VERY OT ... 602's new electric Hyundai.

[Peter Holden]

Not sure about EV's or this specific vehicle, but my experience of electric handbrakes are, there should be a button/switch with the traditional parking brake symbol on it, pulling it/pressing it applies the handbrake which then automatically releases as you drive off. As said , the handbrake should apply itself when in park or switching the ignition off. I hated them when I first drove with an electronic handbrake about 20 years ago, love them now though.

I still hate them

Peter

[Robin]

If it didn't come with an actual Driver's Manual, you can find them for each Hyundai model on-line HERE

[RobS]

I don't have to bother with handbrake it's all connected to the park button, you just press it when you want to park up - hence the big P . You start it up put it in drive and press the go pedal everything is automatic, the other strange one is the hold facility, you come to a junction stop and the hold sign comes up (not the handbrake) the car doesn't move until you press the go pedal again, I haven't even got buttons for the heater system, heated seats, traction control it's all on the tablet that is fitted. It's the way modern cars are going, as for the manual it's all online which is typical theses days. And yes it's a Land Rover.    

[Oddjob]

I still hate them

Peter

Bet that's because they're not very good for handbrake turns you hooligan. 

[Wittsend]

... and I'm still calling them

Hi un di

Despite what the adverts say 

[Theshed]

I recall test driving my Wife's Zafira, it was the second car we owned with an electronic Park brake. The first was an auto Citroen. The Zafira was a manual.
I said to the salesman how I disliked the electric handbrake. Oh, give it a couple of weeks and you will love it.
Well couple of years down the line, I no longer hate it but would swap to a traditional HANDbrake in an instant given the choice. 

[Worf]

Are there any quality cars still made with a proper handbrake??. I have a 2013 Seat Exeo Estate (think old Audi a4) that kept proper handbrake till the end of producion. 170bhp oil burner (manual) doing 50mpg if you are careful. Suits me fine. I would keep it forever if I could.

[w3526602]

I don't see any joke to it myself and if you were the butt of it you should at least have had your name boldly in the title.

Hi Geoff,

My name is JOHN WILLIAMS, two very common names, so I remove any confusion by signing as 602 ... the "last three" of my RAF Service Number. For nine years I was referred to as WILLIAMS 602, especially at Pay Parades. In the latter years of my Service, when there were no longer National Service conscripts, but lots more long term volunteers, the number of 'erks with the same name and "last three" increased, so I became WLLIAMS 6602 ... getting some stripes on my arm helped a bit, and so did the RAF paying direct into my bank, so no Pay Parades.

We were paid weekly, with up to 2000 'erks all lined up, in alphabetical order. I'll let you guess how long I had to stand .... waiting. Everybody sniggered when Uren's name was called.

602

[w3526602]

How old should you be, before you are handed the keys to a car?

Hi Exile,

I started driving during the Suez Crisis (in 1967, Colonel Nasser blocked the Suez Canal, forcing oil tankers to go round the bottom end of Africa. Petrol was rationed, so HMG decreed that those who had held a provisional licence for at least a month could drive unaccompanied, so as not to waste their ration on driving lessons. That concession lasted for several months after the Canal was re-opened, and petrol had become freely available again.

When that concession ended, I just removed the L-plates and carried on. I was stopped by Plod a few times, but no action was taken. Eventually, I took three lessons with BSM, but passed my test (first time), in Dad's 1935 Austin 10 ... which had very "interesting" cable brakes ... I never knew which wheel was going to slow down first.

OT ... in 1971, I bought a brand-new Moskvich van (at a smidgen over £600, it was the cheapest brand-new 4-wheeler on the road) which also had interesting brakes - extremely powerful. You could always recognise a new Moskvich owner by the way they approached traffic lights in a series of short skids. I believe they ceased importing Moskvitch to UK, when they became unable to get UK type approval.

602

[Theshed]

Well there ya go. I thought Moskvich appeared in the Eighties.
I knew a couple of HGV drivers who had never passed a test.
As you say, basically 'given' a licence in the Seventies then graduated to HGV simply by their boss telling DVLA that they had been safely driving said Vehicle for a set amount of time.
I am sure it must have been more official but it sounded pretty lax.

[GlenAnderson]

Well there ya go. I thought Moskvich appeared in the Eighties.
I knew a couple of HGV drivers who had never passed a test.
As you say, basically 'given' a licence in the Seventies then graduated to HGV simply by their boss telling DVLA that they had been safely driving said Vehicle for a set amount of time.
I am sure it must have been more official but it sounded pretty lax.

HGV licensing was introduced in February 1970. Prior to that, anyone with a car license could drive anything their employer was happy to entrust them with. As the driving test for obtaining a license had only been itself introduced in 1935, there were plenty of drivers in '70 that had never taken a test of any sort (two of my uncles and a neighbour, all born in 1913, never took any kind of test).

If you were actively employed as a lorry driver at the time of the new legislation, could pass a medical, and could get your employer to endorse your application with conformation you'd got more than six months experience, then you could get a "grandfather" endowment for whatever class of vehicle you'd been driving. Obviously, almost everyone who was driving a lorry at that time did just that. When I started driving lorries twenty years later, many of my older colleagues had only passed a car test, or had passed tests in the armed forces. For someone to have never taken any type of test though, they'd have had to have been born prior to 1918, so most of those would likely have retired by the middle 80s.

There was another way to get a car license without taking a test much more recently though. Back when I took my Class One in 1990, to obtain a provisional HGV you had to be over 21, pass a medical and to hold a "full" license in any other class. The lad who shared the training time with me had a full bike license, and rode a 1000cc Suzuki, but had never driven a car. After a weeks training, he passed his test the same day as I did, and automatically got "car" added to his licence. So there's maybe still one person out there who never took a car test.

[Old Hywel]

My mother held an 'all groups' licence, never having passed a test.
She was born well after 1918 though, and was granted a licence during wartime.

[Peter Holden]

My mum also had an "all groups" licence curtesy of the WAAFs in the second world war.  She did though as part of her training pass different tests for cars, trucks and buses.  Whilst stationed at Little Staughton she also illegally drove petrol bowsers and bomb trains (women were not allowed to drive these.

She was the best driver I have ever been with.  She taught my dad and me to drive and was able to get in anything and drive it.  She had been brought up on a farm before the war that had a tractor and watching her reverse a 4 wheeled drawbar trailer was an education.  She really enjoyed driving my first land rover.

Peter

[Theshed]

My mum also had an "all groups" licence curtesy of the WAAFs in the second world war.  She did though as part of her training pass different tests for cars, trucks and buses.  Whilst stationed at Little Staughton she also illegally drove petrol bowsers and bomb trains (women were not allowed to drive these.

She was the best driver I have ever been with.  She taught my dad and me to drive and was able to get in anything and drive it.  She had been brought up on a farm before the war that had a tractor and watching her reverse a 4 wheeled drawbar trailer was an education.  She really enjoyed driving my first land rover.

Peter

Hats off to her. Drawbar trailers are a nightmare to reverse.

[Alan Drover]

I was told that you have to turn the towing vehicle wheels in the same direction you want the trailer to go and it's best to start with the towing vehicle, trailer and wheels in a straight line, unlike a 2:or close coupled 4:wheeler where you turn the towing vehicle in the opposite direction.  It's a knack which I've not tried.