Speed Limiters and Cruise Control on the British Driving Test

Cruise control is part of the official syllabus for learning to drive a category B car in Great Britain. In this video I explain and demonstrate the use of 3 different systems.

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This video is a guide intended to help people who are learning to drive with a driving instructor in Great Britain, it is by no means a replacement for driving lessons with an appropriately qualified driving instructor.

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00:00 Driving test?
00:55 MX5 Cruise Control
05:04 Adverse weather
06:31 Speed limiter
11:11 Leon Cruise Control
15:44 First time
17:27 Adaptive Cruise Control
21:36 Traffic jam assist
25:33 Fuel consumption

Whenever I make a video that includes me using the cruise control or me showing a pup how to use the cruise control I often get asked a question in the comments and that question is can you use cruise control on the driving test so I’m going to clear that one up now in

Great Britain the driver and vehicle standards agency they set the driving test and they set the driving syllabus for learning to drive a car and in that syllabus under using the accelerator it states you need to know and understand the use of cruise control systems their potential benefits to the environment

And their potential adverse impacts on driver fatigue and safety so as a driving instructor I should be teaching my pupils how to use cruise control but whether or not they use it on their driving test they don’t have to but if they want to they can firstly I’ll show

You how to use cruise control in this Mazda MX5 because it’s quite simple and I believe starting simple first is best although I will show you a total of free cars the mode button so the mode button Cycles between speed limiter and cruise control so as I press that you’ll see a

Symbol here that is your cruise control and if I press mode it goes to speed limiter I press mode again it goes back to cruise control now cruise control is on standby and ready to work to get it to work I can press set to set my

Current speed or resume resume res means resume to resume my previously set speed when it’s active and working I can press plus to increase my speed or minus to decrease my speed pressing cancel will cancel the system if I press this button again it will turn the system off

Completely meaning these buttons won’t work so at the moment the system’s on standby mode ready to work but if I press this button it will actually turn it off and that symbol will go away so watch off and you see the symbol’s gone these buttons won’t actually activate

Cruise control anymore to switch the system back on standby I press mode and it comes back it’s ready to work again another way to cancel the cruise control is to break and in some cars including this car pressing the clutch also cancels the system so now I will show

You the system in practice at the moment cruise control is completely switched off which is why there’s no symbol here but if I press the mode button it will put it on standby mode so now cruise control is ready to work if I press the set button it will set my current speed

And I can come off the gas pedal and it will keep me at that set speed if I press plus I can increase my speed and the car speeds up accordingly if I press minus it slows back down again at the moment I’ve set it to 27 mph so the car

Is slowing back down to 27 7 mil now I’ve increased it to 30 and now it’s increasing to 30 if I press the cancel button the system is still on standby but it’s no longer active and I have to take back control with the gas pedal but

The previous speed is still showing on the dashboard so this time if I press the res button resume it will remember my previous speed and reactivate it so now I can come off the gas and it will return to 30 mph I was actually going a

Bit more than 30 when I pressed resume so it actually slowed down to 30 this car cannot use the brakes but it can reduce the power some cruise control systems can also use the brakes another way for me to turn it off is by pressing the brake pedal now you go the system

Has deactivated and I’m slowing down to help you tell the difference between cruise control being on standby mode or actually at active and working the little symbol the cruise control symbol on the dashboard will turn green so at the moment cruise control is on standby

If I press the set button it will set my current speed which is 36 and the symbol’s gone green but if I turn the cruise control off by pressing the brake pedal on this occasion that’s the other way to turn the cruise control off and take back control with the gas

Pedal it’s now gone white but the previous speed is still Remembered at 36 so if I press resume now it’ll go green turn back on and return me to 36 mph but I need to break now because I’m coming into a 30 so there we go I’ve to slow

Down to 30 I’ve pressed set and it set me at 28 because I slowed down a little bit too much so I can press plus twice to take me to 30 and it’s just starting to snow now so I’m going to turn the cruise control off with the brake pedal

And take back manual control with the accelerator and I think now is probably the time to talk talk about using cruise control in adverse weather conditions so as you can see the weather has got worse and it started snowing it’s quite cold today it’s about 3° but you don’t really want to use

Cruise control when the conditions get bad at the moment it’s okay there’s snow in the air but there’s no snow on the ground it’s just a bit wet but you don’t want to be driving through thick snow or in icy condition I conditions with the cruise control on and neither do you

Want to be using cruise control when there is standing water on the road what we mean by standing water is deep puddles because as you hit the puddle or as you hit the ice the cruise control is still going to be applying power to the wheels as you hit that slippery surface

Or as you start to aquaplane in most Cars cruise control will be deactivated automatically as soon as any slip is detected but the problem is that the cruise control system can’t see the standing water it can’t see the ice or the snow so it’s not until slip happens that it

Will deactivate but as a driver you can see the problem and you can react quicker so if you’re using the accelerator pedal to control your speed and you see a problem up ahead you’re more likely to react quickly than if you’re using cruise control I’ll get

Back to cruise control later on in the video for now I’m going to show you the speed limiter at the moment cruise control is on standby which is why there’s this white symbol here but if I press the mode button it will go to limb

For limit and if I press the set button it will set my current speed as the speed limit so even though I’m pressing the gas pedal quite a lot it’s not going any faster than 30 m hour which is what it’s set to if I press the

Cancel button it will turn off the limiter and it goes white again and then I can press the gas pedal and accelerate if I press the top button resume it will resume the previous speed and it’s telling me I’m over the limit there and now we’re back to 30 and I can

No longer go any faster PR pressing the gas pedal more except if I press the gas pedal as high as I can and pass a little click on the gas pedal the little gate that I can go through at the bottom of this pedal where there’s a click like

That it Bings at me and it allows me to go faster that’s useful for emergencies and I can now accelerate how I wish but once I go below that speed limit again below 30 like I am now the speed limiter resumes and it will keep me at 30 unless

I press the gas pedal as hard as I can past the click at the bottom of the pedal but this is downhill now and this car car cannot use the brakes to keep me within the speed limit I have to use them myself so even though the limit’s

Set to 30 it may still go above 30 if I’m downhill so I still have to be wary about that and use the brake if necessary at the moment my speed limit is set at 30 mph and I’m approaching a 40 mph road I don’t have to cancel the

System and turn it back on again what I can do is press the plus button to increase my speed to 40 and now it will allow me to do up to 40 mph if I want to I can press the minus button to decrease it down to what speed I wish pressing

The brake pedal does not turn off the Speed limiter because the idea behind the speed limiter is that you can drive normally using the clutch and the brake and the gears without going over the speed limit so you don’t have to look at the speed limit so much if you want want

To turn the speed limiter off you have to press cancel when you press cancel the previous limit is usually stored and I can press the top button resume to resume that previous limit or if I press cancel again if I now slow down and want

To set my new limit at the current speed I’m at I’ll press set again and it will set the speed I’m currently at which is 26 but I am coming into a 30 so I can press plus to put up to 30 and now I can

Drive up to 30 mil now without having to put too much attention into that speedometer so I’m coming into a 20 now so I’m going to reduce the speed limiter down to 20 mph and this is a good example of where a speed limiter can be better than

Cruise control because in this area I’m going to have to be slowing down and speeding up a lot so the set speed that cruise control gives me isn’t going to be as useful as me being able to use the gas the brake and change the gears at

Will without the car being allowed to go over that set limit of 20 mph which is Handy here because I do find it hard to stay within the 20 mph speed limit because well I think it’s been 30 mph for about 18 years of my driving life

And 20 mph for the last year or so of my driving life maybe a couple of years so I’m still finding it difficult to do this new 20 Zone and that speed limiter can help me but I can still slow down and speed up as and when I wish and yes this

Car does actually like fourth gear at 20 M hour that’s what it says on the dashboard that’s what it recommends and it seems to work fine which is unusual it does have very short gears see I’m slowing down now but because I’ve got that limiter I’m not canceling the cruise control and

Reapplying it I’m just driving normally but my eyes can be on the road more than the speedometer and if I was to try and keep myself within the 20 limit here I would have to be looking at that speedometer more than I would like to I’d rather keep my eyes on the road

Well it’s a new day and we have new weather so let’s get back to cruise control I’m now in a say Lon my learner car and in this car I have the cruise control system on the indicator stalk say it is a brand of VW so you will find

This system on says Audi’s scod and of course VW at the moment the system is on standby if I move this to the right it turns the system off and if you see here on the dashboard it displays my mileage but if I turn the system on the

Mileage becomes the cruise control the system is now on standby ready to use if I press this bottom button it sets my current speed if I move this to the right and then let go it cancels the cruise control but remembers the last set speed if I press this top button it

Resumes the previous speed and when cruise control is active I can increase the speed by pressing this top button or decrease it by pressing this bottom button pressing the brake of course will deactivate cruise control as it does in all cars but in this car I can actually

Change gear whilst the cruise control is active and I actually find that useful because because I can press resume for my previous speed and if the car is accelerating and I need a higher gear I can actually change upper gear without having to then resume the cruise control again because it’s canceled from

Pressing the clutch down so I do actually find this useful I never thought I would but I’ve had the car 10 years now and I I do use that quite a lot so here is the system in action I’ll turn the cruise control on by moving

This switch to the left now it’s on and in standby mode if I press the set button it will set my current speed and keep that even though I’m off the gas and if I press the plus button I can ask for a higher speed and it will

Accelerate me there takes a long time because I’m in eco mode in sport mode it accelerates more quickly or if I press the minus button it will set a lower speed and gradually it will slow down towards that lower speed if I want to cancel the system I can either press the

Brake or move this switch to the right and let go then it cancels the system if I move it all the way to the right it turns the system off completely so turn it to left now to put it back on the standby mode press the set button to set my

Speed press the brake to cancel it see how it works and there’s a green light as well that comes on when it’s set so now it’s saying 50 is my remembered speed from last time if I press resume 50 will will accelerate me back up the

50 the green light is on and it’s gradually making its way to 50 the last mile an hour is always slow the closer I get to the set speed the slower the acceleration is now I can press Plus and increase my speed I’m in the driving lane at the moment behind the Lorry

Thought it’ be easier going below the speed limit in this slow lane to demonstrate the cruise control because that way I can speed up and slow down whereas if I’m at 70 I can’t actually speed up can I here’s an example of how I can change gear whilst the cruise

Control is on so the stored remembered speed is 70 mph for the cruise control and let’s say I’ve just slowed down for something I’ve had to change down into fourth gear I’m in fourth gear at the moment I think right it’s clear again I can go faster I can press resume and now

It’ll accelerate me up to 70 and I can actually go up the gears whilst the car accelerates which is actually quite useful because I don’t have to keep pressing resume on the cruise control every time I change gear cruise control isn’t only useful on highspeed roads but any road

Where you’re going to be maintaining a set speed for a long period of time such as this one it has a 30 mph speed limit and I’m going to be at that speed for a while because there’s no obstructions so I can set the cruise control and that

Will keep me at that speed although now the car in front’s going to slow down I do have to brake to turn it off but it is that simple when you want to turn it off just break and it turns off and you can slow down and now I’m going to

Accelerate again and when I get near to 30 m hour I’ll just press the resume button and let it take over this is an advantage because because I can keep my eyes on the road more instead of having to look at the speed limits as much or

The speed o so much to keep myself within the speed limit I mean I still will look at the speed I to make sure the cruise control is doing a good job but I don’t have to do it nearly as often it’s normal to feel a bit weird

The first time you use cruise control in fact I remember feeling a bit nervous it was 2007 in es scoda Octavia I switched the cruise control on came off the gas pedal and the car kept going and I was not used to that I didn’t like that

Feeling I didn’t feeling control I was used to coming off the gas and the car slowing down now the car wasn’t slowing down it kept moving but once I got used to the system I no longer enjoy driving cars without cruise control because I find maintaining a set steady speed with a

Gas pedal ayss of a ball and I do Drive within the speed limits so the way I drive is I use the gas pedal when I’m speeding up and slowing down a lot and I click on cruise control if I’m staying at a steady speed for a period of time

Bear in mind the gas still works you press the gas pedal when cruise control is on you’ll go faster come off the gas and it will slow down to that set speed press the brake however and the cruise control will be turned off and you will

Slow down so the pedals still work just make sure your foot is in a position where you’re ready to use those pedals don’t cross your legs but having cruise control on it does allow you to move your leg about a bit so you don’t get so much fatigue in your leg particularly on

Longer Journeys and if you’re trying to keep it within the speed limit at a set steady speed it allows you to keep your eyes on the road more instead of having to look at the speedo so much which is safer also it allows you to concentrate more on where you’re going because

Keeping a car at a steady speed although it’s not hard over a long period of time it does cause fatigue so I find with cruise control I can actually do much longer Journeys and feel fresh after them I’m now in a20 23 Toyota Corolla and this car has a much more advanced

System it has free settings on the cruise control and I can cycle through it via this mode button it has normal cruise control a speed limiter and adaptive cruise control which not only keeps me at a set speed but a set distance from the car ahead I can

Control that distance with this button set the speed here resume with this button and I can increase or decrease the speed with these two buttons I can cancel with the middle button or press the brake pedal this is a hybrid automatic car so there’s no clutch pedal

And I can ask the car to stay in its Lane with this button on screen we have some bars when it’s locked onto the car in front there’ll be a picture of a car here and how many bars I am away from it and when it’s following its Lane these

Lines will go green I have a similar thing on the heads up display although you probably can’t see it in this camera if you can it’s tiny in person though it’s large and bright so here is the system in action I’m going to set my speed pressing this button now to 55

Which is the same speed as this truck and then I can press and hold down the plus button until I get to 70 M hour and this K does actually skip to the speed limit cuz it recognizes the speed limit if I hold down the plus button so now

The cruise control is set to 70 M hour I’m off the gas pedal yet I’m doing 57 mph because it’s locked onto the the truck in front and it’s just following the speed of the truck I can control the distance from the truck with this button

So at the moment I’m on four bars I can take it down to three bars or all the way down to one bar so you’ll see the car will now get closer to the truck now I’ve asked for Less distance see it’s getting closer there and then I can ask

For four bars Again by pressing that button again and now we will drop back I think one bar is a bit too close the wide angle lens on this action camera makes Vehicles look at least twice as far ahead than they actually are when it’s safe to overtake what I

Can do is move into lane two and now the truck’s not in front of me the car will speed up to 70 mph because the cruise is set to 70 it wants to do 70 but if it catches up with a vehicle it will slow down and keep a set

Distance there we go 70 mph now or just about 69 there’s 70 and then if I go back to Lane one when I catch up with the next vehicle it will slow back down and keep me that distance now if I press this button not only will it keep me a

Distance from the car in front but it’ll keep me in my Lane as well I’m not actually steering now my hands are on the wheel but the car is doing the steering I’m starting to catch up with this slower moving vehicle and the car is starting to slow

Down it’s quite relaxing it takes away a lot of the fatigue from long Motorway Journeys because you don’t have to do as much you watch the system you control the system but you don’t have to do all the little micro inputs with the gas pedal and the steering meaning I can

Drive longer and feel refreshed with some systems if you hold down the Plus or the minus button it will skip to the next 5 mph so if you’re doing 31 it will skip to 35 with the Layon and the MX5 they don’t do that it’s just one at a

Time with this car I can actually set it to skip to the next one so if it’s 31 that would be 32 the next five so that’ll be 35 or the next 10 so that will be 40 but it also recognizes the speed limits and if it sees a speed

Limit sign it will advise do you want to skip to that speed limit if the speed limit is far faster then what I’m doing it will say hold down the plus button and it will skip to that speed if it’s lower then hold down the minus button to

Skip to the lower speed some adaptive cruise control systems will do the traffic for you as well so at the moment the speed is set to 50 mph but I’m only doing 6 7 m hour because of the car in front if the car was to stop this car

Would stop if it would move away within 2 or 3 seconds this car would then move again if we were waiting for much longer then I would have to either press resume or the gas pedal to give it permission to get going again it’s saying it thinks

The speed limit is 70 and it is for this very short stretch it’s just gone 70 but there is a 50 mph speed limit sign just up ahead there and that’s something to bear in mind when it comes to these speed limit recognition systems they’re not always right sometimes they can be

Quite wrong for long periods of time actually so we’re going past the 50 sign now and this is probably going to change the 50 when it recognizes we’ve gone past it is it going to do that yes there you go so it saw the 50 sign and now

It’s 50 these systems do make traffic an absolute Breeze takes away a lot of the strain from driving in traffic so it’s come to a near stop there it will stop obviously still watch it don’t trust it but it just means you don’t have to do all the movements you watch the system

Be a guardian and take control when you need to and you will because sometimes it doesn’t always work this system is actually very good it’s Toyota’s thirdd generation which was available from 2023 for this Corolla March 23 Corolla the facelift model got the 3.0 system whereas the previous Corolla even though

It looks the same it’s the prefacelift version and it has the 2.0 system the adaptive cruise control in that it does actually work all right but the steering doesn’t work the 2.5 which you get on the I go cross that works okay for steering but this free is definitely an

Improvement where this car does go wrong is at slip roads it always wants to leave so I have to hold the wheel and make sure it doesn’t take me off the motorway when we pass a slip Road it’s not hard it doesn’t tug to the left in a

In a strong powerful way it’s soft and suggestive and easy to overpower but you can feel that it wants to go and take the exit the steering inputs it does as I just said are soft it’s enough to keep you in your lane but any point if I want

To turn or readjust the position it takes very little effort from me to do so so I’m in control I’m watching where the car’s going but I’m allowing it to keep me centered in the lane and I’ll steer the wheel if I feel I need to like

Now for example this is actually a good example there is a problem here and actually it’s done that pretty well it’s positioned well there now let’s see with this exit is it going to try and take me off no not this time this time it stayed

In my lane and didn’t try to leave this dual carriageway now the traffic’s getting going it’s speeding up to 50 mph and keeping me very well centered in this Lane I really haven’t had to do anything for quite some time on this road if your car is an automatic when

You speed up or slow down via the cruise control it will still automatically change gear overall though use cruise control responsibly especially these more automated systems they do get it wrong do not trust them make sure you’re watching the road you’re in control of the car at all times and just use them

As an assistant and if you’re learning to drive I recommend learning how to use cruise control with your driv an instructor that way you can get used to how it works with the safety net of your instructor many people ask whether or not it saves Fuel and there’s two

Arguments here in my experience I find using cruise control saves me fuel staying at a steady speed I find uses less fuel overall than speeding up and slowing down slightly the argument is is that when you’re speeding up you’re getting greater efficiency from the engine and when you’re slowing down

You’re not using any fuel so overall you use less fuel but in my experience that’s not the case because if you’re speeding up and slowing down then speeding up and slowing down every time you’re speeding up even though you may be getting greater efficiency from the engine you’re using more energy it takes

More energy to speed the car up and I find the net result is I lose out there’s this thing called pulse and glide where people do speed up and slow down quite a bit to try and improve fuel economy but I don’t advise driving like that so in my experience cruise control

Has helped me save fuel to understand what I was saying about efficiency and energy there efficiency is how efficient your engine is so how much of that liter fuel goes into powering the wheels whereas energy is how much energy it takes to accelerate the car when you’re driving an engine slightly harder

Generally the efficiency is higher you get more out of that liter of fuel but if it takes more energy although you may be getting more out of each liter if you’re using more energy then then you may actually overall be using more fuel well I hope this video has helped if it

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