Ad absurdum per aspera wrote:

> Reminds me of an evolution a few years ago in the town where my mother
> lives. The local shopping mall is built on a hillside, so part of the
> parking lot slopes downward to about a 5-foot retaining wall. The
> parking brake on this fellow's Lincoln wouldn't auto-release when he
> put the automatic transmission into Reverse. He got out and bent over
> to fumble for the release lever. The car was still in Reverse. You
> can see where this is going. As he sat on the ground howling over his
> smashed foot, the car went along its merry way without him until it
> went over the curb and down the retaining wall.

Can someone explain this to me. The only parking brakes I've
seen are hand-operated in the centre console, or foot operated
where the clutch pedal should be (in which case there is a
release lever in the centre console). Why would you get out of
the car to release it?

Secondly, why would you want a parking brake that auto-releases?
Isn't the idea of such a device to NOT automatically fail ? If you
want to park without a backup then just put the gearbox in Park
and don't pull on the parking brake.