Vehicles equipped with electronic parking brakes will now be accepted for practical driving tests. The change, which came into force on 1 November, comes in response to advances in vehicle technology.
Until recently electronic parking brakes were fi tted only to top of the range vehicles, and were not allowed on test, but this technology is now becoming increasingly available.
There are usually two ways of releasing an electronic parking brake:
- using the footbrake while releasing the parking brake, then coordinating the accelerator and clutch to move away
- coordinating the accelerator and clutch - when the electronics sense the clutch is at biting point the parking brake releases automatically
If there is no loss of control either method is acceptable.
