How do you apply your handbrake?

[Moby-Dick]

/\ on both Jag's Mr Prescott?

Just the one Mrs Wembley

[AlexGTR]

I always pull it up with the button and make sure its not on too tight there is no need for excess tension on it.

[Barry]

I just lift the handle a few inch until I feel it tighten

[Rave]

I push the button in, but it's a habit I only developed a few years ago after my father in law used to constantly moan about me not doing so when I was driving his car. Since the only other option would have been to let him drive and thus suffer his atrocious driving*, I reluctantly complied.

I think the IAM recommend pulling the button in in order to avoid wearing out the ratchet. It seems pretty damned unlikely to me but I suppose it's just possible that it could wear to the extent that the handbrake releases accidentally.

*33mph on the M25, for example.

[Lowe]

I do a bit of both. Button in to take the majority of the travel, then click the last one or two. Just had the rear brakes changed and handbrake adjusted so it's pretty much a just a couple of clicks now.

[DanceswithUnix]

I do the clicky thing, but then I like to annoy people. Even when there's no-one there.

lol, now that I like. Almost tempting to let the handbrake off and then try again, just to make sure.
Even with no-one in the car, the neighbours should appreciate the effort

[Konan555]

Stop
Trans in to neutral keeping foot on the brakes.
Apply hand brake.
Release brakes
Engine off
Shift to park.

That way I'm sure that the vehicle is at rest on the brake and not the parking pawl.

However, if it then rains, I then have to drive the first 300 yards with my left foot on the brake to clear the drums off else it's instant lock up at the back! Quality all round.

[finlay666]

33mph on the M25, for example.

Damn thats fast, fastest I had been when I (rarely) used it was 20-25mph!

[RockGod117]

Park car.
Open boot.
Remove bricks.
Place bricks behind appropriate wheels.
Job done. (Sometimes I close the boot after)

[Rave]

Damn thats fast, fastest I had been when I (rarely) used it was 20-25mph!

It was about 8.30 at night, and chucking it down. A sedate 50 would have been perfectly acceptable for a cautious driver. But an indicated 33, I.E. probably 30 in reality? I was absolutely bricking it that we'd get shunted up the back by an HGV.

A few months later he (with my wife and MIL as passengers) had an almighty shunt on another motorway when a car merging from a slip road clipped his nearside front and spun him sideways into the middle lane whereapon the car was t-boned by a Transit. My wife and MIL sustained soft tissue damage that took weeks to recover from. He was knocked unconscious, had to be cut from the wreckage (complete roof off job) and never worked again. Over 5 years later they have just settled with the other driver's insurance company (for an apparently substantial sum).

He was adjudged to have been completely not at fault, but put it this way- I can't imagine a situation whereby I would be sideswiped by a driver merging from a sliproad- I just wouldn't be in that position, generally because I would have moved over to the middle lane to allow the joining cars to merge- and if that wasn't possible, I'd be covering the brake.

The irony was that he drove 7 1/2 tonners for a living and apparently never had a problem. In a car though- complete nightmare!

[cubiter]

Button in, apply handbrake, on the manual car, but into park only on the auto (because it's rarely driven and I don't want the pads locked on)

[Million]

I press the button. Also, when I was learning my instructor told me that there's no sense in pulling up the handbrake as hard as you can because it doesn't apply any more force to the brakes. Don't know if that was true or not, he was French after all...

[Golden Dragoon]

In general it is how far you pull it that determines the force, not how hard you pull it so he was right on that.

[JamieH]

I always was told to press the button in and pull up. I do tend to put it on far too tight though as I like things safe.