Does anyone else miss having a hand brake?

TL;DR: Yes miss center console emergency brake.

I'll say "yes" I miss the middle console hand/emergency brake but not for any reason listed above. If the driver has an emergency or fails to put vehicle in park, the passenger can pull the emergency brake -- with a foot pedal not possible. I did not experience this directly but related to the aftermath at work: a vehicle ended up 1/2 mile away and totaled because driver stopped in overlook, left (rental) car in drive and hopped out, passengers still inside didn't think fast enough to put in park but instead went for center console emergency brake that was not there - they all bailed out the doors. Vehicle ended up 1/2 mile away off road and totaled. Another incident: driver has seizure, passenger unable to pull center emergency brake (as there is none) and vehicle drives into restaurant. Most people can take one action in an emergency and pulling an emergency brake is a simple task, doesn't require fine motor or much forethought.

 

I'm very late to the party. I do miss the center console handbrake. I think the Prius 3rd gen console design is horrible... That's another subject. I had a 04 Honda Accord I4 auto. It had the center console handbrake. Used it all the time so I wouldn't feel any rollback. I found I could press the button and then release when engaging the handbrake, so it would be quiet. I dislike the style of footbrake in the Gen 3 Prius. I like the one with the release by hand better.

My issue with the one on the Gen 3 is that the rubber cover won't stay on and it's been off for over half a year now because of that. My footbrake needs to be tightened up. It doesn't drag the wheels when I go from 0-3mph. My biggest problem with the footbrake is that it digs into my shin/boot, to some extent. I've found that at least my Prius has a ton of roll when parking. Possibly for health reasons, I find it supper disorientating when a vehicle rolls back, when parking.

 

hate the prius foot brake. am getting used to the center console outback brake "lever" loved the 2003 camry manual tranny brake

 

As your driving, if you very lightly press the parking brake down, you'll hear a beep even if the park brake doesn't physically engage.

 

Same with a 2004 HHR hand brake.

 

I don't miss it.

Because I don't have to! I bought the right Prius! I got the one that still has a plastic-wrapped stamped steel handle on the center console that yanks real steel wire ropes and squishes real brake shoes into real drums.

Honestly it's not that big of a deal. We just don't have a car with the new-style electric parking brake to compare it to.

 

The new electric one will become the norm. That steel cabling in the manual one can add up to 13 pounds.

 

Both my cars have EPBs and they work just fine. You manually activate them, but you can either manually release them or let them release on their own by putting the car in "gear" and driving off. I always use the parking brake.

 

The handbrake was a great feature. On our 1988 Volvo wagon, I used to take the kids out in the snow and show them how to do parking brake turns. Valuable life skill. On any FWD car, the handbrake allows you to "steer" the back wheels. Both my kids were taught to do this.

The foot pedal is plenty sufficient to stop the car in an emergency. Push it down and the car will stop somewhere, which is what you want. Not quite the control you get with a handbrake, but it is an emergency brake.

For slowing down in front of cops with no taillights - on the Prius just select "B" mode. In a manual transmission car, downshift.

Given a choice of the foot pedal on the Prius, or an electric brake like the Subaru, I'll take the electric brake. Takes less space, it can be tied to the vehicle electronics (i.e. option to apply parking brake when you leave the vehicle).

 

As for the OP question, I have never owned a car with a manual transmission, and until the Prius, never felt the need to use the parking brake except for when jacking up the car. The Prius had more range of motion in the parking pawl than previous cars, so I picked up the habit of just using it all the time now.

So I don't miss the hand brake. Many of my cars simply never had one. The ones with came after the Prius.

 

Ahh - so that's a different scenario. The vast majority of my cars have been Manual - this is my first Auto since a 1994 VOLVO - prior to that, almost all Manual. Just counted them up - 16 Manuals, 5 Autos incl Samantha.

 

although some vans & pickups had 'em later - i do miss pre 1980's wind wings .... & those little vent doors down low, that you simply un-latch & swing open to the amount of air you want to come in in lieu of running air conditioning.
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When the vent wings started to disappear, VW came up with a wonderful compromise that I’ve never seen repeated anywhere else. They re-shaped the top line of the traveling pane, the main front side windows. The glass had a smoothed notch to it, so if you rolled it down a tiny bit there would be a well-defined vent at the forward end, while maintaining a seal towards the rear end. Result: fresh air on demand, no wind noise next to your ear, all on a then-modern car with no vent wing.

 

If you go back far enough (this was the year I was born), you get these:



In conjunction with flip-quarter-windows, brought a lot of (hot) air into a hot car. But moving air is better than none.

 

Back in the day, that was Beetle A/C. You flipped them backwards.

 

Can't recall the make, or specifically how it worked, but there was a classic car that had a mechanism for cracking the windshield open, possible by shifting the entire roof.

And you could burn the magnesium engine block for heat. Just don't look at it.

 

I know that, for sure. I was driving up to Lime Rock one Saturday and there was a Beetle in a diner parking lot just blazing away.

 

We get extinguisher training at work, and a lab here has a type D for metal fires. Our trainer was a retired fire fighter, and he said they would call in a back hoe for a VW fire, and bury it on the side of the road.

 

I saw it on a few cars - think they were all American, 40s, maybe even late 30s. The one I saw close-up was wound out with a handle on the dashboard like a window winder. I think my Grandfather's Chev had one.

 

Bro i miss it a lot........Agree with CR94 proper lever wastes very little space.