To go to the press?

[29herzie]

So, WIBU to take the following to the papers or does anyone have a better suggestion?

We hired a car a few weeks ago on holiday. It turned out that it had an electric parking brake (no handbrake). DH discovered that the only way to know if this button hand been pressed (and if the brake was on) was a tiny red light on the dashboard. DH is colourblind and couldn't see the light in the sun. The car then rolled off down the hill, luckily without my DCs in the back and ended up 'only' demolishing a fence. We were in the Alps and so could have been much worse.

We are currently still waiting on the outcome of the dispute with the car hire company about this, but I also contacted the car manufacturer. I believe there is a design flaw that they need to address. They have just come back to me to say that it's nothing to do with them and we need to make our needs known to a hire company in future. I am not happy with this and feel that they should be thinking about making sure their cars are safe to drive, DH can't be the only driver who is red/green colourblind?

What do you think?

[29herzie]

Thank you Lurking. That is it. So I think the car manufacturer needs to know that their displays are not clear enough.

This is not about whether DH is a numpty. That's another thread.

[Viviennemary]

I don't think this would make for a very interesting article in a newspaper. However, the onus was on your DH to point out the car was unsuitable. The hire company and insurance aren't mind readers. And if he is colour blind how can he be a safe driver. Red and green traffic lights for example. Honestly, I'd say you have no case whatsoever.

[BunnyTyler]

What type of car was it?

[SavoyCabbage]

Mine makes me feel like I'm on Star Trek or similar. They should add the noise. Like they do for cameras on phones!

[LurkingHusband]

Mine makes me feel like I'm on Star Trek or similar

Apparently NASA "borrowed" some of the ideas they saw there ...

[BeverlyGoldberg]

YABU. It's the driver's responsibility to secure the vehicle. If he wasn't sure he should have made sure.

Without wanting to sound harsh, you had an accident, take responsibility and move on.

[OurBlanche]

YANBU.

We have had a few hire cars recently. The ever increasing 'safety' features are making cars ridiculously difficult to just drive.

Last week we sat with a manual to work out how to switch off every single bingle and twitchy thing. So it didn't shriek when we were 6 feet from anything else, so it didn't switch itself off and on again, so we could retain control. It took bloody age to figure out how to use the handbrake properly.

I am dreading having to replace my car permanently. I don't want extra lights you can't turn off, windscreen wipers and lights that turn themselves on, doors that lock you in and you passenger - who was locking the front door and therefore 10 seconds behind you, a car that screams blue murder when you are parallel parking, insisting that you leave a who car length between you and next door's car, or worse, parks itself and decides that the gap you could park a tank in isn't long enough, or scronks danger sounds when you are in a queue of traffic, stopped at lights etc... I could go on!

Basically, I like to drive. I don't like extended fair ground rides.

Sadly, I am not sure any newspaper would be interested and the EU regulations that insist on such stuff mean we are stuck with it, even if UK laws don't require any of them!

[OurBlanche]

Oh, as for the colour blindness, why shouldn't manufacturers do have a legal obligation to ensure their safety features are not, in themselves, part of the problem? Many people are colour blind!

[lorelei9]

Without commenting on the paper thing, terrible design. Not just for the colour blind. Would anyone be able to see it in bright light?

[AlpacaLypse]

My dad was colour blind (red/green). He drove safely for nearly fifty years. He said that with traffic lights you knew by the brightness and position of the light.

OP you should have arranged to change the vehicle when you found it was giving you difficulties. Appreciate that can be PITA when you've already driven it from the airport to the resort though!

[Ragusa]

Did you take out the hire company's super CDW or have your own annual excess protection policy? If so then surely you are covered? If they are arguing fault and won't pay out what about your travel insurance? That usually has public liability.

I find those parking brakes with a button a bit confusing I have to admit but so far managed to park on hills ok thank goodness

[liz70]

We were provided with a near new Qashquai on holiday in France last summer (DH drives an S reg Zafira at home). It was like the car off "Knight Rider" to us.

[SoupDragon]

And if he is colour blind how can he be a safe driver. Red and green traffic lights for example.

As has been pointed out, it's not that hard given the large red light is at the top and the green one is at the bottom.

[OurBlanche]

Oh! What happens if your battery runs flat, as many do over time, often in winter?

Does the handbrake come off? Is there a back up safety something?

[OurBlanche]

Soup, having met such a contraption and followed the abbreviated instructions (the manual is fucking huge), the use of the handbrake isn't always clear. The single page instructions said "button operated handbrake"

What they didn't say was you had to lift the button and then there would be a light and a noise. So I pushed the button, it depressed with a satisfying little click. Handbrake on, I assumed. DH, who has met them before showed me how to use it properly.

If you have one and are used to it it seems simple. If you have never met one before it can be frustrating.

[PaulAnkaTheDog]

Write to the friggin manufacturers then. Don't go to the press. It's a ridiculous idea.

[HortonWho]

Sounds like he might be negligent and the insurance may not pay so she's trying to blame it on a design flaw. 100% your husband.

Design flaws occur to hundreds of thousands of people not one or ten.

[BaronessEllaSaturday]

Op can I ask as it doesn't seem clear was this a case of a light being on or off depending on whether the brake was on or not or was it a light that changed colour. If it was a case of it was on or off then surely the colour blindness in irrelevant as it wasn't dependent on being able to tell the colour so the true issue is that your dh did not make sure he could tell whether it was on or not.

[LurkingHusband]

Many people are colour blind!

And it's hardly a new thing - Victorian railway designers were well aware of this.

Oh! What happens if your battery runs flat, as many do over time, often in winter?

The handbrake is engaged via a ratched, so once on, stays on, until physically released (exactly as if manual).

Part of the rationale behind automatic handbrakes was because most people were so bad at using the manual ones. Doubtless helped by driving instructors who insisted on not using the manufacturer-supplied ratchet, but insisted their pupils "pressed the button". Not sure what they would have made of the cars I drove in the US where the "hand" brake was pedal operated and you had no option but to rip the ratchet.

Just for extra pearl clutching, I always leave a manual car in gear when parked anyway. It's going nowhere.

[LeaLeander]

Actually I used to work in the automotive press and some auto writers might indeed be interested in this.

Note that it would be more as a tidbit; no one is going to take it up as investigative journalism or advocate on your behalf or anything like that, but a quirky design issue that can affect the 8 out of 100 males born color blind might catch the eye of some writer. Who might then in turn query the automakers about it.

Find the specialty auto writers; I am not sure what the main publications, influential blogs or otherwise are in the UK. In the US this is something that perhaps Jalopnik would latch onto - to be honest I don't know if we have these sorts of parking brake indicators here though; it's been a while since I've test-driven a variety of cars.

[cuntycowfacemonkey]

Whilst I hate electric hand brakes i do think your dh is the one at fault for continuing to drive a car that wasn't suitable to is needs. Although having not fully put a handbrake on properly before I can confirm it's perfectly possible to get and and walk away with no movement from the car only to come back later and find it at the bottom of a hill. Makes me feel ill think of what could have happened

[BunnyTyler]

Colour blindness is a diversion.
Light was on or off, not red or green.

[OurBlanche]

Thanks Lurking.

I was going to ask DH when he gets in. Now I won't have to

[liz70]

This thread has taken me back to when DH discovered that our car's handbrake had failed when trying to reverse it into the hold of a ferry on the way back home from holiday. We haven't noticed it before then while staying in Belgium. Cue blokes in yellow tabards wedging us in place with blocks. Oh, the shame.

[29herzie]

This is not about the car hire company. In the end the car itself was unmarked, the fence was repairable. It is that the car needs to be safe regardless of who drives it. The paper thing was just because the car manufacturer has been completely disinterested and I don't think my feedback will be passed on to the relevant department.

Alpaca - the first we knew of the vanishing indicator light was the 'incident'. In the dark and out of bright sun he could see the light.