Safe Speed Forums

My Neighbor has just come home in a hire car, it has one of these electric handbrakes that seem to be increasingly standard these days!

She is Grumpy!

She is Grumpy because it took her about ten minuits to park the damn thing! She needed to reverse into a confined space slightly down hill (In reverse) with some forward/back manouvering needed. Normal technique is to keep in first gear but dip the clutch and use the handbrake to control the vehicle while reversing under gravity!

Of course this "New improved" handbrake system wont let her do this! It stops her from rolling back whilst in first gear doesnt it!

Added to which there is the "Parking sensor" which bleeps its head off while there is still 3 or 4 foot of clearence left!

I dont fundimentally hate new technology, but I DO hate it when new technology that I never asked for and which makes life harder/more expensive is foisted on me against my will in a manner metaphorical to having somebody ram a Cactus up my Ar$$ while telling me its for my own good and that I am enjoying it really!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

I ,not so long ago hired a car with an electric handbrake. Only had it for a week, so not really interested in checking it out on steep hills .On minor slopes, I could get it off with my right foot on brake and beat any roll by getting to the throttle fast. On steeper ones I used the clutch. Not so good for the car, but I had £100 running on no damage, so I wasn't going to experiment . The hire company made a big joke of finding the handbrake, but no mention of how to take away on steep hills need more than idle revs. The car often chastised me for not placing foot on brake BEFORE pressing button. Perhaps we need more intelligent cars that recognise that humans only have two legs ,and when one is pressing on ctch and other on throttle, all we need to do is PRESS the button.
Back home, I got into my manual handbrake one and almost kissed it. Do we need parking sensors- IMHO -NO. Quote from one of Stobarts lady drivers "not against the rules to get out and check" . Cruise control- tried it in SCP alley on the M74- gave me a sore leg from lack of movement. Got out in services and leg had gone to sleep. It might be ok when speed goes up, but can it spot an incline ahead and compensate in advance. My eyes ( certified after fears of driving ) and can relay the info to right leg through the brain with no need for thought.
Then there's the start up out of gear thingy. No foot on clutch, no start. Possibly to lighten load on engine, my suggestion ,to prevent numpty starting car in gear .Personally I always start car with foot on clutch, as I've been n the habit with some cars ( where the handbrake shoes glued to the drums in heavy rain) of leaving car in gear to prevent it.
However back to the hire car I had. Couple of years it first came out on market, and I got a bog standard one. Consumption in a 2.0L diesel was excellent- up to 50MPG. Performance -stupendous. This time ,it was an SRI model . Performance ,not bad, but any decent acceleration needed 4th gear. So whilst earlier model could do the job in 5th, this ugrade needed a lower gear. Result, in long lines of traffic( which I'd specified this car for) , I could get past at decent speed, but at lower economy. And handbrake- a joke.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Handbrake on
Choose gear
Let out clutch
Accelerate
Auto-release lets hand-brake off
Magic

Me, now I prefer the manual option. Select gear ( always first ,as an experienced driver), let out clutch, watch front of car rise to contact point , hold on clutch,,reduce handbrake, add throttle and take away. That's the ESSENCE OF DRIVING. I prefer to leave the tomfoolery technology to those in charge of our so called road safety program . Or those skippers daft enough to go where the locals won't.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I must say (And while being cautious about attempting to establish a trend based on only a single data point) I do find the aparrant corralation..

"Speed cam supporter=prefers dumbed down de-skilled (and less versitile) version" an interesting one!

I wonder if there IS a wider trend here?

I would also be curious about whether there is any bias in Cat/Dog ownership and Support/opposeition to speed cams? It is a bit "left field" but it would be interesting if there is a corralation.

So Mr Greenshed (in all seriousness) are you a Cat or a Dog person

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Your ascetic beliefs betray your response as hopeless.

It's good to see my contribution has reduced the response time down from a week though. Hee hee.

I prefer the KISS principle. It isn't as though a conventional handbrake didn't work well so why fix something which wasn't broken and make it more complicated = more to go wrong?

My cousin's wheelchair-adapted Kia had an electric handbrake and it was pathetic! I had to keep a button pressed for about 20 seconds while what sounded like a 1mW electric motor strained to tighten a cable. An after market contraption so not Kia's fault I guess.

I've noticed in the evolution of just about all things man-made there's a point at which something is pretty much perfect and fit for purpose, but then the 'reinvent the wheel police' stick their nose in and fcuk it up. (Don't mention toothpaste tubes)

Feels like we've been here before...

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I too think the electric handbrake was a solution without a problem in the first place. There is nothing wrong with the handbrake lever.
I do however think that the electric handbrake is simple to operate and causes no great difficulty; just imagine it's a real handbrake lever and all will be well. It is on when pulled up and off when pushed down, just like the manual version. Most even have an auto-release to make it even easier.

To those who were taught how to do a hill start properly, and rely on skill and judgement this is dumbing down driving. Of course same can be said for FWD cars on a hill . It's RWD vehicles where the skill comes in .No bonnet rise to look out for, it's other factors that count . I used to jump between FWD and RWD vehicles at work some time ago and never had a problem.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Err doowhat?

Wouldn't you just roll back in either reverse with the clutch depressed or neutral using the footbrake for control? You'll find that method works no matter what system of parking brake is fitted.



Depends on the system but if you are in first gear you wouldn't normally want to be going backwards, can't fault the system for making the assumption that a car in a forward gear shouldn't be going backwards.



Which is only active if you have reverse gear selected. And it bleeps at an increasing frequency as you get closer to an obstacle, which is pretty useful if you want to leave enough room to open the tailgate for instance.

I've used various electric handbrakes, overall I would prefer a manual lever but they do save space and they do avoid grannies not applying them properly. They have minor inconveniences though, like having to have the car started to release the parking brake and in the case of one I've driven, having to have the driver's seatbelt on in order for the automatic release to work or having to press the footbrake to use the manual release.

+1 ..... normal in what circlse ? i've never come across anyone who thinks using the hand brake to control speed is a good idea.



The issue here sounds more like the service brake hill hold function holding applied pressure in the brakes to stop the vehicle rolling, i don't think any of the current systems could apply the park brake quick enough to avoid some vehicle roll.

Of course just cos they all have a little button on the dash doesn't mean they use the same method or have the same levels of functionality to acheive the end result! Not all systems are the same

The VW we have at work has two systems and it's quite obvious when you are driving which is doing what.

There's a manually operated electric parking brake which uses the handbrake and has a noticable whirr and delay.

And there's an automatic system which uses the footbrakes and is quite pleasant to use but has to be switched on every trip.

I have had quite a few cars with different implementations of electric parking brakes.

The one I like the most is the Mercedes one which has:

- an electric version of their old foot pedal operated parking brake which operates an actuator applying the brake.
- a "hold" system on the footbrake (which is normally always active) where you press the brake pedal again after coming to a stop to hold the car using the hydraulic pressure. It automatically releases when you pull away again.

This saves keeping your foot on the brake at lights (with automatic transmission).

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Maybe I'm just lazy, or have a skill I underestimate, but I only use the handbrake twice - when I get in the car and when I get out.

Even on the steepest of hills I don't, or hardly, creep back. So the handbrake is way down on my list of necessities. I'm also one of those folk who always leave it in gear, which rubs one or two at work up the wrong way at work with our pool cars...

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

What's your opinion on leaving automatics in "P" rather than applying the parking brake?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Don't know if you mean me Malcolm but I don't know how the P position works

But it feels like it engages the equivalent of an iron bar through spokes of a wheel. So I always trusted it and never had a problem, which is more than I can say for many conventional hand brakes over the years.

But, as I say, I can get by without ever using it either by swift foot exchange or toe/heel, as it gets called. (Mine is more of a left/right of the ball of my foot motion).

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

on a conventional (epicyclic) auto box engaging park effectively engages more than one gear at the same time so it will be totally locked.
more recently things that behave like an auto box are often a robotised manual box or dual clutch transmission system, both of which usually mean fitting an extra machanism and actuator to acheive the equivalent of the P position!

Oh, that's very interesting thanks ed

"robotising" the process sounds like another example of trying something different just because they can though, not because it's simpler or better, but I don't know...

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

It can be very annoying to sit behind someone at a set of traffic lights with their foot on the footbrake and brakelights glaring at you. For this reason I was taught to use the handbrake (and to cancel indicators while waiting for the lights to change).

I do like a good tangent..... some relatively recent alpha's had such a box (and i think fiat stilo) which was generally disliked due to poor performance. However the system was basically the same as used by the top end Ferrari's, more expensive boxes on Ferrari could take the aggressive fast shifting whilst the other boxes had to have the system detuned to acheive decent durability.

Not sure about the latest but Smart cars always had a fairly laggy robotised manual box too.



Still curious to know how many people think low speed hill descent control using the hand brake is "normal" practice ?