Some ..Vauxhalls not safe for Driving Tests.

Lum

Deleted_User wrote: »

Why do some people pull the handbrake on without pushing in the button?

When my dad was taught to drive, he was taught to do this because otherwise the instructor would think he had forgotten to put the handbrake on and be failed for it.

Old habbits die hard.


As for the safety issue. When taking a test the driver is likely to be sub-par and ill-equipped to deal with a sudden handbrake failure. The examiner doesn't want to be in a situation where the car is rolling backward down a hill and the driver just panics and freezes up. Even in a non-dual control car* the examiner can still exert some control using the handbrake.

I'd love to see that list of banned cars BTW. Edit: here but only covers recalls, nothing about convertibles with dodgy visibility.

* Except for the Citroen XM and some weird imports like mine.

Sandoval

Lum wrote: »

When my dad was taught to drive, he was taught to do this because otherwise the instructor would think he had forgotten to put the handbrake on and be failed for it.

That sounds like a pi*s poor instructor Lum!

Lum

This was a long time ago, apparently that was standard practice back then.

Obviously I wasn't around so cannot personally verify this.

Inactive

Judas wrote: »

Handbrakes wear and tear and every car can have a handbrake failure as a matter of course during its life.

Indeed, but that doesn't make any of them safe cars.

casper_g

Inactive wrote: »

Indeed, but that doesn't make any of them safe cars.

So all cars are unsafe? Well, I suppose that's fundamentally true, but most people accept the inherent dangers as a trade-off for convenient and speedy transport!

johnnyroper

!!!!!! this is a minor issue on certain age corsa's,it is probably as a result of 1 failure somewhere in the world and vaux/opel identified there a very small chance another could fail so issue a recall.

it does not render the car unsafe to drive because the handbrake is not used for normal braking,if it were unsafe the DSA would ban them from tests with no exceptions.
why people feel the need to turn this in to a major issue is beyond me,cars have recalls all the time it is one of them things they are normally as a result of a very slim chance of having a problem and under normal use the average person will not experience any issues.

benham3160

johnnyroper wrote: »

!!!!!! this is a minor issue on certain age corsa's,it is probably as a result of 1 failure somewhere in the world and vaux/opel identified there a very small chance another could fail so issue a recall.

it does not render the car unsafe to drive because the handbrake is not used for normal braking,if it were unsafe the DSA would ban them from tests with no exceptions.
why people feel the need to turn this in to a major issue is beyond me,cars have recalls all the time it is one of them things they are normally as a result of a very slim chance of having a problem and under normal use the average person will not experience any issues.

I totally agree, lots of hysterical reactions when any car has a failure, take a look at the Toyota accelerator pedal problems. Because six people worldwide were too daft to declutch, Toyota have had to recall most of the cars they've made in the last ten years, from a company who have built some of the most reliable vehicles on the roads.

Same as an argument I had with a poster saying that "all 206s are death traps" because of a "cutting out" fault, then this week there have been two posts on here from owners of other cars (one of them a Mercedes Benz) saying their car has cut out at speed.......... I did try and tell the poster lots of cars do it......

The clutch pedal reguarly "falls off" the mk6 Fiesta, and MINIs have a bad habit of snapping their rear radius arms, but nobody has mentioned them....

Oh well.....

Regards,
Andy

cyclonebri1

No but any car, any handbrake or any foot brake for that matter can fail.

How can this body say you can't take a test in a certain car becuase visibility is poor if YOU perform faultlessly in that car?

I taught my brother to drive in an Austin Princess, wedgy thing from the early 80's. The examiner didn't like the idea of him taking the test in it due to limited rear viz, even made us to produce the MOT before he would conduct the test.

I did and he passed, :T:T

Lum

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

No but any car, any handbrake or any foot brake for that matter can fail.

How can this body say you can't take a test in a certain car becuase visibility is poor if YOU perform faultlessly in that car?

If you think about it, a driving examiner has quite a dangerous job. They are going out in a car, several times a day, with people who are unqualified to drive.

In the interests of their own safety, they need to be able to see what is going on around them, and they need to be able to stop the car if they deem it necessary.

That is why an un-repaired Corsa D is still acceptable if the car is fitted with dual controls, because the examiner can hit the brakes. If is not fitted with dual controls then the handbrake is the only way they can stop the car.

I understand that these are 09 and 10 Corsas that have the issue, so they wont even have MOTs yet, not for another couple of years, so the examiner has no way of knowing* if they will be able to stop the car.


* yes I know the MOT isn't proof either, but on the balance of probabilities, a car with an MOT is more likely to have a working handbrake than one without.

Inactive

casper_g wrote: »

So all cars are unsafe? Well, I suppose that's fundamentally true, but most people accept the inherent dangers as a trade-off for convenient and speedy transport!

The Corsa in question has a known fault with the handbrake system.