This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

I had this very thing happen to me - when I was learning to drive. I was
going up a steep hill so I was in a low gear with the engine going quickly.
When I got to the top and changed from second to third, the engine raced but
I put it down to bad clutch/accelerator coordination. When it happened again
as I changed to fourth, I realised it wasn't - especially as the car shot
forward like a scalded cat.

I realised what had happened very quickly and also knew what would happen if
I pressed the clutch or put the car into neutral, which was my first
instinct: the engine would race very quickly and if it went well over the
redline speed, it could well throw a piston which would be very bad news if
all that fast-moving metal came to rest in an instant.

So somehow I managed very calmly to turn the ignition just far enough to
kill the engine by putting it into the accessory position without turning
all the way off. Had I been travelling "at 120 mph with the engine
redlining" (as it said int he video) it might have been a *little* more
difficult to turn it just the right amount. ;-)

Am I right that the last thing you want to do is let the engine greatly
exceed its redline speed and risk it seizing up (I'm assuming that the car
is old enough not to have a rev-limiter)? Do any steering locks actually
lock the steering while the key is still in, even in the off position? I
thought it only locked when the key was removed - for this very reason, so
you can safely turn off the engine in the event of an emergency.

Discuss...

On 22/07/2018 22:11, NY wrote:
This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

I had this very thing happen to me - when I was learning to drive. I was
going up a steep hill so I was in a low gear with the engine going quickly.
When I got to the top and changed from second to third, the engine raced
but
I put it down to bad clutch/accelerator coordination. When it happened
again
as I changed to fourth, I realised it wasn't - especially as the car shot
forward like a scalded cat.

I realised what had happened very quickly and also knew what would
happen if
I pressed the clutch or put the car into neutral, which was my first
instinct: the engine would race very quickly and if it went well over the
redline speed, it could well throw a piston which would be very bad news if
all that fast-moving metal came to rest in an instant.

So somehow I managed very calmly to turn the ignition just far enough to
kill the engine by putting it into the accessory position without turning
all the way off. Had I been travelling "at 120 mph with the engine
redlining" (as it said int he video) it might have been a *little* more
difficult to turn it just the right amount. ;-)

Am I right that the last thing you want to do is let the engine greatly
exceed its redline speed and risk it seizing up (I'm assuming that the car
is old enough not to have a rev-limiter)? Do any steering locks actually
lock the steering while the key is still in, even in the off position? I
thought it only locked when the key was removed - for this very reason, so
you can safely turn off the engine in the event of an emergency.

Discuss...


No all cars have an Acc posn on the Ign switch.

You could use the handbrake partially, ie not full on.

Over reving the engine is the lesser of the evils compared to a high
speed collision.


If you just turned off the engine on a manual, in neutral, then turn ign
on, you could steer without power steering and have basic brakes.



--

Suspect someone is claiming a benefit under false pretences? Incapacity
Benefit or Personal Independence Payment when they don't need it? They
are depriving those in real need!

https://www.gov.uk/report-benefit-fraud

could be worse....you could have had a chevy Nova when a engine mount broke
the engine smashed the power brakes and pulled the accelerator cable giving
full throttle......see the world in a chevy nova .....

On 22/07/18 22:11, NY wrote:
This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

I had this very thing happen to me - when I was learning to drive. I was
going up a steep hill so I was in a low gear with the engine going quickly.
When I got to the top and changed from second to third, the engine raced
but
I put it down to bad clutch/accelerator coordination. When it happened
again
as I changed to fourth, I realised it wasn't - especially as the car shot
forward like a scalded cat.

I realised what had happened very quickly and also knew what would
happen if
I pressed the clutch or put the car into neutral, which was my first
instinct: the engine would race very quickly and if it went well over the
redline speed, it could well throw a piston which would be very bad news if
all that fast-moving metal came to rest in an instant.

So somehow I managed very calmly to turn the ignition just far enough to
kill the engine by putting it into the accessory position without turning
all the way off. Had I been travelling "at 120 mph with the engine
redlining" (as it said int he video) it might have been a *little* more
difficult to turn it just the right amount. ;-)

Am I right that the last thing you want to do is let the engine greatly
exceed its redline speed and risk it seizing up (I'm assuming that the car
is old enough not to have a rev-limiter)? Do any steering locks actually
lock the steering while the key is still in, even in the off position? I
thought it only locked when the key was removed - for this very reason, so
you can safely turn off the engine in the event of an emergency.

Discuss...
Turning the engine off doesn't lock steering. That only happens when
removing the key.

Discuss...
Turning the engine off doesn't lock steering. That only happens when
removing the key.


+1

NY wrote

This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in the
US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral.

It isnt just one of those, no reason why you cant do
both but don’t turn the ignition off. And it isnt just the
handbrake either, the normal brakes should be used too.

I'd turn the ignition off, put the car into neutral
if its an automatic or press the clutch if a manual
and use the normal brakes to stop the car while
turning towards the curb to get the car out of
the way of any following cars.

Turning off the engine would lock the steering.

No it doesn’t. You have to remove the key to lock the
steering on mine. And even if it did lock the steering,
that may still be a useful thing to do if you are going
to hit something if you don’t stop quickly.

Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear wheels.

Not necessarily, depending on how effective they are.

And it makes more sense to use the normal brakes anyway.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

Yeah, its mindlessly superficial.

I had this very thing happen to me - when I was learning to drive.

But in those days the steering didn’t normally lock
when you removed the key from the ignition.

I was going up a steep hill so I was in a low gear with the engine going
quickly. When I got to the top and changed from second to third, the
engine raced but I put it down to bad clutch/accelerator coordination.
When it happened again as I changed to fourth, I realised it wasn't -
especially as the car shot forward like a scalded cat.

I realised what had happened very quickly and also knew what would happen
if I pressed the clutch or put the car into neutral, which was my first
instinct: the engine would race very quickly and if it went well over the
redline speed, it could well throw a piston which would be very bad news
if all that fast-moving metal came to rest in an instant.

So somehow I managed very calmly to turn the ignition just far enough to
kill the engine by putting it into the accessory position without turning
all the way off. Had I been travelling "at 120 mph with the engine
redlining" (as it said int he video) it might have been a *little* more
difficult to turn it just the right amount. ;-)

Don’t see why.

Am I right that the last thing you want to do is let the engine greatly
exceed its redline speed and risk it seizing up

Depends on the situation. If you are likely to run into something
if you don’t stop quickly, the engine seizing is less important.

(I'm assuming that the car is old enough not to have a rev-limiter)?

Do any steering locks actually lock the steering while the key is still
in, even in the off position?

My Hyundai doesn’t.

But the steering gets much heavier because with the
engine off, the power steering isnt working anymore.

I thought it only locked when the key was removed

That’s certainly how mine works. But I don’t know
what happens with the cars which are keyless.
Mine appears to use the physical key to control
the steering lock with a mechanical link.

- for this very reason, so you can safely turn off the engine in the event
of an emergency.

Yeah, that would be a sensible way to design it.

Discuss...

No way.

On Sunday, 22 July 2018 22:52:30 UTC+1, Chris Bartram wrote:
On 22/07/18 22:11, NY wrote:

This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

I had this very thing happen to me - when I was learning to drive. I was
going up a steep hill so I was in a low gear with the engine going quickly.
When I got to the top and changed from second to third, the engine raced
but
I put it down to bad clutch/accelerator coordination. When it happened
again
as I changed to fourth, I realised it wasn't - especially as the car shot
forward like a scalded cat.

I realised what had happened very quickly and also knew what would
happen if
I pressed the clutch or put the car into neutral, which was my first
instinct: the engine would race very quickly and if it went well over the
redline speed, it could well throw a piston which would be very bad news if
all that fast-moving metal came to rest in an instant.

So somehow I managed very calmly to turn the ignition just far enough to
kill the engine by putting it into the accessory position without turning
all the way off. Had I been travelling "at 120 mph with the engine
redlining" (as it said int he video) it might have been a *little* more
difficult to turn it just the right amount. ;-)

Am I right that the last thing you want to do is let the engine greatly
exceed its redline speed and risk it seizing up (I'm assuming that the car
is old enough not to have a rev-limiter)? Do any steering locks actually
lock the steering while the key is still in, even in the off position? I
thought it only locked when the key was removed - for this very reason, so
you can safely turn off the engine in the event of an emergency.

Discuss...
Turning the engine off doesn't lock steering. That only happens when
removing the key.

all the cars I had for decades* DO lock the steering with key in. I gather many don't now.

This is all very 101 stuff though. If someone can't work out what their options are, one can only hope they never have to deal with real life mechanical failure.

* at least the ones that had a steering lock


NT

On 22/07/2018 22:11, NY wrote:
This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

Well on a manual car you can use the brakes to slow down and stall the
engine on most cars.

On 22/07/2018 22:52, Chris Bartram wrote:
On 22/07/18 22:11, NY wrote:
This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in
the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the
engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

I had this very thing happen to me - when I was learning to drive. I was
going up a steep hill so I was in a low gear with the engine going
quickly.
When I got to the top and changed from second to third, the engine
raced but
I put it down to bad clutch/accelerator coordination. When it happened
again
as I changed to fourth, I realised it wasn't - especially as the car shot
forward like a scalded cat.

I realised what had happened very quickly and also knew what would
happen if
I pressed the clutch or put the car into neutral, which was my first
instinct: the engine would race very quickly and if it went well over the
redline speed, it could well throw a piston which would be very bad
news if
all that fast-moving metal came to rest in an instant.

So somehow I managed very calmly to turn the ignition just far enough to
kill the engine by putting it into the accessory position without turning
all the way off. Had I been travelling "at 120 mph with the engine
redlining" (as it said int he video) it might have been a *little* more
difficult to turn it just the right amount. ;-)

Am I right that the last thing you want to do is let the engine greatly
exceed its redline speed and risk it seizing up (I'm assuming that the
car
is old enough not to have a rev-limiter)? Do any steering locks actually
lock the steering while the key is still in, even in the off position? I
thought it only locked when the key was removed - for this very
reason, so
you can safely turn off the engine in the event of an emergency.

Discuss...
Turning the engine off doesn't lock steering. That only happens when
removing the key.

Depends on car. My current car has an electric steering lock which would
come on if the ignition button was pressed. On most cars

--
Michael Chare

On 22/07/2018 23:13, Michael Chare wrote:
On 22/07/2018 22:52, Chris Bartram wrote:
On 22/07/18 22:11, NY wrote:
This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in
the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the
engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

I had this very thing happen to me - when I was learning to drive. I was
going up a steep hill so I was in a low gear with the engine going
quickly.
When I got to the top and changed from second to third, the engine
raced but
I put it down to bad clutch/accelerator coordination. When it
happened again
as I changed to fourth, I realised it wasn't - especially as the car
shot
forward like a scalded cat.

I realised what had happened very quickly and also knew what would
happen if
I pressed the clutch or put the car into neutral, which was my first
instinct: the engine would race very quickly and if it went well over
the
redline speed, it could well throw a piston which would be very bad
news if
all that fast-moving metal came to rest in an instant.

So somehow I managed very calmly to turn the ignition just far enough to
kill the engine by putting it into the accessory position without
turning
all the way off. Had I been travelling "at 120 mph with the engine
redlining" (as it said int he video) it might have been a *little* more
difficult to turn it just the right amount. ;-)

Am I right that the last thing you want to do is let the engine greatly
exceed its redline speed and risk it seizing up (I'm assuming that
the car
is old enough not to have a rev-limiter)? Do any steering locks actually
lock the steering while the key is still in, even in the off position? I
thought it only locked when the key was removed - for this very
reason, so
you can safely turn off the engine in the event of an emergency.

Discuss...
Turning the engine off doesn't lock steering. That only happens when
removing the key.



Depends on car. My current car has an electric steering lock which would
come on if the ignition button was pressed. On most cars I would expect
the foot brake to stop the car particularly a manual car in top gear.

--
Michael Chare

On 22/07/2018 23:01, wrote:

all the cars I had for decades* DO lock the steering with key in. I
gather many don't now.

While everyone else hasn't.


Rod is always the opposite of everyone else.

On 22/07/18 22:11, NY wrote:
This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in
the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
-turn off the ignition

Get the carpet off the pedal

Press the brake pedal. Hard and sustained. The engine is physically not
capable of overriding. One hears about people claiming they tried to
brake and it did nothing. Well, they must have just tried a few gentle jabs.

Turning off the ignition will turn off electric power steering. Not what
you want to add to your list of surprises.

On 22/07/2018 22:11, NY wrote:
This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

It might be the correct first action with a US slushbox.

On Mon, 23 Jul 2018 08:00:47 +1000, cantankerous senile geezer Rot Speed
blabbered,
again:

FLUSH all the usual self-opinionated senile drivel unread

Discuss...

No way.

BG Senile idiot!

--
Bill Wright addressing senile Ozzie cretin Rot Speed:
"Well you make up a lot of stuff and it's total ******** most of it."
MID:

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
It isnt just one of those, no reason why you cant do
both but don’t turn the ignition off. And it isnt just the
handbrake either, the normal brakes should be used too.

I wouldn't touch the handbrake. Why should a weak brake that has bugger-all
effect on slowing down a car that is moving (in my experience) be any better
than the much more powerful footbrake which acts on all four wheels? If the
footbrake fails to make any impression on the speed (eg because the friction
of trying to slow down when working against the engine has worn away the
pads) then the handbrake isn't goign to have any more success since it
normally controls the self-same pads - except only those on the rear wheels.

And if the handbrake *does* stop just the rear wheels, on a front-wheel
drive car where the front wheels are the only ones being driven, then you
will risk locking the rear wheels long before the front wheels stop turning,
which is not conducive to driving in a straight line :-)


I'd turn the ignition off, put the car into neutral
if its an automatic or press the clutch if a manual
and use the normal brakes to stop the car while
turning towards the curb to get the car out of
the way of any following cars.

Turning off the engine would lock the steering.

No it doesn’t. You have to remove the key to lock the
steering on mine. And even if it did lock the steering,
that may still be a useful thing to do if you are going
to hit something if you don’t stop quickly.

Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear wheels.

Not necessarily, depending on how effective they are.

Depending on how hard you tug on the handle, I'd say its effect would be
either minimal or risk locking the un-driven wheels rather than the driven
ones (assuming FWD).

I think the US use of the term "emergency brake" is very misleading. I
wouldn't use it in an emergency except as a last resort after I've tried
footbrake.


But in those days the steering didn’t normally lock
when you removed the key from the ignition.

I was going up a steep hill so I was in a low gear with the engine going
quickly. When I got to the top and changed from second to third, the
engine raced but I put it down to bad clutch/accelerator coordination.
When it happened again as I changed to fourth, I realised it wasn't -
especially as the car shot forward like a scalded cat.

I realised what had happened very quickly and also knew what would happen
if I pressed the clutch or put the car into neutral, which was my first
instinct: the engine would race very quickly and if it went well over the
redline speed, it could well throw a piston which would be very bad news
if all that fast-moving metal came to rest in an instant.

So somehow I managed very calmly to turn the ignition just far enough to
kill the engine by putting it into the accessory position without turning
all the way off. Had I been travelling "at 120 mph with the engine
redlining" (as it said int he video) it might have been a *little* more
difficult to turn it just the right amount. ;-)

Don’t see why.

It may be difficult to turn the key in a controlled manner rather than as
hard as possible, if you are panicking because you are at risk of hitting
the car ahead or are approaching a tight bend.


Am I right that the last thing you want to do is let the engine greatly
exceed its redline speed and risk it seizing up

Depends on the situation. If you are likely to run into something
if you don’t stop quickly, the engine seizing is less important.

(I'm assuming that the car is old enough not to have a rev-limiter)?

Do any steering locks actually lock the steering while the key is still
in, even in the off position?

My Hyundai doesn’t.

But the steering gets much heavier because with the
engine off, the power steering isnt working anymore.

I found this out when the "fan belt" (which drives alternator, aircon and
power steering on my car) broke as I was driving at 70 mph in Lane 3 of the
motorway. I head a flap-flap-flap-splat noise, the ignition light came on
and the steering became heavy. I knew immediately what that was :-( The car
carried on fine, running on the battery, but I did have to tug the wheel to
make the car move over to the left. As it happens, I was only about a mile
short of the exit where I was planning to come off anyway, and I knew of a
garage on the side road just after I'd turned off, so I made for that. It
took a fair amount of effort to persuade the car to go round the roundabout,
presumably because the power steering ram was trying to compress the fluid
as I turned the wheel and hence the steering rack.

But I made it safely to the garage and the RAC man didn't take *too* long to
get my car home. I knew I'd be able to drive it to my local garage just
round the corner from home. As it happened, the journey home wasn't
incident-free. The RAC van towed my car front-wheels-raised, on a little
trolley that runs on its own wheels. When we were nearly there, the van
lurched sideways and RAC man swore. One of the little wheels that the
trolley ran on had burst :-( Fortunately he carried a spare for that wheel
as well as the running wheels of the van, but he had to take my car off the
trolley to be able to jack it up. That little exercise added another
quarter-of-an-hour to the journey.

On 22/07/2018 22:11, NY wrote:

I put it down to bad clutch/accelerator coordination. When it happened
again
as I changed to fourth, I realised it wasn't - especially as the car shot
forward like a scalded cat.

I once went for a test drive in a Honda NSX supercar. Cruising along
the motorway at a bit over 70, we came to some slower traffic, so I
prudently decided to change from 6th gear into 4th. It's quite a narrow
gate on the NSX, and I mostly drove automatic at the time, so I was
quite out of practice.

The effect of going directly from 6th to 2nd at that speed is not
catastrophic. It's a very finely engineered car. The engine is very
responsive, and it makes an impressive noise when taken well over the
red line in that way.

On 22/07/2018 23:23, TMS320 wrote:
On 22/07/18 22:11, NY wrote:
This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in
the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake - put the car in neutral
-turn off the ignition

Get the carpet off the pedal

The trouble is that you're probably catching up the traffic in front
really fast. Looking down at the carpet doesn't occur to most people.
They are too intent on gripping the steering wheel.

On 22/07/2018 22:28, Brian Reay wrote:

snip

You could use the handbrake partially, ie not full on.

Probably the worst thing you could ever do.

"Brian Reay" wrote in message
news
You could use the handbrake partially, ie not full on.

Why use the handbrake at all, if the footbrake is still working fine?

Over reving the engine is the lesser of the evils compared to a high speed
collision.

I was thinking in terms of a con rod breaking which would probably seize the
crankshaft which would be bad news with the energy of the large mass of the
flywheel having to be dissipated very rapidly as it came to rest, possibly
locking the transmission (even with the slight clearance of a clutch pedal
being pressed) and hence the wheels.

I don't know how fast an engine might turn if all the mechanical load is
removed at full throttle, and how much extra load this would place on the
con rods. Modern cars with fuel injection and and ECU would almost certainly
have a rev limiter. But the car I was driving was much older than that, with
a carburettor, so there would be no limit to the engine speed, other than
normal engine friction and the maximum fuel flow that the carb could manage.


If you just turned off the engine on a manual, in neutral, then turn ign
on, you could steer without power steering and have basic brakes.

As it happens, the car no PAS and no servo brakes, so neither would have
suffered.

I have since (in a much more recent car) driven with no PAS when my "fan
belt" broke at 70 on the motorway. Getting the car off the motorway to a
garage where I could wait safely for the RAC took a bit more effort to steer
than normal, but was not impossible. Strangely the brakes did not seem to be
affected, so maybe the brake servo is driven by something other than the
"fan belt". Obviously on a car with an electric fan, the one thing that the
belt does not drive is the radiator fan. Having seen the tortuous path that
the belt ought to take (it had vanished and was probably in Lane 3 of the
motorway) I wasn't going to attempt to jury-rig a replacement, even if I'd
had anything to make a long enough loop. It's as easy as in the days of a
longitudinal engine where the belt just goes round three pulleys
(alternator, water pump and fan) and is at the front of the car, without
loads of tensioning pulleys and very little space to work between the engine
and the front wheel. Even the RAC man said it was virtually impossible on a
modern car to replace the belt at the roadside, even if he carried the right
spare for the car.

Would you believe after I had the belt replaced at my local garage, the
replacement failed in the same way about 2000 miles later. The garage had
failed to spot that the flanges of one of the pulleys were bent out of
shape, which had shredded the replacement belt and may well have been the
cause (rather than the side-effect) of the first belt failing. The garage
denied all liability and wouldn't pay anything, so I stopped using them.

NY wrote
Rod Speed wrote

It isnt just one of those, no reason why you cant do
both but don’t turn the ignition off. And it isnt just the
handbrake either, the normal brakes should be used too.

I wouldn't touch the handbrake. Why should a weak brake that has
bugger-all effect on slowing down a car that is moving (in my experience)
be any better than the much more powerful footbrake which acts on all four
wheels?

The handbrake on my Getz very effective. If you try to drive off without
releasing
the handbrake the whole car sort of just squats, doesn’t move at all.

I agree tho, it makes much more sense to use the foot brake, not the
handbrake if only because that’s much more powerful with all cars.

If the footbrake fails to make any impression on the speed (eg because the
friction of trying to slow down when working against the engine has worn
away the pads) then the handbrake isn't goign to have any more success
since it normally controls the self-same pads - except only those on the
rear wheels.

And if the handbrake *does* stop just the rear wheels, on a front-wheel
drive car where the front wheels are the only ones being driven, then you
will risk locking the rear wheels long before the front wheels stop
turning, which is not conducive to driving in a straight line :-)

That’s really only true in slippery conditions.

I'd turn the ignition off, put the car into neutral
if its an automatic or press the clutch if a manual
and use the normal brakes to stop the car while
turning towards the curb to get the car out of
the way of any following cars.

Turning off the engine would lock the steering.

No it doesn’t. You have to remove the key to lock the
steering on mine. And even if it did lock the steering,
that may still be a useful thing to do if you are going
to hit something if you don’t stop quickly.

Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear wheels.

Not necessarily, depending on how effective they are.

Depending on how hard you tug on the handle, I'd say its effect would be
either minimal or risk locking the un-driven wheels rather than the driven
ones (assuming FWD).

No reason why you can't be selective when using it,
but again, makes more sense to use the foot brake.

I think the US use of the term "emergency brake" is very misleading. I
wouldn't use it in an emergency except as a last resort after I've tried
footbrake.

Sure, but that’s why its called the emergency brake,
you use it when the foot brake doesn’t work, in that
emergency. They don’t mean that you should use the
handbrake instead of the foot brake in any emergency.

Presumably they don’t call it the parking brake so
the less technical people realise that it isnt just for
parking, but also is available when the foot brakes
have failed. Not that that is at all common anymore
with modern cars having dual circuit hydraulic brakes
that don’t all fail at once.

But in those days the steering didn’t normally lock
when you removed the key from the ignition.

I was going up a steep hill so I was in a low gear with the engine going
quickly. When I got to the top and changed from second to third, the
engine raced but I put it down to bad clutch/accelerator coordination.
When it happened again as I changed to fourth, I realised it wasn't -
especially as the car shot forward like a scalded cat.

I realised what had happened very quickly and also knew what would
happen if I pressed the clutch or put the car into neutral, which was my
first instinct: the engine would race very quickly and if it went well
over the redline speed, it could well throw a piston which would be very
bad news if all that fast-moving metal came to rest in an instant.

So somehow I managed very calmly to turn the ignition just far enough to
kill the engine by putting it into the accessory position without
turning all the way off. Had I been travelling "at 120 mph with the
engine redlining" (as it said int he video) it might have been a
*little* more difficult to turn it just the right amount. ;-)

Don’t see why.

It may be difficult to turn the key in a controlled manner rather than as
hard as possible,

You don’t have to turn it in a controlled manner,
just turn the ignition off to stop the engine.

if you are panicking because you are at risk of hitting the car ahead or
are approaching a tight bend.

Am I right that the last thing you want to do is let the engine greatly
exceed its redline speed and risk it seizing up

Depends on the situation. If you are likely to run into something
if you don’t stop quickly, the engine seizing is less important.

(I'm assuming that the car is old enough not to have a rev-limiter)?

Do any steering locks actually lock the steering while the key is still
in, even in the off position?

My Hyundai doesn’t.

But the steering gets much heavier because with the
engine off, the power steering isnt working anymore.

I found this out when the "fan belt" (which drives alternator, aircon and
power steering on my car) broke as I was driving at 70 mph in Lane 3 of
the motorway. I head a flap-flap-flap-splat noise, the ignition light came
on and the steering became heavy. I knew immediately what that was :-(

Sure, but most women drivers wouldn’t. I even had one fella who I had
got a lift from when hitchhiking as a teenager wonder out loud what the
significance of the red light on the dash was, the over temperature light.

The car carried on fine, running on the battery, but I did have to tug the
wheel to make the car move over to the left.

I did try the Getz to confirm my recollection that the steering
lock did only come on after the key is removed from the
ignition. The steering is certainly heavier with the engine
not running, but I didn’t have to tug it. It’s a light car tho.

As it happens, I was only about a mile short of the exit where I was
planning to come off anyway, and I knew of a garage on the side road just
after I'd turned off, so I made for that. It took a fair amount of effort
to persuade the car to go round the roundabout, presumably because the
power steering ram was trying to compress the fluid as I turned the wheel
and hence the steering rack.

But I made it safely to the garage and the RAC man didn't take *too* long
to get my car home. I knew I'd be able to drive it to my local garage just
round the corner from home. As it happened, the journey home wasn't
incident-free. The RAC van towed my car front-wheels-
raised, on a little trolley that runs on its own wheels. When we were
nearly there, the van lurched sideways and RAC man swore. One of the
little wheels that the trolley ran on had burst :-( Fortunately he carried
a spare for that wheel as well as the running wheels of the van, but he
had to take my car off the trolley to be able to jack it up. That little
exercise added another quarter-of-an-hour to the journey.

On Sun, 22 Jul 2018 22:28:53 +0100, Brian Reay wrote:

No all cars have an Acc posn on the Ign switch.

Indeed. And keyless ignition is usually 'press the button and it all goes
off'

You could use the handbrake partially, ie not full on.

Electric handbrake? (IYSWIM)

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On Monday, 23 July 2018 01:06:52 UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:

I think the US use of the term "emergency brake" is very misleading. I
wouldn't use it in an emergency except as a last resort after I've tried
footbrake.

Sure, but thats why its called the emergency brake,
you use it when the foot brake doesnt work, in that
emergency. They dont mean that you should use the
handbrake instead of the foot brake in any emergency.

Presumably they dont call it the parking brake so
the less technical people realise that it isnt just for
parking, but also is available when the foot brakes
have failed. Not that that is at all common anymore
with modern cars having dual circuit hydraulic brakes
that dont all fail at once.

FWIW some early circuit brakes weren't properly independant and can fail totally due to a single fault. Drivers of old cars beware. DAMHIK.


NT

On 22/07/18 23:11, NY wrote:
This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

It's happened to me, 1850 Dolomite Sprint, just turn the engine off,
it's not really a drama even at over a ton.

Sticky carb needle.

On Sun, 22 Jul 2018 22:11:08 +0100, "NY" wrote:

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

I was a sometime passenger in a clapped-out VW bus where this happened fairly
regularly.

The driver would press the clutch and remove his flip-flops (or, once, clogs),
wrap his toes around the back of the accelerator, and pull it back up. Sorted.

An old VW engine doesn't get up to much speed in the moment that practiced
driver took to do this. And the possibility of the car accelerating violently
because of throttle stuck fully open was hoped for, but zero.


Thomas Prufer

On Sunday, 22 July 2018 22:10:16 UTC+1, NY wrote:
This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

I had this very thing happen to me - when I was learning to drive. I was
going up a steep hill so I was in a low gear with the engine going quickly.
When I got to the top and changed from second to third, the engine raced but
I put it down to bad clutch/accelerator coordination. When it happened again
as I changed to fourth, I realised it wasn't - especially as the car shot
forward like a scalded cat.

I realised what had happened very quickly and also knew what would happen if
I pressed the clutch or put the car into neutral, which was my first
instinct: the engine would race very quickly and if it went well over the
redline speed, it could well throw a piston which would be very bad news if
all that fast-moving metal came to rest in an instant.

So somehow I managed very calmly to turn the ignition just far enough to
kill the engine by putting it into the accessory position without turning
all the way off. Had I been travelling "at 120 mph with the engine
redlining" (as it said int he video) it might have been a *little* more
difficult to turn it just the right amount. ;-)

Am I right that the last thing you want to do is let the engine greatly
exceed its redline speed and risk it seizing up (I'm assuming that the car
is old enough not to have a rev-limiter)? Do any steering locks actually
lock the steering while the key is still in, even in the off position? I
thought it only locked when the key was removed - for this very reason, so
you can safely turn off the engine in the event of an emergency.

Discuss...


What if it's an automatic?
The speed of most engines is limited by the "valve bounce" or the engine management system..
Theoretically, no damage should be caused.

"Thomas Prufer" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 22 Jul 2018 22:11:08 +0100, "NY" wrote:

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

I was a sometime passenger in a clapped-out VW bus where this happened
fairly
regularly.

The driver would press the clutch and remove his flip-flops (or, once,
clogs),
wrap his toes around the back of the accelerator, and pull it back up.
Sorted.

An old VW engine doesn't get up to much speed in the moment that practiced
driver took to do this. And the possibility of the car accelerating
violently
because of throttle stuck fully open was hoped for, but zero.

When it happened to me, I tried that after I'd got the car safely stopped,
and it was a dismal failure. The pedal just came up, leaving the cable where
it was: the way the linkage between pedal and cable was designed meant the
pedal would only exert a *pull* on the cable, not a push. It relied on the
spring in the linkage at the carburettor to return the cable to its normal
position and push the accelerator pedal back up.

And the strands of the cable had frayed close to that carburettor linkage so
that only about half of them were pulling the linkage; the other half were
jamming the cable against its sheath. No amount of pulling or pushing would
move the cable in the sheath: it was buggered.

My dad drove home very slowly: he jammed the throttle slightly open and then
varied the speed by varying how far he pulled the choke out, using the
slow-running control of carburettor choke mechanisms.


I must have had a jinx on that car because on another occasion the linkage
between the lever and the gearbox broke, causing the gear lever to flop
upside down as I changed from reverse to first. My dad claims I uttered the
immortal words "Is is supposed to do that?" :-) There was an
over-the-engine rod from the dashboard-mounted gear lever knob (this was a
Renault 6 which had the same type of gear lever as a Citroen 2CV) and this
engaged with a conventional-looking gear lever rod sticking out of the
gearbox which was in front of the engine. A plate with a large hole was
welded to the horizontal rod and this went around the vertical rod, so as
you pushed and pulled the knob, or rotated it, this translated to
forward-backward or side-to-side movement of the gearbox rod. The grommet
between the two had come out, allowing them to become unmeshed.

https://s22.postimg.cc/wy7o900yp/Image1.png (1 is horizontal rod from
dashboard, 2 is vertical rod from gearbox, 3 is plate which engages between
one and the other)

"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 22 Jul 2018 22:28:53 +0100, Brian Reay wrote:

No all cars have an Acc posn on the Ign switch.

Indeed. And keyless ignition is usually 'press the button and it all goes
off'

You could use the handbrake partially, ie not full on.

Electric handbrake? (IYSWIM)

Yes, keyless ignition and electric handbrake are both a bit all-or-nothing.
I'd not thought about the engine stop/start button would electrically engage
the steering lock. I wonder if there's any safety interlock which prevents
the steering locking if the car is actually moving when it's operated, or
whether it really does lock immediately. Not very sensible if you need to
use it as a kill switch for the engine. Maybe the presence of the remote
keyfob in the car prevents it allowing the steering to lock, and it only
locks once the keyfob is out of range when you leave the car.

If it's all the same with you, I don't think I'll test this the next time I
happen to drive a car with keyless ignition :-)

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
NY wrote
Rod Speed wrote

It isnt just one of those, no reason why you cant do
both but don’t turn the ignition off. And it isnt just the
handbrake either, the normal brakes should be used too.

I wouldn't touch the handbrake. Why should a weak brake that has
bugger-all effect on slowing down a car that is moving (in my experience)
be any better than the much more powerful footbrake which acts on all
four wheels?

The handbrake on my Getz very effective. If you try to drive off without
releasing
the handbrake the whole car sort of just squats, doesn’t move at all.

There's a bit of difference between trying to set off from rest (when I
agree most handbrakes will make a big difference and the car may just squat)
and applying it when the car is already moving at high speed. Handbrakes are
usually pretty good at holding the car, even on a hill, when they are
stationary, but very poor at slowing down a moving car. I tend to leave my
car in first/reverse gear if I'm parking on a very steep hill, as an added
safeguard - the equivalent of leaving an automatic in Park.

I think the US use of the term "emergency brake" is very misleading. I
wouldn't use it in an emergency except as a last resort after I've tried
footbrake.

Sure, but that’s why its called the emergency brake,
you use it when the foot brake doesn’t work, in that
emergency. They don’t mean that you should use the
handbrake instead of the foot brake in any emergency.

The way you see people tugging at the handbrake in US films makes me think a
lot of people think you should use it in every emergency ;-)

"harry" wrote in message
...
Am I right that the last thing you want to do is let the engine greatly
exceed its redline speed and risk it seizing up (I'm assuming that the
car
is old enough not to have a rev-limiter)?

What if it's an automatic?

The video that started all this showed the driver moving the selector lever
from D to N while doing "120 mph". I wonder whether any auto transmissions
allow the lever to be moved to N whe you are not stationary.

The speed of most engines is limited by the "valve bounce" or the engine
management system..
Theoretically, no damage should be caused.

As I said initially, this was a very old car (about 1975, IIRC) with no
rev-limiter or ECU. So valve-bounce and rate of fuel delivery from the
carburettor may have been the only limits on the engine speed under no load.

Maybe, for all the load noise that a no load engine makes at high revs, it
wouldn't seize up and maybe throw a piston out of the cylinder head or jam
the transmission even with the slight clearance between clutch pads and
flywheel when the clutch is down. I wasn't about to find out, and decided to
stop the whole engine rather than just disconnect it from the wheels.

On Mon, 23 Jul 2018 08:44:27 +0100, "NY" wrote:

snip

I tend to leave my
car in first/reverse gear if I'm parking on a very steep hill, as an added
safeguard - the equivalent of leaving an automatic in Park.

True (indirect equivalent) but I thought 'Park' on an auto was a
completely locked off gear / box (that couldn't be defeated under any
conditions) whereas leaving a manual in gear could allow the vehicle
to move slowly as it turned the engine over?

snip

The way you see people tugging at the handbrake in US films makes me think a
lot of people think you should use it in every emergency ;-)

I think it can depend on the vehicle. On our Meriva (rear disks)
pulling the handbrake on seems to have little impact to anything under
any conditions (other than stopping it blowing away in a light breeze
maybe) whereas the handbrake (drums) on the kitcar will allow you to
lock the rear wheels up whilst it's moving fairly quickly (even though
it's quite a bit heavier and especially on the rear than the Mk2
Escort saloon it was built from).

The handbrake on the GT86 I drove at Brands the other day was very
effective but it didn't have a locking function. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

On Sun, 22 Jul 2018 19:24:07 -0700, tabbypurr wrote:

On Monday, 23 July 2018 01:06:52 UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:

I think the US use of the term "emergency brake" is very misleading.
I wouldn't use it in an emergency except as a last resort after I've
tried footbrake.

Sure, but thats why its called the emergency brake, you use it when
the foot brake doesnt work, in that emergency. They dont mean that
you should use the handbrake instead of the foot brake in any
emergency.

Presumably they dont call it the parking brake so the less technical
people realise that it isnt just for parking, but also is available
when the foot brakes have failed. Not that that is at all common
anymore with modern cars having dual circuit hydraulic brakes that
dont all fail at once.

FWIW some early circuit brakes weren't properly independant and can fail
totally due to a single fault. Drivers of old cars beware. DAMHIK.

Go back further still to the Austin A30/A35, for example. The rear brakes
were operated by a mecahnical linkage from the handbrake lever. The
*same* linkage was operated by a single slave cylinder near the rear of
the chassis, in between the rear wheels. Failures in the linkage could
render the handbrake inoperative, and introduce enough travel into the
hydraulic system that it also would not operate as expected.

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On Mon, 23 Jul 2018 08:39:20 +0100, NY wrote:

"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 22 Jul 2018 22:28:53 +0100, Brian Reay wrote:

No all cars have an Acc posn on the Ign switch.

Indeed. And keyless ignition is usually 'press the button and it all
goes off'

You could use the handbrake partially, ie not full on.

Electric handbrake? (IYSWIM)

Yes, keyless ignition and electric handbrake are both a bit
all-or-nothing. I'd not thought about the engine stop/start button would
electrically engage the steering lock.

I don't think it does that. I hear the lock engaging when I leave teh
car, but also if I sit in it for a while with the engine off.

Maybe the presence of the remote keyfob in the car prevents it allowing
the steering to lock, and it only locks once the keyfob is out of range
when you leave the car.

Yes, although there seems to be a timeout too.

--
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On Mon, 23 Jul 2018 08:44:27 +0100, NY wrote:

There's a bit of difference between trying to set off from rest (when I
agree most handbrakes will make a big difference and the car may just
squat) and applying it when the car is already moving at high speed.
Handbrakes are usually pretty good at holding the car, even on a hill,
when they are stationary, but very poor at slowing down a moving car. I
tend to leave my car in first/reverse gear if I'm parking on a very
steep hill, as an added safeguard - the equivalent of leaving an
automatic in Park.

I wouldn't dare to apply the handbrake on my old Land Rover. Transmission
brake!

--
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"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 23 Jul 2018 08:44:27 +0100, NY wrote:

There's a bit of difference between trying to set off from rest (when I
agree most handbrakes will make a big difference and the car may just
squat) and applying it when the car is already moving at high speed.
Handbrakes are usually pretty good at holding the car, even on a hill,
when they are stationary, but very poor at slowing down a moving car. I
tend to leave my car in first/reverse gear if I'm parking on a very
steep hill, as an added safeguard - the equivalent of leaving an
automatic in Park.

I wouldn't dare to apply the handbrake on my old Land Rover. Transmission
brake!

Sounds as if the Land Rover is an exception to the rule that the handbrake
operates the same pads as the footbrake except by mechanical rather than
hydraulic means.

Why would it matter whether the brake was at the wheels or further back in
the transmission itself - assuming that it is still a pad rubbing on a disc
or drum.

Does the presence of the differential affect things (assuming they have not
been set to the locked position): would it tend to brake some wheels more
than others, thus causing the car to spin, if you were on slippery ground?

On 22/07/2018 22:52, Chris Bartram wrote:
On 22/07/18 22:11, NY wrote:
This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in
the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the
engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

I had this very thing happen to me - when I was learning to drive. I was
going up a steep hill so I was in a low gear with the engine going
quickly.
When I got to the top and changed from second to third, the engine
raced but
I put it down to bad clutch/accelerator coordination. When it happened
again
as I changed to fourth, I realised it wasn't - especially as the car shot
forward like a scalded cat.

I realised what had happened very quickly and also knew what would
happen if
I pressed the clutch or put the car into neutral, which was my first
instinct: the engine would race very quickly and if it went well over the
redline speed, it could well throw a piston which would be very bad
news if
all that fast-moving metal came to rest in an instant.

So somehow I managed very calmly to turn the ignition just far enough to
kill the engine by putting it into the accessory position without turning
all the way off. Had I been travelling "at 120 mph with the engine
redlining" (as it said int he video) it might have been a *little* more
difficult to turn it just the right amount. ;-)

Am I right that the last thing you want to do is let the engine greatly
exceed its redline speed and risk it seizing up (I'm assuming that the
car
is old enough not to have a rev-limiter)? Do any steering locks actually
lock the steering while the key is still in, even in the off position? I
thought it only locked when the key was removed - for this very
reason, so
you can safely turn off the engine in the event of an emergency.

Discuss...
Turning the engine off doesn't lock steering. That only happens when
removing the key.

Vehicles vary, so the answer may depend upon what you are driving at the
time. Keyless start works differently, for example. Also some don't have
a hand brake - only a switch operated parking brake. Putting it into
neutral and slowing with the foot brake is about the only thing
guaranteed to work on all cars.

--
--

Colin Bignell

On Monday, 23 July 2018 09:31:45 UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:
On 22/07/2018 22:52, Chris Bartram wrote:
On 22/07/18 22:11, NY wrote:
This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in
the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the
engine
would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the rear
wheels.

I'm not sure I agree with their answer.

I had this very thing happen to me - when I was learning to drive. I was
going up a steep hill so I was in a low gear with the engine going
quickly.
When I got to the top and changed from second to third, the engine
raced but
I put it down to bad clutch/accelerator coordination. When it happened
again
as I changed to fourth, I realised it wasn't - especially as the car shot
forward like a scalded cat.

I realised what had happened very quickly and also knew what would
happen if
I pressed the clutch or put the car into neutral, which was my first
instinct: the engine would race very quickly and if it went well over the
redline speed, it could well throw a piston which would be very bad
news if
all that fast-moving metal came to rest in an instant.

So somehow I managed very calmly to turn the ignition just far enough to
kill the engine by putting it into the accessory position without turning
all the way off. Had I been travelling "at 120 mph with the engine
redlining" (as it said int he video) it might have been a *little* more
difficult to turn it just the right amount. ;-)

Am I right that the last thing you want to do is let the engine greatly
exceed its redline speed and risk it seizing up (I'm assuming that the
car
is old enough not to have a rev-limiter)? Do any steering locks actually
lock the steering while the key is still in, even in the off position? I
thought it only locked when the key was removed - for this very
reason, so
you can safely turn off the engine in the event of an emergency.

Discuss...
Turning the engine off doesn't lock steering. That only happens when
removing the key.

Vehicles vary, so the answer may depend upon what you are driving at the
time.

I thought automatics and manual cars were differnt in what you should do, in america perhaps they assume you are driving a automatic.

One thing I found confusing was that in the US you are meant to cross yuor arms when sterring and you'd fail the test if you arms didn't cross, whereas in the UK you are meant to keep the 10:2 and you are meant to shuffle the hands while turning the steering wheel.


Keyless start works differently, for example. Also some don't have
a hand brake - only a switch operated parking brake. Putting it into
neutral and slowing with the foot brake is about the only thing
guaranteed to work on all cars.

--
--

Colin Bignell

On 23/07/2018 01:01, Bob Eager wrote:
On Sun, 22 Jul 2018 22:28:53 +0100, Brian Reay wrote:

No all cars have an Acc posn on the Ign switch.

Indeed. And keyless ignition is usually 'press the button and it all goes
off'

You could use the handbrake partially, ie not full on.

Electric handbrake? (IYSWIM)


Good point.

Our Outlander has a 'hold' function which is the closest to a handbrake-
and a P position on the 'gear' stick. I'm curious how they will test it
come the MOT in 2.5 years or so.

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Benefit or Personal Independence Payment when they don't need it? They
are depriving those in real need!

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On 22/07/2018 23:50, NY wrote:
"Brian Reay" wrote in message
news
You could use the handbrake partially, ie not full on.

Why use the handbrake at all, if the footbrake is still working fine?


Although you say below the car has no brake servo, I was thinking to
compensate for the loss of the brake servo vacuum with the ign off.



Over reving the engine is the lesser of the evils compared to a high
speed collision.

I was thinking in terms of a con rod breaking which would probably seize
the crankshaft which would be bad news with the energy of the large mass
of the flywheel having to be dissipated very rapidly as it came to rest,
possibly locking the transmission (even with the slight clearance of a
clutch pedal being pressed) and hence the wheels.

I don't know how fast an engine might turn if all the mechanical load is
removed at full throttle, and how much extra load this would place on
the con rods. Modern cars with fuel injection and and ECU would almost
certainly have a rev limiter. But the car I was driving was much older
than that, with a carburettor, so there would be no limit to the engine
speed, other than normal engine friction and the maximum fuel flow that
the carb could manage.

If the car is in neutral it won't lock the wheels.


If you just turned off the engine on a manual, in neutral, then turn
ign on,* you could steer without power steering and have basic brakes.

As it happens, the car no PAS and no servo brakes, so neither would have
suffered.


There can't be many of those around.


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In article ,
NY wrote:
This question was posed in a video reconstruction of an incident in the US.

You were offered three choices:

- yank on the handbrake
- put the car in neutral
- turn off the ignition

The "correct" answer was to put the car in neutral. Turning off the
engine would lock the steering. Pulling on the handbrake would lock the
rear wheels.

Total ********.

The steering doesn't lock until the key is removed.

No handbrake will lock the wheels while the car in is gear.

The answer is to turn off the ignition, but not remove the key. Leave the
car in gear. You will still have steering and brakes.

--
*If tennis elbow is painful, imagine suffering with tennis balls *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
wrote:
all the cars I had for decades* DO lock the steering with key in. I
gather many don't now.

Care to name the make and model? I've had lots of old cars. None *ever*
locked the steering until the key was removed. Including the very first
one I had which had been fitted with an aftermarket steering lock in the
60s.

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*I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.