Parking Brake Experiment
 

something had bothered me recently. the combination of the awkwardly placed on/ off parking brake by my right knee along with the awkwardly placed fog lights, front and rear, also by my right knee.

as such, hitting the handbrake in fog and coming to a sudden stop was something i thought might be possible. this led me to do a bit of research.

firstly, when driving tonight, i thought i'd see if it was possible to accidentally put the handbrake on whilst searching out either set of fog lights. i established quite quickly it would be quite hard to do. they feel very obviously different, i.e. a small button vs a large lever-button.

secondly, i thought i'd test out what would happen if i hit the handbrake whilst moving. i found a very quiet road, drove at about 15 mph and hit the handbrake. instead of being projected towards the windscreen, i was greeted by a pleasantly sounding alarm and the brake came on temporarily and went off immediately. i lost very little speed. i then tried it again. this time, i kept my hand on the button. the car kept braking and the alarm sounded until i took my hand off it.

anyway, checking the manual, it turns out if you hit the handbrake whilst the car is moving, the footbrake is applied i.e braking all 4 wheels. as you come to a stop, the brake is transferred to the rear wheels only.

so on the plus side, little chance of mistakenly causing a motorway pileup in fog. on the minus side, no handbrake turns in the snow!

The thing with the handbrake is that you no longer can pull it in case of emergency... I have saved a couple of times stupid light crashes with a car in front by pulling the handbrake (especially at low speeds and slippery surface -e.g. light shower- ABS gets in and prevents the braking...)

You can't do that with the XC60...

I still think the operation of the handbrake is counterintuitive when compared to a ‘normal’ handbrake. Also, I can’t understand why the switch for it is on the lower right, generally hidden by steering wheel etc, would have thought it would make more sense to have it near the gear lever on the central tunnel somewhere providinge a little commonality between R/H and L/H drive versions. But then I have never designed the inside of a car, did spend a lot of time doing the outsides on my school books years ago, non made it into production and I did get detention for wasting time in class...............

If you think it through it has to be pretty much where it is so no other pinkies can play with it!

I struggle to find it some days, also that German car company with 3-letters in their name, manage to get it to the middle of the car.

I thought that ABS assisted braking!!!!

on some surfaces, e.g. snow, ABS doesn't stop you quicker, it just allows you to keep control of the car by allowing you to use the steering when braking hard.

ABS prevents your wheels from blocking, by reducing the braking in the wheel that is about to block... This is of huge importance when braking at high speed, say 150 kph, and helps you maintain the control of the car...

In a sudden brake in slippery surface, at low speed (say 20-30 kph) there's is no threat of losing control. So, if your wheels block, braking distance is minimised. You step on the break, hoping your wheels to block, but ABS prevents that, and you end up kissing the rear bumper of the car in front of you...

But, if you had a handbrake....