I was using a rental car with an automatic gearbox. Since, here in the UK, manuals (“stick shift”) are more common, I am not so familar with automatics.
I wanted to know what I am supposed to do when stopped at traffic lights…my foot gets tired holding the brake, and I wanted to check that putting it in neutral and putting the handbrake on is the normal thing (versus park, or the engine braking gear, or whatever).
But…every combination of words I tried gave me results about left foot braking, or whether it is OK to coast in neutral.
I know my question was probably stupidly basic, but I was surprised at the trouble I had finding a clear answer on this.
Just how long are the lights in the UK?
Either you’re pushing much harder than needed to hold the car (or the ratio of pedal force to braking force is wildly off) or it might be the idle is too high.
Is this a car with automatic transmission and manual brakes? Because I’m having trouble with the concept of your finding it difficult to hold the car with the foot brake - even more so that you want to use the hand brake.
I would throw the transmission in neutral and keep my foot on the brake. (I once HAD to do this with a car that would stall if left in drive while stopped.) With the transmission in neutral, the brake pedal doesn’t need much pressure (stopped while on an extreme slope excepted.) It will tend to wear out the constant-velocity joints from the constant start-stop, so don’t jump on the gas pedal when you reengage the transmission.
I, too, am puzzled at the length of time you are sitting at traffic lights. Normal procedure is to hold the brake with your foot until it is time to resume driving. Just how hard are you squashing that brake pedal with your foot? You might be applying excessive force.
Most people who drive automatics would NOT put on the handbrake.
If I am stopped at a train crossing that looks as if it will take some time I put it into PARK, not neutral+handbrake. I suppose if said crossing involved a very steep hill I might put the hand brake on, but that would be a rare occurrence. When the train is passed I simply move the gear level to drive again.
For VERY long train crossings some people even turn their cars off entirely - we’re near a railroad hub so it does happen from time to time in my area.
You could use neutral+handbrake, I don’t see where it would cause a problem with an automatic transmission, it’s just not what most of us who drive them do.
I drive a manual transmission vehicle, but my gf’s car is an automatic. When I drive her car my problem is what to do with my left foot. It moves reflexively for the clutch, which isn’t there.
Ah perhaps I used a poor choice of words (this might also be why my googling is failing).
I mean I’m not used to my foot being raised the entire time, my right leg gets tired.
I want to put my right foot down on the mat for a few seconds while the car is stationary.
If I take my foot off the brake, it will creep forwards. So, what’s the normal thing to do – push footbrake → put into neutral → put handbrake on → release footbrake?
I’ve driven automatic vehicles my whole life and the normal thing has always just been to keep my foot on the brake at traffic lights. The only time I might do otherwise is at a long stop in a drive-thru or similar place where I know I’ll be stopped for minutes. In that case, I’ve either put the car in park or even shut off the engine.
The normal thing to do is put your foot on the brake and keep it there as long as you are stopped. You move your foot only when you want to go again. Anything else you want to do will be abnormal. The precise way you choose to be abnormal is up to you.
When I am at the pick-up window of a drive-thru I always put the transmission in park no matter the expected wait time. I had a couple cases where I was distracted by receiving the food and let up on the brake.
Well in that case, I drove the rental car in the perfectly normal way.
The only difference being, I kept thinking “this is annoying”.
I guess it’s one of those things like heel-down drumming…easy once you’ve developed the specific muscle, but a PITA before that.
One thing that might help Googling this is to substitute “emergency brake” for “handbrake”. In the U.S., the term “handbrake” is uncommon.
If I were in your shoes, and keeping the brake applied at ordinary traffic lights truly was regularly tiring my leg … I would put it in neutral and apply the handbrake/emergency brake. This is very much not the normal thing to do, at least in typical U.S. driving. But in the end, you need to do what makes you comfortable while maintaining safety on the road.
The ‘normal thing to do’ in U.S. automatic transmission driving is generally as Broomstick describes. For a lengthened stop (e.g. railroad crossing), most drivers will, as she describes, put an automatic car into Park.
Somewhat exceptionally, in this scenario and some others like it (e.g. waiting 3-5 minutes for my passenger in a convenience store parking lot), I will in fact put the car in Neutral and apply the emergency/hand brake. My understanding is that sustained running of an automatic transmission vehicle’s engine ‘against’ the resistance of the parking pawl is not good for that engine. Probably is not actually that big a deal, but ‘Neutral + emergency brake’ has become habitual for me in most ‘long stop’ situations.
The only reason I’d hesitate to put the car in park while in traffic is that you have to pass through reverse to get back to drive, and the flash of the brake lights might slightly confuse or concern the driver behind you.
The funny thing is all of my principal driving cars for the last 17 years have been manual transmissions. When I drive those cars, my brake foot behavior is exactly the same as in automatic cars. I suppose I could shift into neutral and take my foot off the brake but not when: (1) the slope is downward and I might roll forward, (2) the slope is upward and I might roll backward, (3) there are cars coming from behind who might hit me and push me into traffic, or (4) there are drivers behind me who might be confused if I suddenly take my foot off the brake and drive into my still-motionless car. IMHO, there is extraordinarily little rest to be gained from taking my foot off the brake pedal for a few seconds on the rare occasion when none of those four things is true. The amount of force it takes to hold a brake pedal down over a several hour drive seems to me less foot effort than walking a few blocks. I just can’t imagine worrying about having to hold the pedal down or being particularly fatigued by it.
“Parking brake” is the preferred term.
The pawl isn’t particularly stressed by running against the engine at idle. That is literally the exact load it is designed to hold, but it is also designed to hold the weight of the entire car on the steepest hills. I have never heard of a parking pawl breaking and I once did my best to break one on a car I was junking just to see if I could.
When you idle for a long time, whether in park or in drive (and having nothing to do with the operation of a pawl), there is some extra heat dumped into the torque converter. But any car automatic transmission than decades old should be able to handle the trivial amount of extra heat with no particular loss of durability. Worrying about this is like worrying whether you will wear out the light switches in your house faster if you turn the lights on or off too quickly.
More often than not, at ordinary stop lights – call it <60-75 seconds or so – drivers will dispense of the bolded steps. But I guess whether to put the car in Park at a traffic light can be a fairly individual thing.
Well in fairness, I know that many drivers in manuals also keep their foot on the brake. It’s handy when in a queue of cars, because I know other cars are about to pull off by their brake lights turning off
But when I was learning to drive, about 20 years ago, they taught us to use neutral and handbrake for any stop longer than a couple seconds. And I totally need that rest now. My left foot is obviously resting most of the time (even in manual you only need it when changing gear). But my right foot is always braking, accelerating, hovering over the brake or hovering over the accelerator, during normal driving. After more than a couple hours of this my right leg gets exhausted.
Bear in mind we’re talking UK roads, so you don’t get much chance to just stick at one fixed speed…it’s all chicanes and traffic…
I honestly don’t ever remember it being a PITA. You don’t have to hover your foot – I don’t have huge feet and I can hold the brake fine with my heel on the mat if I need to. I drive through tons of stop & go traffic, and when I’m in my wife’s automatic, it doesn’t get particularly tiring or anything. I just keep the heel on the mat, the top of my foot on the brake and rock as needed.
I drive the same in my manuals – shift to neutral when at a stop light, but I still depress the foot brake, not the hand brake (unless I’m on a hill – then I may use the hand brake.)
Was thinking about this the other way around – stressing the engine itself by sustained running in Park, not stressing the parking pawl. Probably not a big deal, all in all – just something I got in my brain sometime back and incorporated into my driving habits.
