Can anyone hire a car? 

Supervising in a dual control car. More pedals more responsibility.

At Berkshire Dual control car hire we often get asked by parents, and learners themselves, if they can hire our dual control cars. The simple answer in our FAQ’s is No and here is why.

First what are dual controls?

They are an extra set of cable operated pedals, designed and manufactured by a Dutch company, for the emergency use of the supervising driver.

In a manual dual control car, there will be two pedals on the passenger’s side: brake and clutch. If it’s an automatic dual control car, there will only be a brake pedal.

The advantage of dual controls for a trained driving instructor is that sometimes learners make mistakes, or other road users get impatient and do something that could have serious consequences for everyone involved.

Training

However, there’s far more to supervising a learner driver in a dual control car than simply having an extra set of pedals.

The awareness and forethought of the supervising driver needs to take everything into account. Not only the road conditions and peoples treatment of learner drivers etc. but also the reaction of their student to someone having override control.

This is why we only hire our cars to driving instructors.

Yes, someone driving for many years has lots of experience and knowledge, but they also know how they drive. How they react to things occurring is based on driving not supervising. A learner has slightly slower reactions to others and as instructors we know and anticipate this before using the controls.

Safety

If we hired to anyone, enabling them to just brake for the student, possibly too hard, too soon, or too late thus causing issues. As a driving instructor we are taught how to and when use the dual controls. Coaching our pupils rather than telling or doing it for them. Removing the emotional connection of a parent.

If you were to constantly brake for your Son/Daughter, the damage to confidence of this potentially incorrect usage could have a detrimental effect on their learning (and end up costing you more lessons in the long run).

Yes, all learners, drivers, and supervising people are not the same, but we need to consider everyone’s safety when hiring our cars.

Lots of parents take their children out to practice once the new driver has sufficient skill, which is great. If the parent feels they need a dual controlled car, then the situation is not right, and should wait until they are both more confident in what they are doing.

Taking all this into consideration along with advice from our insurance company our decision is to only hire to licensed instructor. I hope this has helped explain why.