PSA - set your emergency/parking brake

[Kodos]

Last night, right before the Super Bowl, I had an unusual experience. It had snowed about 5 inches, and I was shoveling the driveway before the game. My driveway slopes down about 2-3 feet over a length of maybe 30 feet. It's an incline, but not crazy steep.

I finished shoveling the top half of the driveway, and moved my Forester to the top of the driveway to make it easier to work on the bottom half. I put the car in park, got out, and resumed shoveling at the bottom. Two or three minutes later, I heard the sound of a vehicle moving in my driveway. I was expecting a pizza delivery, and was quite shocked when I turned to see that the Forester was rolling toward me. I briefly entertained trying to jump in and hit the brakes, but saw that would be impossible. The garage door was open with my Dad's car inside, and I had about 10 feet to work with, so I made contact and pushed on the front driver's side corner trying to slow it down a bit to minimize damage to the car/my house. Amazingly, that seemed to help, as the car went a little to the right (away from the side I was on) and gently nudged into the corner of the garage and stopped. I wasn't hurt, nor was the house. The Forester has a little bit of paint transfer, but no real damage. All in all, about the best outcome I could have hoped for. My impression was that the car was rolling, not sliding, and the tire tracks supported that impression. I could see the tire tread, not the flat ice you'd expect if it had been sliding. The top of the driveway was pretty clear of snow, and I had salted there before moving the car.

After a bit of googling, it appears this is not that unusual. I called the dealership, and talked to a guy in the shop who said he had seen similar things happen in their sloped parking lot.

The upshot is, don't just put the car in park and think things are all set. Put on the emergency/parking brake too. If I had had headphones on and hadn't heard the car rolling, it might have gone very poorly for me.

[Lathum]

I used to see it all the time when I worked in insurance.

I had a claim once where a guys kid was in the car. Started rolling down a hill picking up speed. Dude jumped in his other car ,hightailed it down the slope, and cut in front of the rolling car causing quite the mess but likely saving the young childs life.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I used to see it all the time when I worked in insurance.

I had a claim once where a guys kid was in the car. Started rolling down a hill picking up speed. Dude jumped in his other car ,hightailed it down the slope, and cut in front of the rolling car causing quite the mess but likely saving the young childs life.

Wow. That's a scary story, and a really good save by the father. Yikes.

[Ksyrup]

Your driveway slopes down into your garage? Isn't that an issue with rain?

Our builder did a terrible job grading our front yard, and as a result no water runs to the street - it runs sideways to the yard. But over time, as the driveway settled, it resulted in a 2-3 inch gap between the garage and driveway lip as water settled on the portions closest to the garage. So, we brought in a company to do a "slabjacking" to raise it up and seal the gap going into the garage and some cracks that had formed where the water settles.

It just sounds weird that you've got a driveway that slopes into your garage like that (if I'm picturing it correctly).

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Your driveway slopes down into your garage? Isn't that an issue with rain?

Our builder did a terrible job grading our front yard, and as a result no water runs to the street - it runs sideways to the yard. But over time, as the driveway settled, it resulted in a 2-3 inch gap between the garage and driveway lip as water settled on the portions closest to the garage. So, we brought in a company to do a "slabjacking" to raise it up and seal the gap going into the garage and some cracks that had formed where the water settles.

It just sounds weird that you've got a driveway that slopes into your garage like that (if I'm picturing it correctly).

The driveway flattens out and slightly rises going into the garage over the last 2 or 3 feet. The water stops about 2 feet from the garage and then channels to the side of the house and down a hill. We haven't had any trouble with it going into the garage. It does sometimes result in icy puddles at the bottom of the driveway.

[Butter]

Some newer cars have auto-parking brake on/off whenever you put it in/out of park. Highly recommend

[rjolley]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Last night, right before the Super Bowl, I had an unusual experience. It had snowed about 5 inches, and I was shoveling the driveway before the game. My driveway slopes down about 2-3 feet over a length of maybe 30 feet. It's an incline, but not crazy steep.

I finished shoveling the top half of the driveway, and moved my Forester to the top of the driveway to make it easier to work on the bottom half. I put the car in park, got out, and resumed shoveling at the bottom. Two or three minutes later, I heard the sound of a vehicle moving in my driveway. I was expecting a pizza delivery, and was quite shocked when I turned to see that the Forester was rolling toward me. I briefly entertained trying to jump in and hit the brakes, but saw that would be impossible. The garage door was open with my Dad's car inside, and I had about 10 feet to work with, so I made contact and pushed on the front driver's side corner trying to slow it down a bit to minimize damage to the car/my house. Amazingly, that seemed to help, as the car went a little to the right (away from the side I was on) and gently nudged into the corner of the garage and stopped. I wasn't hurt, nor was the house. The Forester has a little bit of paint transfer, but no real damage. All in all, about the best outcome I could have hoped for. My impression was that the car was rolling, not sliding, and the tire tracks supported that impression. I could see the tire tread, not the flat ice you'd expect if it had been sliding. The top of the driveway was pretty clear of snow, and I had salted there before moving the car.

After a bit of googling, it appears this is not that unusual. I called the dealership, and talked to a guy in the shop who said he had seen similar things happen in their sloped parking lot.

The upshot is, don't just put the car in park and think things are all set. Put on the emergency/parking brake too. If I had had headphones on and hadn't heard the car rolling, it might have gone very poorly for me.

Glad everything turned out well.

I put on the parking brake in my driveway all the time due to the steep grade it's at towards the street. I thought I was being overly cautious, but tales like this help confirm it's safer to take that extra step.

[tarcone]

We live on a hill near the top. When our house was being built, one of the builders truck was parked on the street and started rolling. It made it about 6 houses down before it went over the curb and ran into a couple cars in a driveway.

[Toddzilla]

You want to do this anyway because you want the parking brake keeping the car in place, not the transmission.

[Coffee Warlord]

I think the lesson here is move to where you don't have a sled hill leading towards your house.

[Qwikshot]

Glad you are safe.

Somehow during my years, I got into the habit of using the parking brake.

I am pretty sure most people don't think about it.

[21C]

My previous house had quite a steep slope down towards the garage/house. We had a drainage grate run the full length in front of the garage. Only had a problem when it got blocked with leaves - lazy me only realized when it rained hard.

When my mother was around 75+, she had trouble walking down the drive to our house. When she visited once, I offered to park her car at the bottom of the drive so that she didn't have to struggle walking back up the drive when leaving. I parked it in front of the house, facing up the driveway so she could drive straight out. Out of habit for me, I put it in Park and put on the parking brake. Apparently she never used the parking brake so she just started the car, put it in Drive and went home - with the brake engaged the whole time. Thankfully her neighbor noticed the smell when she got home and disengaged the brake.