Park brake

[Mark Brader]

In view of some previous threads, I thought this might interest some
people here.

This morning (well, yesterday morning now), I rented a car for the
day. It was a Chevy Impala, a model I've driven before, but a newer
model year, presumably a 2015.

I drove it away from the rental office, where as usual they hadn't
bothered to set the parking brake while the car was in their lot,
and drove home and parked[1] to pick up some things. The shifter was
between the front seats, so I reached for the handbrake lever behind
it -- and it wasn't there. I then felt around with my left foot --
no parking brake there either!

This was a bit disconcerting. I shifted into Park and began looking
for some control in a new location, and after a minute or so I spotted
the (P) icon. On this car the parking brake control is on the lower
left corner of the dashboard and is operated by *one finger*.

It's the same kind of
switch as is used for power windows these days. To apply the parking
brake, you pull it and wait a few seconds; to release it, you step
on the foot brake to activate the control, then push it and wait a
few seconds.

The mechanism is quiet enough that I couldn't hear it with the heater
fan on a medium setting. Activation is indicated by the (P) icon
flashing on the instrument panel, and completion is indicated by a
message reading, if I remember correctly, either

Park brake applied. [2]

[Dismiss] [3]

or

Park brake released.

[Dismiss]

as applicable.

ObAUE: Note the form "Park brake". I initially assumed that this
was an abbreviation for "Parking brake", used to save space, but then
I realized that there was lots of room to extend the message onto
another line if they'd wanted to. So maybe they actually think it
should be called that.

I must say I did not like this form of control. Not only was it one
more thing to go wrong, it also meant I had no control over how hard
the parking brake was applied [4]. Later in the day I parked in my
driveway, which is on about a 15% grade. Most cars will hold on that
grade with the parking brake alone if firmly applied, but with this
one, as soon as I released the foot brake it moved back until the
Park gear stopped it.

[1] Actually, under Ontario law I wasn't parked, I was standing,
because I was only stopped as long as necessary to load the
things. Or, at least, as long as necessary to find the parking
brake and then load the things. And this mattered, because
I was on the street in front of the house and that's a
no-parking zone.

[2] I'm not sure if the "." was present or not.

[3] That notation makes it look as if that part of the instrument panel
was a touchscreen, as the control panel for the radio and whatnot was.
I didn't try pressing on the word [Dismiss] to see if anything
happened; there was a button on the steering wheel, marked with
a check mark, that dismissed the messages. They also dismissed
themselves after a few seconds.

[4] Just like when they replaced plungers with launch buttons on
pinball machines.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "What Europe needs is a fresh, unused mind."
m...@vex.net | -- Foreign Correspondent

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[Mark Brader]

Mark Brader:

> In view of some previous threads, I thought this might interest some
> people here.

Oops, wrong "here". I intended to post to another newsgroup. Sorry.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Police Stop Slaying Suspect Look-alikes"
m...@vex.net | --Yakima, WA, Herald-Republic, 2001-08-26