The dreaded Hill Start

Date: July 2012
Test Centre: Wallasey
Reason for fail: Move off - Control

Poor Bill. A mandatory part of the driving test (unless you live in Cambridgeshire) is the Hill Start.

Bill has done hill starts many many times without incident. Yet on his driving test, instead of moving off forwards, he rolled backwards into the kerb. The examiner has marked it as a serious lack of control.

There are two ways you can struggle on a hill start, in addition to the usual ways of picking up faults when you move away from anywhere. One is that the car is more likely to stall, and the second is that unless you've prepared to go properly before you release the handbrake, the car will roll backwards.

The structure to moving off is as follows:

1. Prepare
2. Observe
3. Move.

Us instructors use the acronym, POM. It's done in that order so that the last thing you do before you move is to get an up to date picture of what's going on around you.

To prepare, you select the appropriate gear, provide a bit of power with your gas pedal, bring your clutch up to biting point, and get your hand onto your handbrake. If you're moving away uphill, you should make sure you can feel the car pulling fairly strongly agaisnt the handbrake.

To observe, you look in your centre mirror, and check over your right shoulder. If you can't see out of your centre mirror because of obstructions, use your drivers side door mirror and check over your right shoulder.

To move, keep your feet still, and release your handbrake. If you've prepared correctly, the car will move away smoothly.

Is this a clue?

Date: June 2011
Test Centre: Wallasey
Reason for fail: Reverse Park (road) - Control.

John was asked to pull up on the left, and the examiner asked him to pull up alongside the parked car, and to reverse into the space behind it, parallel to and reasonably close to the kerb. John did the reverse, but because a part of the kerb was missing due to a driveway, he couldn't see quite where he was up to, and finished up a couple of feet away from the kerb.

At this point, the examiner ostentatiously looked out of his window at the kerb, and asked john if he had finished. John said that he had. Then the examiner made an obvious show of looking in his door mirror, and looked at John, asking, "Are you happy with that?" John agreed, and the examiner asked him to drive on.

But don't you have to get it right first time?

If you want to become a driving instructor, you have to do the parallel park on your advanced driving test, and you are expected to complete the manouevre without adjustment, but on the learner test, they're not as strict. If you find that you've ended up in the wrong place, you can drive forwards and correct things. But make sure you check around before you do. If you knock someone of his bike while doing it, you'll fail.

The examiner tried to give John a big clue that he wasn't happy with his position. Unfortunately, John, mainly because of nerves, failed to pick up on it.

When people are nervous, they rush.they want to get whatever it is that is making them nervous, over and done with.