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Comment by GekkePrutser | Hacker News Reader

> Plaintiff Rose drove the Ferrari slowly home and pulled into the driveway of his residence at approximately 10 miles per hour in first gear. When he attempted to press the brake pedal nothing happened. Plaintiff Rose’s 2020 Vehicle continued moving forward into his yard with Plaintiff Rose continually trying to press the brakes but the brakes would not engage. Plaintiff Rose frantically released his seat belt, opened the driver’s side door and jumped out of the moving vehicle just before it entered the 20-foot-deep pond behind his residence and sunk to the bottom.”

This sounds like a case where the handbrake could have helped a lot. When I still owned cars they had to be cable operated precisely to have a backup against hydraulic failure. Perhaps this is no longer the case.

But stopping a car going 10mph with a handbrake doesn't seem far-fetched.

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Putting the car in neutral should be tried first, since it disconnects the engine from the wheels.

Handbrake stops the wheels immediately. At 10mph might not be that bad but still, neutral is the safest bet IMO

An actual old-school handbrake can be engaged gradually. One reason I'm not fond of the new automatic parking brake systems.

You're right. If you ever lose your brakes get the car in neutral and try to coast to a stop.

That said, he had his foot on the brake so I assume he had the clutch in

The episode of CHiPs that demonstrates this procedure was later cited as a source by police officers who encountered a vehicle with a similar problem.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/feb/03/usa.stevenmorr...

No clutch to press. This was a Ferrari 488 GTB which has an automatic transmission.

It must have good torque in first gear?

oh interesting. When the article said he was in first gear and the poster above mentioned a handbreak I assumed he had a stick

So automatics don't have a handbrake in the US? Weird. I had a Volkswagen Jetta automatic from work for a while (7 speed DSG) and it definitely had a traditional pull-up handbrake. But perhaps US is different.

The automatics I have driven had either that or a foot-operated handbrake to the left of where the clutch pedal would normally be. I wouldn’t pretend to know how a Ferrari does it though.

--- this guy has a video of him pulling the parking break while driving his Ferrari (because they told him to...!) - looks like it's a lever on the dash area --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzRpo8EjG8Q

Video should be called 'driver with actual official driver license learns for the first time that brakes stop the car'.

Oh ok I assumed incorrectly that being sports cars, all Ferraris are manuals.

intersting assumption. most sports cars don't even include a manual option these days.

I thought "sports" meant racing and the driver wanting to have maximum control over their gears?

But I'm from Europe, pretty much all cars here are manual, not just the sports ones.

The car in question uses a dual clutch transmission. You can operate it in either automatic or manual mode. In manual mode you're selecting the gears yourself using paddle shifters. But there's no clutch pedal.

The automatic mode is technically "automatic-manual" in that it operates differently than a true automatic transmission. The computer shifts gears in lieu of you using the paddle shifters. It tends to be slightly jerkier than a true automatic.

These days its extremely rare to find a new-release supercar with a stick-shift manual. They almost all use dual-clutch paddle shifters.

A sports car paddle shifter is never called "automatic", hence GP's confusion.

It's semi-automatic, or more commonly known as sequential transmission. It's closer to a stick-shift than a manual transmission, as you have to manually upshift and downshift. Only the clutch is automated.

at least in america a sports car would be a car like the toyota supra. Which only added a manual this year. Didn't offer it before. same with many bmw's etc.

Maybe its a good idea at 10mph, but in general you can use transmission to stop a car by gradually switching to a lower (but not neutral) gear.

This is an extremely bad advice. In fact, you should do exactly the opposite - on AT, shut down the engine without touching the selector (there is a chance that AT won't disengage), and on MT, shut down the engine and switch to the lowest gear.

When the engine is not started, the kinetic energy of the car is spent to keep the crankshaft rotating and pistons moving. It stops MUCH faster this way.

This may not be such a good choice.

If you turn the ignition all the way off (instead of just the engine) the steering lock may engage. Additionally you will also lose power steering and the brake assist. I guess the latter doesn't matter much in this scenario, but the steering lock could result in a really bad time.

Excellent point. I also think that one needs extraordinary presence of mind to think about this and it's not exactly easy to train for. After this conversation I'll still add engine turn-off to my toolbox with a caveat: immediately return the ignition key to the first level to avoid steering lock.

With enough kinetic energy, you don't need to hit the starter position for the engine to restart. You're effectively push starting it at that point. I've done this on a chevy V8 in neutral/park. The engine takes long enough to spin down that if you apply the power to the distributor ( putting the key to "run" ) before it hits Zero rpm ( actual, not measured ) it'll restart because you still have fuel and compression.

lol - none of these new POS cars have keys. It's all electronic and pushbuttons. Good luck!

I'm too poor to understand that reference.

Not really. Because a handbrake works on the back wheels only, it's far from effective stopping a car at speed. It's not like you'll be face smashing the windscreen, it takes a really long time to stop and you have to be careful to not overdo it and lock the back wheels. It's really a last resort thing.

However it should be sufficient to stop a car from 10mph in short order. Especially on a Ferrari with its big wide tyres.

On my old cars I've often engaged it in my driveway while still moving. And of course one would press the clutch when getting close to stop :) before that the engine will actually help brake.

Honestly that sounds like a really intense moment for the guy LOL! Like one minute you're pulling into your driveway, the next your car is at the bottom of a pond.

Well, he already knew the brakes didn't work if I understand it correctly. I would have approached a stop really carefully..

There's a Ford F250 Super Duty pickup in my driveway about 5 feet from the garage door, that only stopped because of the parking brake. So, yeah, you're right :-)

Gotta fix that thing one of these years...

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