If you live in flatland and never tow, you’ll probably not ever going to need any of the lower gears. Driving through mountain country, though, it’s nice to have 3 & 2 so you don’t overtax your brakes.
Put it in park and always always always engage the parking brake no matter what the situation. It’s just a habit, you don’t what to have to think about this and make it a decision every time you park.
Both. Always. I’ve been driving for over 40 years and it’s too hard a habit to break, even if I wanted to.
I set the parking brake in my automatic car because it’s a handbrake next to me on the console. I used to drive a manual sedan of the same make, and always set the handbrake in that car because that’s what you do with a manual transmission, so I still do because I’m driving the same model car and it’s a habit.
My wife’s car OTOH has that godawful foot break with the pull release. I never set that unless the road is practically vertical.
Look using park on an automatic trans car will NOT fuck up the transmission. Period end of discussion.
Can the parking pawl break? sure it can I have seen it two or maybe three times in over 40 years of dinking with cars. On the other hand, I have seen hundreds if not thousands of cases where the rear brakes were worn out early from people forgetting to release the parking brakes and driving away. If there are X number of people in my customer group that apply the parking brake, it appears that the number of people that always remember to release it before driving away is 0.5X. On behalf of automotive technicians everywhere, let me say thank you, you have been putting our kids through college. We love you, and keep up the good work.
Also if you stop and think about it, if the brake is loose enough that the rear wheels turn when the car is in drive (and wears the brakes out quickly) it is too loose to actually stop the car if need be. :smack:
On the other hand, I think I have told this story before, but it is so good, I have to repeat it. About 10 years ago I was teaching in Vancouver BC. Techs came in one day telling me about this customer. Little old lady. Car was towed in. Two complaints.
- Car was very low on power
- Both rear tires were flat
yup you guessed it, she left the e brake on and drug the rear tires around until they wore through and went flat.
Personally I don’t use the parking brake on flat or nearly so ground. On grades I may use it. If I can turn the wheels to the curb and roll the car against the curb (or against a parking stop) I won’t. Other wise I will use the parking brake.
ETA: If I do use it, I pull it up with all of my might so it will stop the car.
I’m not sure if it has any actual basis in reality but for some reason I got it into my head that you have to set it for manual cars but not automatic. Although I might still set it on a particularly steep hill.
I’ll also note that what people call it (parking brake vs emergency brake) might influence how they tend to use it.
This might be the place to tell a funny story. I was at a convenience store in winter. The parking lot was very icy. My tires were spinning. I could not get out. Some Samaritans tried to help push my car. No dice. Too slippery. Put newspaper under the tires for traction. Still nothing. Finally I realized I had the parking brake on. I disengaged it sheepishly and reversed out easily…,
Well I know which 50% you are in. 
My WAG is that this happens most often when a car belonging to a person who does habitually use the parking brake is driven by someone who habitually doesn’t, or vice versa.
The car I have now (a 2007 Taurus, which has a cassette player so it’s not exactly state-of-the-art) dings at me if I try to drive it with the parking brake on. Surely by now many cars are made with this feature???
How strong is the handbrake, anyway? I have the impression it’s not as strong as the foot brake. In some rental auto cars I’ve seen, the handbrake was unable to prevent the car from creeping along!
How long is a piece of string? 
More than you want to know in the following:
Being mechanical, a handbrake’s only as strong as the connections are tight and supple. But the cables continually work loose, or grow rusty and clogged with dirt from no use at all and seize.
Foot-pedal mechanical brakes had the same problems and required constant maintenance. Mechanical foot brakes were like mechanical handbrakes but an even bigger pain in the ass — and likely only two-wheel.
When I was a kid I was told an anecdote about cops who had some kind of meter they routinely used to check the stopping power of a car’s mechanical brakes, but I’m not sure how it worked. A cop would stand on the running board and read a hand-held meter when the driver hit the brakes. In the anecdote told in the first person but that sounds like an urban myth, the cop was too dumb to realize the car had hydraulic brakes and was thrown off the running board onto his head when the car stopped on a dime. If true, though, it would illustrate how poor mechanical brakes are.
Maybe the brake-testing meters, if they existed, worked like a rangefinder camera, with distances in feet until the car stopped linked to the rangefinder, which might explain the running-board routine if the cop had to point the thing at a tree or a sign or purpose-built marker erected at a given distance.
The oldest car I’ve driven was a 1932 Pontiac. The salesman at the dealership selling it in the mid '70s said I could drive it on the lot (knowing I had no intention of buying it). I asked whether it had mechanical or hydraulic brakes. He didn’t know, so I didn’t shift it out of second, not that there was much room left on the lot for third anyway.
The brakes were appalling. This says they were mechanical, 1935 being the year Pontiac introduced hydraulic brakes.
Rear brakes worn out from dragging them is far too common to be from Fred borrowing Bob’s car.
People are, as a group, idiots about cars. Actual conversation with a customer:
Cust: There was a warning light on yesterday
Me: which one?
Cust: I don’t know
Me: is it on now?
Cust: no
Me: what color was it? Red, orange, or green?
Cust: I don’t know just fix it.
Not all cars have chimes for the e brake (most don’t in my experience) and frankly I think that there are some people that would drive away listening to it anyway.
Further proof that the fact 99% of people can (and most do) get a Driving License is wrong! :smack:
Usually always for the following reasons:
1 - Had a car which I didn’t and it ‘froze up’ which the time I needed it during a ferry crossing it worked but didn’t release - Cable was so badly rusted inside that the cable housing shrunk from rust so that it grabbed the cable. At this time I lived in flatland along side the ocean (salt water) and also had some snow (road salting)
2 - Had a car where using the E-brake adjusted the rear brakes
3 - Had a automatic car that would not go into Park, so just could access R,N,D,2,1 and would park and start the car in N.
4 - Now live in 3d world (not flatland anymore 
) and most parking surfaces including my driveway have some slope to them.
I’m sure there are other reasons too
I probably have a rare “other” answer. I will often pull up the handbrake to get at the change bin underneath it and subsequently forget to disengage it.
I always use the parking brake. I don’t really understand what “automatic transmission” and “flat vs uneven land” have to do with it. If I’m getting out, the parking brake is on, every car, every time, everywhere.
I’ve seen the handbrake used once in my life that I can remember and frankly, the guy who used it overreacts to situations.
Well, the only time I drive an automatic is when renting a car in the US…The** brake** gets set because I always set the brake when I park my own vehicles which are all manual transmissions.
It requires concentrated effort on my part NOT to set the brake. On one of my cars, the brake will stick if set after driving in wet freezing conditions. Water gets into the cable housing and freezes, and the return springs in the brakes are not strong enough to** break** it loose. I can think about this as I am pulling into the driveway, and still end up setting the damned** brake** 5 seconds later.