BMW’s made-in-Britain Mini convertible has been banned from driving tests in the United Kingdom due to its alleged poor visibility, the Daily Telegraph reported, noting that this is the first time in the 70-year history of the driving test that a car which is legal on the road has been outlawed.
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The Driving Standards Agency, which regulates driver tests here, reportedly imposed the ban after its examiners complained they could not see out of the rear window from the passenger seat.
The car has roll bars behind the rear passenger seats and officials agreed that these blocked the rear view, the newspaper added.
A DSA spokesman told the Daily Telegraph: “With the Mini the examiner has not got an all-round view. This prompted us to decide it cannot be used for driving tests.
“There is nothing wrong with the car in normal circumstances, but a test examiner needs to be able to see all round as well as the driver to issue instructions for the test.”
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By GlobalDataThe Telegraph said there are no regulations on rear visibility, though the DSA applies Minimum Test Vehicle Standards, which include “good all-round visibility”.
The DSA reportedly said that the ban could have implications for other convertibles. The spokesman told the newspaper: “Examiners will usually make judgments on a case by case basis but there could be similar issues with other convertibles.”
The Telegraph said BMW launched the convertible Mini here nine months ago and 15,000 have been sold in the UK.
A BMW spokesman told the paper that the Mini had been unfairly singled out.
“We are surprised over this,” he reportedly said. “We have never been told that it suffers from a lack of visibility. There are other cars where the front windscreen pillars are so wide that they create blind spots. It makes us wonder why the Mini has been picked on.”
Since the model’s launch last summer, just-auto has seen a number of consumer website and magazine reports about the Mini convertible which have commented on its restricted rearward visibility with the hood up (the rear ‘C pillars’ formed by the hood are very wide and the back window relatively small), but none have condemned the car as dangerous.
Auto Express magazine editor David Johns told the Daily Telegraph: “It doesn’t make any sense to say cabriolets aren’t safe enough for learners to drive but are fine for the rest of us. If the restricted rear view really is a threat to road safety, why are these cars on the road at all?
“The DSA is supposed to be testing learners’ ability to cope with real-life driving conditions, and that shouldn’t exclude cars available to them once they pass,” Johns added, according to the paper.
