While I did use the shovel to scrape rotted fibreglass crap off my pants, and technically the total value of the car in question was “stain on pants”, the tow-truck was for the car, and the shovels were for the bits that kept falling off of it on the way out.
My wife left our car in reverse in the garage when she realized she forgot to close the house door. With all of th kids in the car she got out and the car started going backwards. We have built in wood table and it tore the door right off the car.
The day we got the car back from being fixed, she backed into a neighbors basketball hoop…
True but I’d put my money on that not being the issue on any of these. Plus if people put their cars in reverse the low gear ratio and engine compression should keep them from running away faster than a person can catch up.
Is this a common thing, not using the emergency brake? I’ve noticed it with a friend or two of mine and just assumed they were outliers.
Putting on the emergency brake when leaving the car is as automatic for me as putting on my seatbelt when I enter. I don’t think I’ve ever not set it.
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I live on a hill and twice now i’ve heard a loud crunch only to come outside to see a car where my front garden gate used to be. I had to chop my privet hedge down just to get a clear view of the road, i’m not taking any chances… Third time lucky and all that.
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Indeed, my ability to find these “hilarious” has dulled with age.
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My first three cars were manuals, but I’ve been driving automatics for so long that I’ve got out of the habit of setting the handbrake - in fact, when (as rarely happens) I valet-park my car, I’m sometimes surprised when the attendant leaves it set.
I still always crimp my wheels to the curb on a hill, though.
Edit: I rented a car in Portugal last year, and only manuals were available. (I actually wanted a manual, but my better half doesn’t drive stick. I gracefully bowed to necessity.) To my surprise and consternation, there’s no handbrake in an Opel Astra! After a good deal of searching and cursing, it turns out there’s an electronic pushbutton for that. Did NOT fill me with confidence.
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I went through a period where I alternated between manual and automatic every time I got a new car (I used to prefer manual, but would get good deals on automatics and couldnt say no).
Anyway, with my last standard transmission car I was at a store once and stepped outside and commented on “that idiot who forgot to set the parking brake”, and then realized it was my car that had drifted out into the middle of the parking lot ( didn’t hit any other cars though, very lucky.)
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No, only automatic. I was just taught that this was something you always, always do.
It makes me so uneasy when I get out of automatic cars and they lurch a bit from the movement — that bit of play you still get in park with no brake on.
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CSB:
I’m still alive thanks to my dad. My grandfather had ~100 acre ranch in the Catskill mountains where we would vacation and get the heck out of NYC for a week every summer. And he had an old-ass Ford pickup truck which needed the hand brake on to prevent rolling. Being about 6 y/o, my dad let me play around in the “big truck” while he helped fix up the hunting lodge as payment for vaca time. He happened to be painting a window which happened to be overlooking the truck and the window happened to be open and I happened to have left the truck door open so when I happened to pull the hand break (wee-you, wee-you, push all the buttons) he was able to jump out the window, run down the hill, push me over and jump in without falling under the truck, and stop it shortly before going into a tree-filled ravine sans-seatbelt.
Bonus: my 4 y/o sister was in the passenger seat.
I love my dad.
/CSB
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As a very young lad I remember being in the back seat of the car as it rolled down a hill, with my mother in hot pursuit!
(To her ever-lasting credit she caught it before any damage was done.)
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Physics is a harsh mistress.
I liked the steamroller. You usually don’t see them moving that fast.
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Your Dad sounds like the recipient of numerous, “Best Dad In The World” Mugs. My Dad saved me from drowning when I was a tiny tot. Dads can be so cool.
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My father had to save me from drowning at a pool. I have always been plump, and when I made a dashing dive through an inner tube thing, I got stuck halfway through.
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And a worn-out parking pawl.
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heavy-dents is the essential in court cases specially when dentists are involved
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This! I wonder what the guy who was chasing the last one (tl;dv: road maintenance machine, rolls the ashphalt flat…) was thinking. He might have caught it, certainly so if the driver filming help out. But then what? I wouldn’t get near the normal way up… you’re between a 2m dia multi-tonne roller and a large rubber tire, both spinning wicked fast.
It’s like dogs. What are you planning to do with the car once you’ve caught it? And just what constitutes “caught”?
Why “steamroller”? I love it, and I use the same term. But that’s a diesel engine.
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Here (central Ontario, Canada) it seems rare. Very few people I’ve driven with use their parking brake, unless on an obvious but moderate grade. Likewise in the USA
My sporadic travels in South America, Europe, Middle East, and India suggest it’s a rule much more followed. But also a much higher rate of manual transmissions.
Especially India. I fear too much time was spent drilling emergency brake rules into their heads. From my observation, “All is permitted, just try not to hit anyone” is the other rule.
Why “phone”? That’s a mobile computer.
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Basically every Mercedes has a weird parking brake which is set by pushing a pedal and released by pulling a handle. A friend who rented a (manual) Mercedes van had some trouble getting used to that…
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