I drove around the local mall for 30 minutes, never noticing the light on my dash or the draggy “your brake is on” feeling. I usually don’t set the parking brake because I drive an automatic but I was in Pittsburgh and it’s all hills there. Oops.
Anybody else?
I’ve gone a block or two in a rental car a few times. Usually it’s one of those situations where you release the brake, but it doesn’t let go all the way (maybe it’s one notch from the bottom). In all of the cars that I’ve owned myself in the last 10 years, they either give a loud warning beep, or they have electrical parking brakes that release themselves when you really try to drive away, so it would be really hard to do it without noticing.
About two blocks. My parking brake on that car wasn’t very “tight” or whatever the term is, so I didn’t feel much drag or anything. Since I started driving automatics I got into the (BAD) habit of not using my parking brake (I’ve started using it again recently, trying to retrain myself) and the first time, way back when we were first dating, that I drove my now-husband’s car, a manual transmission, I pulled out of the parking lot and into the (thankfully empty, dark, at night) street and there was this weird grinding awful sound and the car was feeling really weird. He was like “what is that?” and I said “I don’t know?” and we pulled over for a minute, and he quickly looked under the hood, during which time I noticed the parking brake was on :smack: which I hadn’t even THOUGHT of since I had gotten out of the habit of using them. When he got back in the car shrugging that he didn’t see anything, I said, well, let’s see if it’s still doing it… and pulled back into the road, with the brake off this time, and amazingly, the problem stopped! I never told him what happened, because I was so embarrassed. Maybe I’ll tell him today. It’s been 7 years, he’ll think it’s funny by now. He doesn’t even own that car anymore.
Damn, I just missed that wonderous change in car engineering. My car is 11 (almost 12) years old. Shit.
About a mile :smack:
We were caretaking Phil’s place, needed to move his car, so I put it into D, and drove off. SOmething buzzed then shut off, not my car, so ?. Finally I noticed that for a V6 it was pretty slow, then I noticed the parking brake was up - :eek:
WHy he uses the parking brake in an automatic 
My mechanic never uses the PB, no matter what it is…maybe I don’t need to either?
Not very - less than ten feet, I 'm sure. It’s very noticeable when it’s on.
Joe
Far enough for my friend and I to start wondering what that burning smell was. I’d guess 1.5-2 miles?
Never more then a foot or two in forward.
In my stick shift car, releasing the brake was a matter of habit so it never happened there. In an automatic car, I may have done it by accident if I set it for some strange reason. Normally I don’t feel the drag when I go in reverse but as soon as I put it in gear it’s usually pretty obvious.
The only time I’ve gone more then a foot or so is when I’ve left the brake on when driving a forklift. For some reason about once a year I’ll forget about it and leave it on for a few minutes wondering why it feels so sluggish.
About four inches. I tend to park in such a way that I have to back out, and my car won’t go anywhere in reverse gear with the parking brake engaged.
To the doctors office in the next town over - probably less than 10 miles. It was my dad’s truck, with a foot set brake. I couldn’t figure out why there was smoke until I parked and went to set the brake.
I never told him (he doesn’t have that truck anymore anyway) and it was a crappy truck to start with.
About 12 miles to the dealership; it had gotten stuck partially on and I just couldn’t kick it free.
With my parking brake on? Never.
With my husband’s parking brake on? Well… (He’s a Doper, but I’ve never told him this before.) It was only a couple of blocks, and there didn’t seem to be any ill effects.
If you’re reading this, Dear, we no longer have the car.
I don’t drive, but recently my girlfriend drove with her parking brake on for almost 30 miles. Her vehicle is old enough not to having a warning light or ding. We were worried her transmission was going out, since the car seemed to be dragging at the time. Neither of us thought to check the parking brake until we got back to my house.
Let me make this perfectly clear. This is the maximum distance that I could have moved with the parking brake on.
I’m sure it happened to me long ago and I never “drove” with it on. I now drive an automatic and don’t park with the emergency brake engaged. What I do is periodically activate the brake several times before moving just to keep the cables free. I leave it engaged and put the vehicle in reverse and see how it holds. I want the brake to be available to me if necessary. I drive an older vehicle and have experienced brake line failure before. It’s handy to have an alternate means of stopping the vehicle from rolling. A parking brake won’t equal regular brakes, but it can help along with pumping the brakes. It takes practice to use two foot brakes at once.
My friend and I once drove a rental car for almost 40 minutes before noticing anything was wrong.
In our defense, we had spent the previous night on the floor of an airport.
After we got back from the trip, I was reviewing our pics and videos - I was watching the first video we had taped - inside the car, with me prattling on about how weird Greek radio and is and how lovely the scenery was - and in the background, you can very clearly see a red light blinking on the dashboard.
We ended up paying several hundred euros for the damages.
About an hour. Wasn’t my car, though. It was my boyfriend’s mom’s. I was 18 at the time. Whoops!
Me? A few feet.
But one time I was in BC to do some training. A couple of my students told me they had gotten a tow in the day before with two complaints. Both rear tires were flat and the car was very sluggish that day.
Yup, the owner had put the PB on so tight that it the rear tires did not rotate at all. The car was FWD and dragged the rear tires until they went flat.
I had a hard time believing this, but I had the same model car at the training center. So I tried it. Yes you can drag the tires on an S40.
a few feet in my old car; but the parking brake wasn’t really “applied” since the cable was stretched. the handle was on the first “notch” but the shoes weren’t contacting the little “drum-inside-rotor” in the back, and after I moved a yard or two the cluster chime started browbeating me.
sure, but how could they not have heard that?
You would be amazed at the things people ignore on their cars.
You would swear they were auditioning for a remake of the movie Clueless.
A couple of hours.