After arriving home onto my sloped drive, i sat relaxed and had dinner.. then the door bell rang not unusual but a little odd at 9:30 pm to have visitors

as i answered the door i was shocked to see my car half way on the road with neighbour explaining it was there

..what i consider to be lucky about the situation was that my mums car (polo 6n2 SE :-) ), which is usually parked on the road at the bottom of the drive, was set back slightly, meanig my car missed it by a no more than a foot, PHEW!

..so remember folks always worth checking your car is maybe in gear on a gradient if your HB isnt waht it used to be! .. although the poor HB can only be the result of the many hand-brake turns and drifts courtesy of the weather this christmas

Just thought id share that :-) anyone else got any crazy happenins recently?

it's so easy to tighten your handbrake on a 9n!

pop off the cover around the handbrake (pull it upwards) and there's a 10 or 13mm nut to tighten the cables, simples!

Although, if you have rear disks and you've been hard on the brakes, they're often expanded due to the heat.

Once they cool down, they shrink, in effect loosening the handbrake.

I always leave my cars in gear!

My car is always is gear, any car i move i leave in gear.

It's funny when my mates get in the car and i've moved it, they always try and start it with it in gear with the clutch up

wow close one dude! could have had some issues if it hit a passing car or something!

too many handbrake turns ended snapping one of my cables once lol, had to drive about every and park with it in gear.. and the wheels turned into the kerb!

i always start my car with my foot on the clutch, ever since i first learnt to drive, someone told me it means theres less mass on the flywheel so its easier to turn over.

i dont tend to leave the car in gear unless I'm on a hill, and if i can ill always angle my front tyres against the kerb so if it does roll it needs to find the momentum to get over the roll to continue its roll, which is difficult becuase of inertia

easier still tho, just tighten your handy-b cables, lucky escape dude

I've just got a habit of leaving it in gear.

Yeah always leave it in gear. I left my car on a mates steep hill driveway and when I applied the handbrake (quite hard because it was on a hill) the cable snapped. If that'd happened whilst I wasn't in the car and I hadn't left it in gear, it would've been bye bye Polo

My car is always is gear, any car i move i leave in gear.

It's funny when my mates get in the car and i've moved it, they always try and start it with it in gear with the clutch up

i did this in my mates renault 5! he always gives abit of revs to get it going to, ended up reversing up the kerb outside my house haha!

i always start my car with clutch in to, just a habbit i guess!

My mum did this with my parents' brand new Golf Bluemotion estate - obviously the handbrake on their 25 year old Cavalier estate was better!

The worst thing is she did it twice

Both times there was no damage despite it ending up blocking the road.

Always used to leave the work vans in gear when I was driving for Tesco's. The boss used to love quoting chapter and verse of the manual at us, so her smacking the van back into the loading bay was an ideal time to point out the manual says "Check the van is in neutral"

lol this reminds me of when i was really young and my house was on a hill, when we had just parked up and i droped somthing down by the handbrake and took the handbreke off to get to it and then just left the car . 2 min later its gone and has rolled all the way down the hill thro someones front wall ended up in their garden. I'm sure i never admitted it.

Edited 4 February, 201016 yr by rustproof 16v

I never leave mine in gear and my HB is a pile. But then again I don't have to park on a slope but definately something to remember lol

lucky you don't live on a main road, that would have caused a little accident :p

haha so I'm not the only one

..yer geuss i had a lucky escape then with what you guys have been sayin. ill have a go at tightening then :-)