Gears can stop runaway cars

You hear time and time again about vehicles running away while parked up where people are killed or injured particularly on steep gradients.

I am a fully trained motor vehicle technician and I hope the following advice will help people in improving road safety.

When a vehicle is parked up the hand brake should be applied the engine turned off and the vehicle, if a manual gearbox type, should be left in gear, preferably first or reverse, by doing this the clutch system acts as a second handbrake making the vehicle far safer with less chance of running away.

If the vehicle is of an automatic gearbox type it should left in the park position on the gearshift.

The reason why most vehicles run away is that after travelling some distance the disc brakes heat up and expand due to usage and when the handbrake alone is applied the brake pads only grip the expanded discs, then after a period of standing the discs cool off and contract causing the pads to have less grip on them, this combined with the weight of the vehicle is very dangerous particularly on steep gradients where time and time again you hear about vehicles of all types running away causing serious injuries or death.

A simple solution to this is when parking up a vehicle leave it in gear also, this will vastly improve the safety of all vehicles. I hope the advice I offer will go some way to helping avoid any future accidents, I can assure you it does work.

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