I was driving west on route 80 in Pa , when I saw a huge road alligator (which is otherwise known as a piece of truck tire recap) laying in the right travel lane of the road. Those things can cause a lot of damage to trucks and cars. Also can claim lives. Well, I pulled over put on the hazard light and remember quite clearly that I pushed the park button and the light was lit. After, running back to pull the alligator off the road, I looked over my shoulder to see my Prius driving / creeping down road. In a straight line. I ran after it , jumped in and stopped it. I swear it was making fun of me. I’ve never had that problem before or since. Weird huh?
"No good deed goes unpunished." You almost got yourself killed trying to save others. Before pressing the Park button, I always set the E-brake. It's a good habit to develop. I'm glad you and your car are OK.
I leave mine on ready,, park & engage parking brakes on while going into the store for a few minutes. Since yours rolled off, and you didn't go into a store, you probably won't get poo poo'd on here from the safety first prius chat police department. Oh the backlash I got for it went for pages haha.
While I'd NEVER get caught doing that , the car would be stopped by the foot brake until he steps out. Then it takes would take a few moments to start creeping. I made it a reflex to do both at the same time. So when distractions or interruptions cause interference with the process, at least one of them is almost always set. For my Subaru, that would mean the stick shift left in Neutral. Since the stick shift and parking brake are operated by the same hand, I can't do a reflexive 'set both simultaneously' as in the Prius. But with having center console parking brake levers in every vehicle in this multi-vehicle household except Prius, since the early 1980s, setting it is a more deeply ingrained reflex.
If you do not hit Park you can still have issues. remember the first Gen 4 recall? https://auto-recalls.justia.com/toyota/prius/2017/16v741000/index.html
There was a recall due to people not pressing the park button? And we thought telsa drivers engaging auto pilot were lazy & careless.
I understand they had to put in some clip so the parking brake did not fail. That happened a little while before I bought my 2017.
I have to regularly get in and out of my G3 to open and close gates for the sites that I service. Usually I just power the car down. That takes care both of putting the car in "park" and making sure that it does not try to get away from me. Since I'm getting to be a man of a certain age, I understand that it's getting easier and easier to get in a hurry and fat-finger an operating mode. Thanks for taking care of the interstate snake! Those things CAN bite. We call them interstate SNAKES instead of road alligators locally since down here, road alligators.........usually ARE.
