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Warning - the second video is kind of graphic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61lRd5fLHyo

Don't know if this video was posted here earlier, but this is a very small collection of two wheeler idiots at their finest.

Oh my God! In the second video, when i saw the truck approaching i kept thinking someone please don't turn at the junction and that's exactly what happened! :(

One of the comments in that video made sense:
"Blind people should not ride"!!!

It never ceases to amaze me just how little we value our life and how much faith we put in others to save our lives while on the road.

Uneventful but scary accident. Foot brake behaves differently with / without ignition being switched on.

I am writing this post to share my experience. Most important what I learnt could be information for someone to be aware about how a foot brake behaves and save someones life or limb.

By God's mercy was saved from ending up in an accident which I witnessed and could have been fatal for my family and self.

Did not take any pictures, was concerned about the driver's (Swift which led to the accident) state of mind and misery. My conscience did not allow me to.

Had gone out with my wife and son for shopping and stopped in front of a bakery.

Where we stopped the car, it's a busy road. Has a bus stop on the other side, vehicles and pedestrians keep crossing. I parked the car within the white shoulder line.

The front of the bakery has about a 30 degree incline. There were 2 cars parked on the incline, a Blue Swift (brand new) and a Honda Amaze. Both with back towards the road.

I stopped behind the Swift and my wife stepped out and went into the bakery. For 'SOME REASON - I BELIEVE GOD'S MERCY' I moved my car and parked behind the Amaze. Don't know why I did that, realized it later.

While waiting with my son in the car, I observed all the vehicles and pedestrians moving by. On my right on the other side a KSRTC bus stopped for passengers. I observed an old lady close to 70 years walking towards me and walk past the right fender, right front door, right back door... and then...

all this while I was looking ahead, in my peripheral vision towards my left I saw the blue Swift move backwards and suddenly gain speed, came down the incline, went behind my car, crossed the road and rammed into the KSRTC bus parked on the other side. It all happened in a jiffy. In an instant I turned to my right worried and trying to search for the old lady who had a moment before walked towards the back of my car on the right. She was standing near my cars rear right quarter glass. Safe, thank god. She turns back and comes back to me and says, I just walked away from certain death.

Then I realized (thanked God a lot many more times) at that specific moment a lot of people including the passengers in the Swift, pedestrians, vehicles crossing, my wife, my son, me were at God's Mercy. Coz in that instant when the Swift was rolling back like a bullet a lot of human beings could have been in it's way. The old lady if she had been in the spot a moment earlier. If I had not moved my car forward. My wife while stepping out or returning could have been in the way. Only damage was to the bus and the car which is reversible, unlike life.

That could have been a scene in the movie Final Destination.

What could have gone wrong?
Two things and I believe it's the 2nd one:
1. The driver turned on the car and accidentally accelerated, while was supposed to manage the brake to reverse the car down the incline.

2. The driver released the hand brake and moved the car into neutral, without switching on the ignition. In such a situation one thing most of us do not realize is that the foot brakes are hard and they do not function normally. It's only when the ignition is turned on the Brake Boost Assist activates and the foot brakes become easier to operate. This information, no one ever is told or made aware. Most driver's realize out of their own experience.

The Swift driver got confused because probably such an experience of a hard foot brake happened for the 1st time, the brakes could not be suppressed and combined with that was the fact the car was moving backwards. All the more scary and confusing.

In such a situation either the driver could pull back the hand brake or step on the foot brake hard or start the ignition. All these can happen only in an ideal situation and that's why such moments are called accidents.

My question to the experts in the group.
Why cannot the brake boost assist be wired to remain active always even without the ignition being turned on?
If I remember correctly in my dad's old Premier Padmini the foot brake behaved the same with / without the ignition being turned on. Yes it used to be hard comparatively always but there was no element of surprise.

Is it a design flaw and if so what would it take manufactures to correct it. Even if power steering, power windows, accessories do not function without the ignition being turned on, the brakes should function normally default. Brakes are the last thing which should have an element of surprise. Accidents could be avoided.

Two things I learned and want to share:
1. Never ever park behind vehicles which are on an incline and while driving on an incline keep a very safe distance from the vehicle in the front, especially if the vehicle is large or load bearing.
2. In a parked vehicle (incline or no incline) never release the hand brake before turning on the ignition.

Missing information:
Lot of drivers may not realize the brakes behave different with / without the ignition being turned on and will only know about it when in a tricky situation and by then it could be too late. While the instruction manual may mention it somewhere, but the nature of this information is crucial. Even driving school instructors rarely pass on this information. I myself realized it through an experience on an incline. Right after the accident I demonstrated the behaviour to my wife and son.

Another element of surprise is when ABS activates on hard braking which usually is in a tricky accident like situation, a knocking sensation is felt through the brake pedal in the leg pushing down the brake pedal. While that's normal and is due to the valve in the brake line repeatedly opening and shutting to avoid brakes locking. The driver would find it surprising, may also feel there is something wrong with the brakes and release the brake pedal leading to a crash. Driver's are not made aware or do not have a source of information to realize this behavior and may end up learning about it just before leading up to an accident.

I believe my experience would make others realize (who are currently unaware) how a foot brake behaves differently. Also if my request for making brakes behave normally default is valid, is there some way to represent the same to manufacturers and in appropriate forums.

^^^
Brake assist needs vacuum and that comes from a running engine.

The Padmini behaved so since there was no brake assist to start with. Same goes for the first couple gens of M800.

Count me in this group!. I too discovered it accidentally.

One one of my visits to a place in Banashankari, I had parked on a very steep road. It is almost like a ghat road and Bangaloreans familiar with this area will know what I am talking about. The car was facing front on the down slope and the hand brake is not at all sufficient to hold the car. It was slotted in first gear with the hand brake pulled up to its capacity.

So what do I do when it was time to move? I slipped the gear to neutral to start the engine with the hand brake still engaged, of course. But as I mentioned earlier, the slope is so much that the gear was playing a huge role!. The car started rolling down and what do we all do instinctively? Slam the brake, but no action as the engine was not started yet :Shockked:. Started the car in a flash, without bothering about the dashboard lights and controlled. A deserted road in a residential area obviously helped!.

For any kind of "boost" there is a source of power/energy needed. What is the source, when the engine is off ? battery ? On the same note, even steering is equally important. There is no assist/boost when engine is off. I don't think such 'lack of assist when energy source is off' is any design flaw. Even in pure electric vehicles, there is no assist to brakes or steering when the 'system' is off.

Probably if the design is changed to 'brakes pressed if no vacuum' and vaccuum assist is to 'keep the brake pads in released state' when the B pedal is not pressed ; that might suit this requirement. In fact, I believe train's braking system works like this - vacuum lines running from the locomotive, all the way till the last wagon, all connected to each brake 'pad' on every wheel.

That said, driver errors like these are hard to combat with 'failsafe' engineering. Beyond a point, idiot-proofing is impossible.




There is a simple rule that used to be taught in driving schools (atleast when I was learning) -- DO NOT RELEASE HANDBRAKE WITHOUT STARTING CAR.

Brakes have been like this for decades. Generations, even! It is just part of how cars work. None of us have any excuse for not knowing. Nor is there any simple way for manufacturers to change this.

Having said that, on the rare occasions that, for some reason, I have the car moving without the engine running, the amount of foot pressure needed always comes as a surprise. I have known all my life, but still I am surprised. Gosh the engine does this much work for me!

One should NEVER park on an incline/decline with the steered wheels pointing straight ahead.

A short video on the best practices to park on an incline/decline, with & without a kerb present.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPImlSRL9CY

Yes Sir, correct. I too find it impossible to press the foot break when the engine is not running [did not test only with ignition on]. Steering also gets hard/locked. This I found out when I had gone to the showroom to have a look at my car that had arrived the previous day. The SA informed me that is how they are and it has stayed in my mind since then. Same case with the Nexon which I had almost bought. I Guess some lessons we learn outside the school stay in our minds better than school lessons [neither my driving instructor told me this, nor did I ask him. The Santro in which I learnt driving did not have this 'feature'].

As others have stated, a machine can be built upto a certain limit of idiot-proof only. Post that, a human sense has to take place

But a sad fact is that literally no one teaches this anywhere! I attended driving school twice, saw tonnes of videos on how to drive before stepping on my own car. But no one in the YouTube tutorials nor in my driving classes told me that brake assist works only when the engine is running and rest of the time, it simply won't!

But luckily, a month or two after I actually started driving, I came across a video in Instagram where a (swift i think ?) car was stuck in a downhill slope traffic and the car was turned off. the nearby lane came free for a couple of meters, so he simply put down the hand brake and used the downhill to move the car but after that he was not able to stop and eventually to avoid hitting the parked truck, he moved away and fell into a ditch. Then, after going through the comments only I found out that brake assist works only when the car is running!!

Then I went down and tried to press the brake pedal just to test and surprise surprise :Cheering: Immediately gave instagram a good 5 stars in playstore rl: sad that someone has to ditch his car for another to learn

It will be mentioned very clearly in the owners' manual of every car that the brake pedal will need a lot more pressure to operate without the engine running, but braking will be available. But hardly anyone reads the manual fully.

Here is a page from my 2009 Alto's manual.

Next to a curb, it is a very good idea to turn the wheels so that, if the brakes fail, the car will come to a halt against the curb immediately. But this conversation started with an incident on the kind of slope often found outside shops, where the cars are parked next to each other. Not leaving the wheel straight means choosing a sacrificial neighbour!

What to do? Leaving the car in gear helps --- unless it is forgotten when restarting the car. Check gear position before starting* is engrained in me as much as the necessity to turn the ignition key! Or... put a brick behind a wheel.

I don't think it is impossible, although on a steep slope or if the car has gathered speed already, it will be very hard work. Nothing like braking in normal driving: really put your strength behind it.



*I disengage the clutch as well. That's two safety factors in between me starting the car and having it jerk forwards. Believe it or not, I also tend to choose Reverse or First, depending on which would cause the least damage if my other safety measures were breached. Obsessive? rl:

That could be a misleading statement. So let's assume I shut off the engine now, and for the very first time I press the foot brake pedal, yes there would be some amount of braking power left from residual vacuum, but try this, pump the pedal several times, and you can see the pedal go hard, the pedal travel also significantly decreases and even if you literally stand on the brakes there would hardly be any bite.

I would understand if somebody said this 20 years ago. All cars above the Maruti 800 and Omni came with a brake booster. This essentially means the brakes work effectively only when the engine is running. Once switched off, it will work with nearly the same efficiency once or twice. After that, you hardly get any assist simply because there is no boost now. Its almost like hardly any braking at all.

It is not a design fault. It's like this for any car from any manufacturer. If anything, it points to how unreliable our driving schools and licensing system is, if people are unaware of this basic fact.

Releasing the handbrake on a slope without starting the car is :Frustrati. The handbrake should be released only after starting the car and slotting it in gear.