When you are faced with a terrifying hill start which resembles the slant of Mount Everest, you may need to have a trick up your sleeve to help you, so therefore there is the handbrake trick.
Of course on the slopes of mount Everest there isn’t a pile of cars behind you almost touching your bumper so it may not matter to you too much if you roll back but in a busy town area when pedestrians are crossing behind your vehicle or there are cars several inches from your rear then you are going to have to stop the car quick if it starts to roll back!!
The problem!
The problem comes about because most learners when the car starts to roll backwards will put the clutch down to the floor but as they quickly find out this makes it worse and confounds the problem. It is a natural instinct to put the clutch down as this is what we normally do to stop but in this instance it doesn’t work it just makes it worse, so what is the answer?
The solution
The answer is when doing a hill start is to forget about the feet, it you will only panic and you will only make things worse so keep the feet still and quickly apply the handbrake, your hand is already on the handbrake as you have just taken it off so therefore is the quickest way to stop the car rolling back. You then have a yardstick with the clutch so you can say you were slightly to low with the clutch biting point and then raise it slightly higher before releasing the handbrake and trying again, you can repeat this several times before you move off without rolling back. This minimal rolling back with the handbrake trick will only be a slight roll back and not enough to compromise safety and avoid a serious fault on your driving test.
