Changing down when coming to a halt

jayok

Not sure what you're on about here. I presume you mean the brake servo? The brake servo reduces the braking effort needed on the pedal. It does not make the car stop any smoother if you brake hard! The examiner will still spill his coffee on hard braking, brake servo or no brake servo.

All I am saying is that disengaging the clutch while braking shouldn't affect the smoothness of the deceleration.

Re: Emergency Braking

Ha, yeah, I has to make two emergency stops during my test (this is years ago) - no ABS, nothing. He wasn't wearing his belt and smacked his head off the dash twice! His problem though...

Don't think they'll ask you to do one, but if someone steps/pulls out in front of you nail it.

BrianD3

vector wrote:

>The examiner will still spill his coffee on hard braking, brake servo or no brake servo

the spilling coffee reminded me of another question, the "emergency stop"
does that really mean "emergency" like maximum foot to the floor on brake within 1 second? I don't want yer man going through the windscreen.

Is there an emergency stop in the Irish driving test? There wasn't when I did my test 10 years ago, things may have changed since. There has always been an emergency stop in the British test strangely enough. I believe the idea is to bring the car calmly and swiftly to a stop in a controlled manner without locking the wheels. If the examiner isn't wearing his seatbelt he will certainly find himself flung forward a bit. If he's drinking coffee at the time it could be messy

RicardoSmith

BrianD wrote:

....Also braking is not the sign of a bad driver as some one else suggested - they only other way to decrease your speed to allow a smooth gear change is by allowing the car slow by taking your foot of the accelerator. By doing this you are giving no warning of slowing to drivers behind you.

I do agree with your comment about anticipation and being ready to stop at a junction. Every junction is different but in urban situations I would gear down and be ready in the event, say, the lights change. I usually go from 4th to 2nd if I'm stopping, apply the handbrake and then put it into neutral. Well most of the time anyway!

What I actually said was...

RicardoSmith wrote:

....Sign of a good driver is someone who doesn't need to use the brakes that much. Letting the car slow down naturally. Drivers with a bad technique tend to accelerate hard, then brake hard constantly.

Its a sign of anticipation. You should read the road ahead and know you need to slow down, by down changing, or be lifting off the accelerator before you need to hit the brakes. You should know that before you see the car in front doing. Just following the car in front is bad idea. Its not unusual where one car has an accident that the other cars behind have the same accident like lemmings, because they were focused on the car in front and not the road itself.

The reason you put the handbrake on is to help stop the car in the event that someone rear ends you and pushes you into the oncomming traffic. If your neutral and your foot comes off the brake, you'll be shunted forward. Same applies if you are in a queue and your foot slips of the brake pedal.

You generally change gears by listening to the sound of the engine, and knowing what gear you are moving from and what you are moving to. Try coasting and then sticking the car in gear. You'll find its a lot harder to get it into gear and you probably have to try a couple of times to get it in gear. Of course in an emergency situation thats takes too long. Which is why you keep the car in gear as long as possible.

This stuff is simply common sense. I don't know if its still in the test since I did mine many moons ago.