a question about parking in gear

Me too, but that's no longer considered the best option.

Chris

True, true - but if you're (say) gently decelerating towards some red traffic lights, what emergency would you realistically anticipate needing to accelerate from in order to get out of trouble?

It was (possibly) good practice in the days of very underpowered cars with poor brakes, and it take ages for such 'legislation' to catch up.

Things like giving way to a vehicle climbing a hill. Not much actual need for that these days. Except for cyclists. And they never give way to anything. ;-)

I give you the 1990s Jag S-Type with the 5 speed auto - noted for locking itself in Park if left on a hill (tho only if facing one way, I forget which.) Solution was to get a willing volunteer to push the car back uphill to allow the pawl to release.

Well it was whenever slowing down, not just at traffic lights. In 40 years of driving, mostly for a living, I've never needed to pull away in an emergency when slowing down, but I could do :-)

Hear, hear.

Most, if not all, of the US automatics that I drove while living there for thirty years would roll onto the pawl if left in park on a hill to an extent that the force required to disengage it would seem to be about enough to break the linkage. I quickly learned to engage the parking brake first when parking on a hill. Although my current car here in the UK is an automatic, I use the handbrake anyway, so have no idea if it would behave in the same manner.

En el artículo , MrCheerful escribió:

I hired a VW Touareg (sp?) in the Canaries a while back with the electronic parking brake. Could not get the brake to disengage - tried everything - and was just about to go back to the hire desk when I tried it with the clutch down, and bingo.

Particularly embarrassing was that I always start the engine with the clutch down anyway.

ToeRag

legislation Yes, i also had to demonstrate that i could do hand signals correctly ;( back in the day that was perhaps the only thing you could fail a motorcycle test on, apart from running over the examiner when doing the emergency stop

By the time you have lifted your foot up to your ear level, and pumped the pedal three times, you have already hit whatever it is you were heading towards! I remember a Vauxhall my father had which had a T-handle parking brake under the dashboard. At least it was activated by one pull, I assume it pulled on a cable. To release it just needed a quarter-turn twist and return to home position.

One story to enlighten this thread:

In the US in the late 1970s, I had a leased Ford Fairmont, a very badly designed car in many respects, not Ford's finest hour. There was a recall for failure of the auto transmission to properly engage 'Park', and mine had the problem, and was recalled. I was given a loaner car, which was far better than the Fairmont. The car was returned after a few days, and its driver and I were talking in the car park, and from behind us, my car slowly appeared into view travelling of its own accord, following the gentle slope of the car park, and stopped when it reached the bottom where the storm drain was. The driver without a word took the keys back from my fingers, returned the loaner's keys to me, and drove away in the Ford again. Unfortunately, they fixed it, and I had to take the car back permanently.

I took my first test in a three-wheeler, which had a turning circle diameter about half the width of the road in which I was asked to do a three-point turn. The examiner asked me to do one anyway, to show that I could. The car also had a sequential gearbox, no neutral between gears, but it was possible to go down to first while stopped.

I'd say you were worrying needlessly. If there were a danger of breaking the linkage, plenty would have done just that.

There are countless stories of cars running down a hill etc when just the handbrake was applied. Never read any involving the parking lock.

See my story elsewhere!

One swallow does not a summer make. ;-)

But you can't say 'Never read...' any more!

Never rely on anything machanical. Turn the wheels such that they will rest the curb or a block. Test that it will hold the car without any other means.

So what back-up do you have for the car's service brakes? An anchor tied to a door pillar that you can throw out?

Chris

There will be an operator (the driver) in the car, he can assert various options: Try handbrake, try low gear or steer away.

Parking on handbrare only on a steep hill is like playing Russian roulette.