Using the parking brakes

Same thing you do in any automatic car. Use only the foot brake unless parking. Per above, the car in fact has no more brakes than you're used to!

 

Over a minute, eh? I'm jealous of your stoplights. The one closest to me takes >3 minutes to make a complete cycle except at very low traffic. Then again, being a transplant to California, it's my opinion that basically all the lights in my region are pretty terrible - in addition to being slow, they don't even trust us to be able to make a left turn without a green arrow on most streets. Plus the sensors for most of them are all placed in the last 15 feet before the intersection. I'm used to having two sensors; one at the intersection, and one 50 or 100 feet back so that you don't have to stop at the intersection if the light is ready to change.

And back on topic... I don't know if this is the case for the Prius, but most parking brakes that I'm aware of only apply brakes in the rear. What you gain by applying the parking brake in the extraordinarily rare chance that you'll get rear-ended you might lose by only having braking on two wheels instead of four. Not to mention, parking brakes aren't terribly strong; it can be quite easy to drive away with them still engaged.

 

Once in a blue moon I put my automatics into park if I'm bored but I've never, ever used the parking or hand brake on an auto except when parking it (even then basically I never bother). Just keep foot on brake.

This is absolutely true. Unless being rear-ended by somebody on a bicycle the parking or hand brake will do virtually nothing for you.

 

Yea if someone hits you hard from behind having the parking brake on will do nothing to help you.

 

Yeah, the "creeping" on a Prius is both pointless (they added it to make it feel "normal" ) and annoying.

If i am sat in a queue or waiting for someone going into a shop or whatever, i put the car in "P". This is like taking it out of gear, with the added advantage that it can't roll on it's own. when i'm ready to go, footbrake and move back to "D" (feels like putting it in 6th gear instead of first, but never mind!) and off you go.

I only use then hand brake (the foot operated parking brake) when parking.

 

This is one of the problems with standards, whether official or defacto. The QWERTY keyboard is an excellent example. It's really a stupid layout, but good luck changing it now.

Our dogged devotion to English measurements is another example. No rational person could argue that S.I. isn't better, but we never seem to be willing to change. Likewise much of the Prius user interface was done to make the car feel familiar.

Tom

 

Familiar to Americans, though. I've never owned a car before with the stupid creeping feature, so why make it do it in the european model?

Equally annoying is the regen on the accelerator pedal, though of course all my cars have had engine drag with the pedal released so i am "used" to that one...

 

Yeah, exactly right, never owned an auto because they're extremely unpopular and more expensive over here. My wife did own a Smart though, and that did not creep, guess we lucked out on that one if they screwed the programming stateside...

 

If you are so inattentive that you cannot control your vehicle at a stop light except by applying the parking brake or putting it in PARK, then so be it. As to the rest of the human race, I do not think we need to engage in such childish behaviour.

 

I have driven cars and trucks for 50 years.
When I was younger, I liked 4-speed manuals, especially in my pick-up trucks. As I have grown older, I have found that an auto tranny is easier for me to handle, now that the "wounds of youth" are coming back in the form of a bad back.

When I drove manual transmissions, I would shift into NEUTRAL at a long light. However, I never applied the parking brake at a light, NEVER!. Neither have I ever seen anyone I know apply the parking brake at a light. That just sounds like a good way to piss off the guy behind you when the light changes, or to drive off with the brake on.

So, while my comment may seem a little caustic (I have a low tolerance for foolishness), do not tell me that applying the parking brake at a light is "typical of a manual driver."