Parking brake light comes on while I'm driving

Factual Questions
1

Background: My car is an '04 Saturn Ion Redline. It’s a stick shift. I bought it last August and have had no problems with it.

So, three days ago, I pulled out of a parking space at the mini mart. I let the parking brake out, drove out of the parking lot, and suddenly there was a chime and the parking brake light came on. I thought maybe I hadn’t let it out the whole way, so I pulled over, engaged the brake, made sure I let it out, and started off again. The same thing happened.

It’s been happening like that ever since. It’s fine when I start out, then down the road it chimes and the light comes on. Then last night, I put on my right turn signal, and it started chiming in rhythm with the signal. Stopped chiming when I turned the signal off.

I have an appointment at the garage, but in the meantime, is it safe to drive the car? The regular brakes work fine, the parking brake works, but I don’t know if the light and chime actually mean there’s something wrong with the car itself, or whether it’s something with the signaling system.

Anybody have any ideas?

2

Did you check the brake fluid level?

3

Yeah, on many cars the parking brake warning light doubles as the brake fluid level light. It’s often intermittent at first because the fluid sloshes around in the reservoir.

If it is just low fluid, that means you’ll be needing brake pads fairly soon (or you have a leak) so don’t just top it off and forget about it.