Does anyone else miss having a hand brake?

snapped a shot of this bad boy down at Cars and Coffee several months ago speaking of major window vents;

Remember not to smile or yawn, you might get a mouth full of bugs

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It’s getting hard to find a Bulli that hasn’t been modified with safari windows.

I learned to drive in one.

 

Ahhh - that's one I was trying to remember. Yes, I've been in one when I was about 10 years old with it open, I thought it was great - I think there was the driver and at least 3 of us kids sitting across the front seat. I think a Citroen might have done it too??

 

2019 Ford 10 passenger van. No handbrake missing


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06 Envoy.
Hand brake: Check.

 

Thinking about it, I wonder why more models haven't used a hand brake once the industry moved away from front bench seats. They would need less cable than a foot one, and thus should be cheaper.

 

Easier to use too.

IDK.

 

I do miss speeding down the road when I was a teenager slightly quickly turning the wheel a little bit to the right hitting the foot break lightly and pulling the handbrake to lock up my rear wheels and throw myself into a spin for fun

 

My Envoy is a little too top heavy for that, but I will admit that I "gave somebody else" a speeding ticket once a few years back with the HB.....

 

You can apply more force with your leg than your arm?

 

These are parking brakes. Their intended use is for keeping the car from rolling while parked, and from rolling while starting from a stop on an incline.

Their need in an emergency depends on all two or three hydraulic circuits to the service brakes, and any other back ups, completely failing.

 

I certainly wouldn't use it in an emergency. A hand brake, you can modulate it to prevent wheel lock-up and an oversteer slide (unless you want an oversteer slide). But with the foot-handbrake, you can't modulate it at all - give it one too many clicks and it locks the brakes, you can't ease it back, but have to press it again to release it and have another go. STUPID things.

 

As the former wife of a cop I need to ask: Why would you not want to activate brake lights in front of a cop? Is this to show that 'Gee I wasn’t speeding as I didn’t have to apply the brakes??’" You wouldn’t fool any highway patrolman. Besides the brake lights are a SAFETY function. It tells ALL the other drivers that you are slowing down. Why do you want to do something that is so unsafe? Or do you not care about anyone but yourself?

 

BTW for all the drivers who are unable to drive up hills...I’m a 70 yo woman who could drive up hills AND parallel park with a manual transmission and only used the parking brake after also turning my wheels...AND I lived in SF, CA for a decade before moving to Hawai’i.

You guys REALLY have difficulty negotiating hills?

 

70 in Hawaii ..... your avatar says you're down south in Atlanta. i guess that's what i got to look forward to in a few years ....

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Considering every car I've owned was an automatic, and many now have hill start assist, no.

Not enough experience to say if I would need it with a manual, but the hand brake is there for when you didn't want any roll back at all.

 

Are you talking about taking off from rest? When I took my driving test, we had to do a hill-start, and if you so much as rolled back a millimetre, it would be a fail. So we used the handbrake to hold till the clutch took up - still do in a Manual.

And still did till TOYOTA put the crazy foot-park-brake in PRIUS.

I challenge you to move off in reverse up a steep hill without rolling forward in a PRIUS - when an idiot in a SUV parks inches from your front bumper. No, you can't hold it with the foot brake - I tried that and it screams:
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The foot-park brake takes some working at - I took it to a hill and practised it WITHOUT a car in front - yes it's possible with practise, but so much harder than with a proper hand-brake.

 

Most Americans haven't driven a car with a clutch since the 80's.
As a matter of fact, we make fun of them as a millennial anti-theft device.

 

I had a manual up till I bought a PRIUS - though we had 3 or 4 before, but most of our cars have been Manuals. Sadly, they're harder and harder to get now. And, resale isn't really good for them either, which is a bit disappointing. I still hanker for a good 6sp Manual again - but can't see it happening. Unless I get a fun car for weekends.

 

Automatics simply have met, or surpassed, the advantages of manuals for most people.. I considered them for used cars because of reliability, but it has been over a decade since AAMCO had to expand beyond just fixing transmissions or go out of business.