Near miss!
 

A neighbour just banged on my window with a look a panic on her face

What on earth is the matter I thought?

Do you have a red Rover she asked with a panic?

Oh no I thought, what on earth now?

Its rolling down the hill headed toward the main road she said.

What the ****!

....and could I find my keys...:mad:

Anyway caught her just in time 2 foot from the main very busy road!!!! :eek:

Hand break is a little bit dodgy at times but I usually put her in reverse gear whilst parked....guess I forgot earlier:duh::duh:

Amazing that it didnt hit A SINGLE THING!!:bowdown:

This is the slope she creeped down :eek:

https://the75andztclub.co.uk/forum/a...5&d=1563308704

She's now parked with wheels turned into the kurb and in reverse :rolleyes:

Ouch, glad you caught it:}

So am I!

Someone was watching over me :innocent:

It could of hurt someone:bowdown:

Best get a compensator methinks :o

Wow !! A near miss indeed !! So glad all was OK 👍👍

Time to buy a lottery ticket ;)

Phew.....that could have been worse!

Think you owe your neighbour a bottle of wine !

Many years ago l parked my company Transit-type Mercedes van outside a bakers to get a pasty & a roll. Snack purchased l exited the shop to find an empty space where l thought l'd left the van. I looked down the gently sloping high Street (Ongar in Essex) & spotted it on the opposite side of the road hard up against the substantial stone doorstep of a straight-onto-the-street house. No-one around it & no wrecked cars (parked or otherwise) or angry/injured people to tell of it's recent progress from its temporary resting spot up the street. The road curved to the left which was the main reason it had come to rest where it had, completely on the wide pavement at an angle from the undamaged house, with the nearside front wheel pushed well-back by the impact with the large hunk of granite.
Anyway l knocked on the door & a lady answered it to me & my stranded van. She expressed mild surprise at the sight & exclaimed that she hadn't heard a thing.
l asked if l could use her phone & ended up in her lounge with a cup of tea & her child(ren?), there may have been two, phoning the company to arrange recovery & l'm pretty sure the police too. Then her husband arrived home possibly while the police were there to have the situation related to him. It was all taken in very good part & everyone was aware that the episode could have ended with far, far worse repercussions than it had & when the recovery man turned up he expressed the view more than once that l should 'go out on the pull' that very evening as it was my lucky day, and l was inclined to agree with him.
No fault was found with the handbrake & l have no idea how it released it's grip. I exited the van in no great rush & it was there as l walked to the shop. It picked the right time to do what it did though as no-one at all even saw it's short, unoccupied journey. Well, no-one who found the sight unusual enough to remark on it anyway.
The manager arranged a disiplinary meeting with myself & the union rep' but he forgot to turn up so no more was said about it.

A similar thing happened to me about 10 years ago. I visited my daughter in my Renault master van. After about half an hour my daughter looked out of the window and asked "where is your van?" I jumped up and stared at the empty space where I had parked it. We ran outside and looked around, it was down the hill. It had rolled backwards about 300 yds and come to a halt right in the middle of a crossroads. The road levelled off slightly at the crossroads, before dropping downhill again to a t junction with a very busy road with a 50 mph limit:eek:

As the road had levelled out a bit the handbrake must have been just enough to bring it to a halt. But there it was, right in the middle of a crossroads, with cars driving around it. As I walked towards it, I observed the strange looks drivers were giving it. I waited till nobody was around before jumping in and driving it back to my daughter's house lol. :D

We lived in Hastings in my teenage years and I took my test there. We were always taught to leave the vehicle in gear when parked. Hastings is very hilly and there were plenty of incidences of handbrake “failure”.

This was usually put down to human error and/or hot brakes when parking, cooling down so that friction becomes impaired and the handbrake then slips just enough to allow gravity to move the car down the slope.

The cars would often simply creep down the hill as the handbrake was applied but it’s efficiency had fallen off as it cooled down.

Given the issues with our cars handbrakes I’m glad I always leave mine in gear - old habits die hard and starting the car with clutch fully depressed is normal for me.