAU does not verify family relationships or that a person linked as a parent is a legal guardian.

7. Instructors are independent

Instructors who offer lessons through DriveAU are independent businesses. They are not employees, agents, partners or representatives of DriveAU.

Each instructor decides their own:

• prices
• availability and working hours
• service areas
• vehicle
• lesson lengths and how they teach

DriveAU does not set, supervise or control any of these things, and does not direct how a lesson is taught.

8. Instructor listings and what our checks mean

What we check today, exactly. Before an instructor can be listed and booked on DriveAU, they tell us the State or Territory that issued their driving instructor accreditation and give us their accreditation or authority number, with an expiry date where they have one. A DriveAU administrator reviews that and records a decision. That is the whole of it.

What we do not do today. We do not collect or hold copies of any document. We do not check the number we are given against any government register. We do not carry out identity, police, insurance, driver licence, vehicle or Working With Children checks. Nothing in a listing should be read as saying that we do.

What we intend to do before launch. Instructor onboarding is expected also to collect an ABN, and may collect identity, insurance, driver licence, vehicle and Working With Children information.

What these checks mean. We check what is described above to decide whether an instructor is eligible to participate in the DriveAU marketplace.

What these checks do not mean. We do not guarantee, warrant or certify that any instructor is safe, suitable, competent, of any particular teaching quality, or that a lesson will be free of risk. We do not supervise lessons and we are not present at them. The instructor is responsible for the lesson they provide.

Listings. Information in a listing — including business name, description, vehicle, languages, service areas and price — is provided by the instructor. We do not independently verify the accuracy of everything an instructor writes about themselves.

If an instructor's credentials lapse. If a credential we rely on for marketplace eligibility expires, that instructor stops receiving new bookings. What happens to lessons already booked is dealt with in section 17.

9. Booking a lesson

When you choose an instructor, a date and a time, and complete payment, you have booked a lesson with that instructor.

Holding your slot. When you start a booking, we hold the time slot for a short period (currently 35 minutes) so that you can complete payment. If payment is not completed in that time, the hold lapses and the slot becomes available to other learners again.

Confirmation. Your lesson is confirmed when payment succeeds. We will email you, and we will email your instructor.

Where and when. Arrangements for the lesson — including where you are picked up — are between you and your instructor.

10. Prices

The price you see is the price you pay. The price shown for a lesson is the instructor's own price for that lesson length. DriveAU does not add a booking fee, a service fee, a platform fee or any other charge to it.

The price is fixed when you book. If your instructor later changes their rates, that does not change the price of a lesson you have already booked.

Prices are in Australian dollars and are the full amount payable by you for the lesson. .]**

11. Payment, and DriveAU's commission

How payment is taken. Payments are processed by Stripe. You enter your card details with Stripe, not with us. DriveAU never sees or stores your card number or bank details.

Cards only. DriveAU accepts payment cards only — on the website and in the apps. We deliberately do not offer bank-debit methods such as BECS Direct Debit: a lesson slot is held for you for a short period while you pay, and a payment method that settles days later cannot honour that hold. Whether to widen this later is a product decision, not a default.

What DriveAU charges. DriveAU charges the instructor a commission of 5% of the lesson price for use of the marketplace. This comes out of the amount the instructor receives. It is not added to your price, and you are not charged it.

When the instructor is paid. We pass the balance to the instructor after the lesson has taken place.

12. Changing a lesson

Rescheduling. You can reschedule a lesson yourself, free of charge, up to 24 hours before it is due to start, provided your instructor has a suitable time available. The price does not change and you are not charged again.

Within 24 hours of the lesson, you cannot reschedule it yourself. You can contact your instructor, or cancel under section 13.

Your instructor may suggest a new time. If they do, we will let you know. You can accept or decline it. If you do nothing, your original lesson stands.

Only you can reschedule your lesson. A linked parent cannot reschedule on your behalf.

13. Cancellations and refunds

If you cancel 24 hours or more before the lesson, you receive a full refund.

If your instructor cancels, you receive a full refund, however close to the lesson it happens.

If you cancel less than 24 hours before the lesson, the lesson is not automatically refunded. The cancellation is recorded and reviewed by a person, and we will contact you about the outcome. A refund may still be given.

DriveAU can also refund a lesson outside that process. As well as the late-cancellation review above, a DriveAU administrator can look at any booking and issue a refund where it is warranted — for instance after a complaint, or where an instructor has been suspended. Three things constrain it, and they are constraints in the system rather than promises in a document: the amount is calculated by us from the payment record, never typed in; a lesson that has not been cancelled must be cancelled first; and where the instructor has already been paid out, the automated refund is refused and the matter is handed to a person to resolve, because that money has left DriveAU.

We do not offer part-refunds. A lesson is either refunded in full or not refunded.

How refunds are paid. Refunds are returned to the original payment method. How long they take to appear depends on your bank or card provider.

Nothing in this section limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law (see section 20).

14. If you do not attend a lesson

⚠ PROVISIONAL — THIS SECTION IS NOT SETTLED. The charging rule set out below is the intended commercial policy. It has not been confirmed as legally enforceable and must not be published as though it were.

If you do not attend a booked lesson, your instructor may report it. They can only do so at least 15 minutes after the lesson was due to start, and they must confirm that they attended and that you did not, and give a short note about what happened.

A reported no-show is not recorded as a completed lesson.

What DriveAU does and does not say. We record what your instructor has reported. We do not independently verify whether you attended, and we do not state as fact that you did not. If we contact you about it, we will tell you that your instructor has reported that you did not attend.

If you disagree. You can tell us, and we will look at it. Section 17 explains how.

The intended commercial outcome (provisional). Where a no-show is reported and not successfully disputed, the intended policy is that the lesson is not automatically refunded, the instructor receives their normal share, and DriveAU's usual commission applies. This rule is subject to the lawyer review noted at the top of this section, and nothing here limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

Repeated no-shows. Repeated reported no-shows may be taken into account under section 17. They do not result in any automatic action.

15. If your instructor does not attend

If your instructor does not attend a booked lesson, tell us. You will not be treated as responsible for a lesson your instructor did not attend.

We will look into it. Where it is established that your instructor did not attend, the intended outcome is a full refund to you.

We record the incident against that instructor. Repeated or serious incidents may affect whether they can continue to use DriveAU (see section 17).

We do not witness lessons, so what we record is what has been reported to us by you and by your instructor.

16. If a lesson cannot go ahead

An instructor may decline to begin, or may stop, a lesson where they reasonably believe that going ahead would be unsafe, unlawful or genuinely inappropriate.

This is not a learner no-show, an instructor no-show, a cancellation by either of you, or a completed lesson. It is its own outcome.

Situations where this might apply could include a learner not being able to meet a legally required permit or licensing requirement, a learner appearing impaired or otherwise unfit to drive safely, an immediate safety risk, or another legal requirement that prevents the lesson going ahead.

This is not a general right to refuse. An instructor may only rely on it for genuine safety or legal reasons. It cannot be used to refuse a lesson for arbitrary reasons, and it cannot be used to discriminate.

What the instructor must do. Record a short, factual reason for what happened.

What DriveAU does. We tell the learner that the instructor has reported the lesson could not go ahead, and why they said so. We do not independently witness lessons and we do not state as fact what happened.

You can dispute it. Tell us and a person will look at it.

The money. We do not automatically decide who keeps the payment. A lesson that could not go ahead goes to manual review, and the outcome depends on the circumstances. We have deliberately not written a fixed rule here, because we do not yet know what a fair and lawful one looks like.

17. Conduct, warnings, suspension and removal

What we expect. Treat instructors, other users and our staff with respect. Use DriveAU honestly. Do not use someone else's account, misuse the booking or payment system, or make false reports.

What we may do. If your conduct falls short of this, we may:

1. Give you a warning — for lower-level or first-time matters.
2. Temporarily suspend your account — where there are serious allegations, repeated problems, abuse, threats, suspected fraud, misuse of an account, or something that needs to be looked into. A suspension is protective and temporary, and it is not a finding that you did anything wrong.
3. Permanently remove your account — for sufficiently serious or repeated conduct, after appropriate review.

We will act reasonably and proportionately, and we will consider the circumstances.

Money. A suspension does not take your money. If you have paid for lessons that have not happened, those bookings are reviewed individually rather than cancelled automatically. If we decide a future booking has to be cancelled because of a suspension or removal, the intention is that you receive a full refund. We will not use suspension as a way of keeping money you are owed.

Parent links. If a parent account is suspended, that parent cannot use their permissions while the suspension lasts. If a learner's account is suspended, a linked parent cannot make new bookings or payments for that learner. On permanent removal, parent links are revoked.

Your data. Suspension is not deletion of your account, and removal does not automatically erase all records. Some records — including safety, complaint, financial and audit records — may need to be kept. Our Privacy Policy explains what we keep and for how long, and how you can ask us to delete your account.

If an instructor is suspended. If an instructor is suspended or removed and you have a lesson booked with them, we will review those bookings and contact you. Where a booked lesson cannot go ahead, the intention is a full refund. We will use neutral wording, and we will not tell you allegations that have not been established.

18. Complaints, safety concerns and disputes

How to raise something. Email support@driveau.com. Tell us what happened and, if it relates to a lesson, which booking it concerns.

We record complaints. Every formal complaint is recorded, including what it was about and what came of it, and where relevant it is recorded against the booking and the instructor concerned. This is how we can see if a pattern develops.

Complaints about a lesson. Your lesson is provided by an independent instructor, so a complaint about how a lesson was taught is in the first instance about that instructor. You can still bring it to us, and we will record and consider it, because it may affect whether that instructor can continue to use DriveAU.

Complaints about DriveAU. Complaints about the DriveAU website, the booking system, payments or our own service are ours, and we deal with them directly.

Safety. If you have a concern about your safety or the safety of a child, tell us and say that it is a safety concern. We prioritise these ahead of all other support. We can stop an instructor receiving new bookings immediately while we look into a serious concern.

If someone is in immediate danger, call 000. DriveAU is not an emergency service.

Nothing in this section limits your rights. You may also take a complaint to a consumer protection agency, an ombudsman, a tribunal or a court. See sections 20 and 27.

19. Support

Support is by email, at support@driveau.com.

We aim to respond as soon as reasonably possible. We do not offer phone support, and we do not offer 24/7 support. We would rather not promise a response time we cannot reliably meet, so at this stage we do not publish one.

We prioritise, in order: safety and child-safety concerns, then refund and review requests where money is involved, then everything else.

20. Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law

Our goods and services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law.

Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts or modifies any right, guarantee, warranty or remedy you have under the Australian Consumer Law or any other law that cannot lawfully be excluded, restricted or modified.

If any part of these Terms would have that effect, it does not apply to the extent that it would.

This applies to everything in these Terms, including anything about cancellations, refunds, no-shows, limitation of liability, suspension, governing law and jurisdiction.

Your instructor also has obligations to you. Because the lesson is supplied to you by the instructor, consumer guarantees in relation to the lesson itself apply to that supply.

21. What DriveAU is responsible for

Read this section together with section 20. Nothing here limits anything that cannot lawfully be limited.

We are responsible for providing the DriveAU marketplace, booking system and payment facilitation with due care and skill.

We are not responsible for the lesson itself, because we do not provide it. That includes how a lesson is taught, what happens during it, the instructor's conduct, the condition or safety of the instructor's vehicle, and whether an instructor attends.

We do not guarantee that any instructor will be available, that a listing is accurate in every respect, or that the website will be uninterrupted or error-free.

To the extent the law allows, and subject to section 20, DriveAU's liability to you in connection with these Terms is limited to resupplying the marketplace service or refunding amounts you have paid through DriveAU for the booking concerned.

22. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, where it is stored, how long we keep it, and how you can access it, correct it, or ask us to delete your account.

For privacy enquiries, access or correction requests, or privacy complaints, email support@driveau.com.

If you are under 18, our Privacy Policy also explains how we handle your information and your guardian's involvement.

23. Communications from DriveAU

We send you messages about your bookings and your account — for example when a lesson is confirmed, when payment is needed, when a lesson is cancelled or moved, and when a refund decision is made. These are part of the service and you cannot opt out of them while you hold an account with bookings.

By email, and by push notification in the apps. If you use the DriveAU iOS or Android app and allow notifications, we send the same events as push notifications as well.

Some notifications you can turn off, and some you cannot. Your account settings let you turn off the informational ones — today, a lesson being marked completed and a progress update from your instructor. Anything about a booking or about money is sent regardless, because it is how the service tells you what has happened to your lessons and your payments. Our Privacy Policy lists both sets.

DriveAU does not send marketing or promotional email. We do not have a marketing list, and creating an account does not sign you up to one. If that ever changes, we will ask for your consent first, in the way the law requires, and you will be able to opt out.

23A. Messaging in the DriveAU apps

This section describes a feature that exists in the apps only. There is no messaging on the DriveAU website.

What it is. The DriveAU iOS and Android apps let a learner and an instructor send each other plain-text messages about their lessons. Messages are text only, up to 2,000 characters, with no attachments or images, and once sent a message cannot be edited or deleted.

Who may use it. Today:

• the learner must be 18 or over — where we do not hold a date of birth, messaging is refused;
• the learner and the instructor must have a qualifying booking relationship — an upcoming lesson that has been paid for, a lesson completed within the last 30 days, or one cancelled within the last 7 days;
• there is one conversation per learner and instructor, not one per lesson.

Parents cannot see it. Parent and guardian accounts have no messaging of their own and no view of a learner's messages, whatever booking or payment permissions a learner has granted them.

What this channel is for. Arranging and discussing the lessons you have booked. It is not a way to arrange or pay for lessons outside DriveAU, and section 24 applies to what you write in it as it does everywhere else on DriveAU.

We do not monitor it, and we can read it. Messages are not watched in real time and nobody is reviewing them as they are sent. They are stored in our database and a DriveAU administrator is able to read a conversation — for example when investigating a complaint or a safety concern. We do not offer, and do not claim, end-to-end encryption. When we may actually do so is not yet settled.

What does not exist yet. There is no way to report a message from inside the app, no way to block someone, and no moderation system. If a message concerns you, contact us the way section 18 describes and a person will read it.

How long messages are kept. No retention period has been set, and none is stated here. Messages you have sent are not deleted when you close your account — our Privacy Policy explains exactly what happens.

24. Using DriveAU properly

You must not:

• use DriveAU for anything unlawful
• use another person's account, or let someone use yours
• give false information, or make a report you know to be untrue
• interfere with, damage, overload or attempt to gain unauthorised access to DriveAU or its systems
• copy, scrape or extract data from DriveAU other than for your own personal use
• use DriveAU to harass, threaten or abuse anyone
• attempt to arrange payment outside DriveAU in order to avoid the commission an instructor has agreed to pay

This applies to messages too. Everything above applies to what you write in the message channel described in section 23A, including sending anyone abusive, threatening, harassing or unlawful content, and including using it to move a booking off DriveAU.

Section 16 sets out what we may do if you do any of these things.

25. Intellectual property

DriveAU's material. The DriveAU name, logo, website, design, text and software are owned by DRIVEAU PTY LTD or its licensors. You may use them only as part of using DriveAU normally.

Instructor material. Information an instructor provides for their listing remains theirs.

Your material. Anything you write through DriveAU — for example a cancellation reason or a message to support — remains yours. You give us permission to store and use it as needed to operate DriveAU, deal with your booking, handle complaints and meet our legal obligations.

26. Changes to these Terms

We may need to change these Terms from time to time. How we do it depends on the change.

Minor changes — corrections, formatting, clarifications that do not materially affect your rights, and updated contact or business details. We publish the new version with its effective date.

Material changes — anything that materially affects your rights or obligations. We will give you at least 30 days' notice where appropriate, by email and on the website, and we will tell you when it takes effect. You may stop using DriveAU or close your account before it takes effect, without any contractual penalty. Legitimate outstanding obligations and records we are required to keep are not affected.

Important changes — changes to fees, material payment terms, cancellation or refund rules, or other significant rights. We will ask you to accept them again before you continue using DriveAU.

Privacy. If we want to use your personal information for a new purpose, we will follow the Privacy Act. Telling you is not always enough — where consent is required, we will ask for it.

Changes are not retrospective. A change to these Terms does not change the rules that applied to a lesson you had already booked. The price, cancellation rules and refund rules that applied when you booked continue to apply to that booking.

Previous versions. We keep previous versions of these Terms and their effective dates, so it is possible to tell which version applied to a particular booking.

27. Governing law and where disputes are heard

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Victoria and the applicable laws of the Commonwealth of Australia.

You and DriveAU submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Victoria. This does not prevent you from bringing a claim, or taking a complaint, in any court, tribunal or other body available to you where you live — including your State or Territory civil and administrative tribunal or consumer protection agency.

Nothing in this section affects your rights under section 20.

28. Accepting these Terms, and versions

By creating a DriveAU account and by booking a lesson, you accept these Terms as they stand at that time.

We record which version of these Terms you accepted and when. Where a change requires you to accept again (section 26), we record that too.

29. If DriveAU stops operating

DriveAU is a business, and a business can close. If DRIVEAU PTY LTD decides to permanently stop operating the marketplace, this section explains what we intend to do.

Stopping new bookings. We would stop accepting new bookings and payments as early as it is reasonably practicable to do so.

Telling you. We would tell affected learners, parents and instructors that the marketplace is closing, and give you appropriate information about what happens to your account and your personal information. Our Privacy Policy explains what we keep and for how long.

Your existing bookings. We would identify every outstanding future booking and every unresolved payment. We would not simply abandon paid bookings, and we would not leave money you have paid sitting unresolved. Where it can be done safely, lawfully and practically during an orderly shutdown, already-booked lessons may still go ahead.

Refunds. Where we cancel a future booking because the marketplace is closing, the intended outcome is a full refund of what you paid for that booking.

Instructor payouts. Amounts owing to instructors for lessons already properly completed would be dealt with in accordance with our contractual and legal obligations.

Records. We would keep the financial, booking, complaint, privacy and audit records we are legally required to keep, for as long as we are required to keep them.

What we cannot promise. We cannot guarantee that a refund will be possible in every circumstance. If DriveAU became insolvent, entered administration or liquidation, or if a payment provider failed, what could be done would depend on the law and on matters outside our control, and this section could not override that. Nothing in this section limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law or any other law (see section 20), including any rights you may have as a creditor.

30. General

If part of these Terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies.

If we do not enforce something straight away, we do not lose the right to enforce it later.

You cannot transfer your account or your rights under these Terms to someone else. We may transfer ours if our business is transferred, provided your rights are not adversely affected.

These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, are the whole agreement between you and DriveAU about your use of DriveAU. They do not affect the separate agreement between you and your instructor for the lesson itself.

31. Contact us

DRIVEAU PTY LTD ACN [ACN] · ABN [ABN] [REGISTERED OFFICE]

Support and complaints: support@driveau.com Privacy enquiries, access and correction requests: support@driveau.com General enquiries: hello@driveau.com

If someone is in immediate danger, call 000. DriveAU is not an emergency service.

End of draft. Version 0.1 — for Australian professional review only.