"Tim+" wrote in message
...
my father had a Rootes car (Sceptre?). It had a bench front seat, so the
handbrake had to fit between the driver's seat and the door.


No €œhad to€� about it. Youre forgetting under dash €œumbrella€� style
handbrakes that you pulled (and foot operated parking brakes although Im
not sure these were ever popular in the UK).

Foot operated parking brakes are a pain because you need an extra leg to
release the brake at a time which is precisely coordinated with the clutch
and accelerator when doing a hill start. They also latch on and have to be
pressed down to release them. So you can't release them or apply them as
quickly or with as much control. The same is true of electric handbrakes,
controlled by a switch which uses an electric motor to apply/release. A good
hill start is one where at the moment of setting off the handbrake bites
only just enough to hold the car back, and not so much that it prevents the
car going forwards - that needs a non-binary control of the brake.

OK, so automatic cars don't strictly speaking need a handbrake to be
coordinated during a hill start, because the transmission with idling engine
will (hopefully) hold the car from rolling back unless the hill is very
steep - but as with handbrake assist on a manual car, I haven't the guts to
rely on it. I'll have to try it on a hill when there's nothing behind me and
see if our car's handbrake assist actually *does* hold the car if it is
released *before* the clutch is engaged and the power is applied. With my
hand on the handbrake lever , just in case ;-)

Anyway, I will not, as a service to the car behind me, use my footbrake to
stay stopped at a junction etc. That would dazzle him with my brake lights.
I want to shoot other drivers who do it to me, so I won't do it to them.
"Footbrake to stop the car. Handbrake to *stay* stopped." Wise Saw number
387 from my driving instructor all those years ago.