Originally published at: https://www.pakwheels.com/blog/always-shift-to-p-when-parked-stay-alert/
Unlike manual transmission, an automatic vehicle has two pedals; an accelerator and a brake pedal. When you press the brake pedal, the drive shaft disengages from the transmission, and the cars remain static and on hold. In a manual transmission, you must press the clutch pedal and brake to perform the same function. So, in automatic, if your vehicle is in Drive gear or Reverse gear, as soon as you leave your foot off the brake pedal, the car can/ will start its motion in a direction depending upon the gear it shifted.
Always Shift to "P"
It's a very common misjudgment on the part of the drivers that sometimes they don't realize that the vehicle is in "D" or "R," and they open the door and leave the vehicle. In this situation, the vehicle starts its motion being driverless, and if there is a slopped surface, the vehicle speed can increase, and any unfortunate accident can happen.
See what happens in the below clip between 0:21 – 0:24; the brake light goes off as the driver lifts the foot from the brake pedal, opens the door, the car goes into motion, and then it was already too late.
Generally, people are distracted and get busy with it as soon as they stop their vehicle and start leaving the car without realizing that they haven't shifted to "P" with the engine still running. I am sure it happened to all of us one odd time that we never moved the gear lever to the park position and opened the driver-side door.
Many accidents are reported every year because of this issue, and in some cases, small children were pinned down under the cars in their own homes because they were right next to the vehicle and driver never realized about shifting to "P." The importance of this problem increases when you are in any commercial area where there is a lot of vehicular or pedestrian traffic.
How to Overcome this Issue?
Many car companies have introduced a very simple but very important safety feature to overcome this issue in automatic vehicles. If the driver doesn't shift to "P" and if they open the door, the car immediately and automatically shifts to "Parking Brake." The driver-side door has a switch that relates to the gear lever's position. However, not all automatic vehicles ( even current generations ) have this emergency brake transmission override feature, especially in older cars with automatic transmissions.
Hence, it is absolutely very important that if you drive an automatic vehicle, shift the gear lever to "P" as soon as you stop the car before doing anything else and preferably also engage the parking brake/ hand brake.
Have you ever experienced such a situation? Does your vehicle have this safety feature? If so, share the make and model in the comments.
Drive Safe!
