Modern Life is Rubbish

[Doobs]

I have got a new car.  It has an electric handbrake.  What the hell is the point with an electric handbrake?  I have driven cars for about 30 years now.  I could do a hill start without even thinking about it, I would stop apply the handbrake automatically.

Now I am a nervous wreck when stopping on a slope.  I have no idea whether the thing is on or off.  The car seems to disconnect it at random so that I start rolling back towards the car behind before getting the revs right.  Other times I overrev it like I passed my test last week. The other day I was parked at the end of a row on a slight slope.  Some bastard parked on the double yellows in front of me and I genuinely fought there was a really good chance I wouldn't be able to get out without hitting one of them... And it really was the slightest slope.

I am sure there must be a knack and I'll get used to it, but the old manual handbrake seemed to be a thing that just did its job and worked well.

[DaveShoelace]

While I can't wait for electric cars to come in and relieve me of driving alltogether, I'm with you. My car is quite new and has a ton of computery features, which I mostly love. However, a couple of months back I got in it one day and the steering wheel had completely locked and wouldn't move at all. The next day thankfully it worked again, so I took it into the garage and they told me it was an error with the software in the computer, and they downloaded something that fixed it.

All well and good, but what if that had happened while I was driving it? They claimed that wouldn't happen, but when I bought the thing they claimed that the initial problem wouldn't happen either.

That said, it does have some really good features for listening to music, which will be nice for my final few moments before the car gets taken over by a hacker and drives me into a lake.

[Longines]

Amen. Hired a car last month with one, its sole purpose seemed to be to engage when I didn't want it to and vice versa.

I'm now in another hire car which has a neat trick, if it senses that if you stop on a sufficiently steep incline it will continue to hold itself on the brakes for a second while you move your foot from brake to clutch.

[RED-DOG]

I had this problem 30 years ago when they introduced air handbrakes on lorries.

I was used to having a big fuck off lever and when I moved it I could actually tell how hard the brake shoes were pressing on the drum. I could pull it on tight and let it off slowly. Then they replaced it with a little switch that had just two positions, instantly fully on or instantly fully off, no touchy feely feed back at all.

It took ages to get used to it. You have my sympathy.

[RED-DOG]

They should make everything like Dave's Merlo. It has hydrostactc transmission.

You only need one foot to drive it. Press the pedal and it goes, press harder and it goes faster, press softer and it goes slower, even if your going down a big hill it will slow, let your foot off altogether and it will stop. The accelerator, clutch and brakes are all controlled with the one pedal.

[atdc21]

Linde forklift trucks used to work on the principal that you had a forward pedal ,and a reverse pedal. to stop you 'simply' took your foot off either pedal. All very well but when you are used to pushing a brake pedal down to stop it can cause carnage, as i have found out . Initial reaction is to hit the other pedal and you end up going forward and back like a loonie.