When driving an automatic car.........................

big_mustache

Keep the car in D with your foot on the brake. There is no need to put on the emergency brake.

rowdy

Same as a manual car - handbrake on and neutral selected. Apart from warping the brake discs, sitting with your foot on the brake is extreme bad manners to anyone stopped behind you, especially at night.

Bardic

There're are two issues here, one about whether to select neutral and the other about the brakes.

With regard to the neutral issue, keep it in Drive; going in and out of neutral causes more wear than is necessary.

Regarding the brakes, the principal is that if you have time to put the handbrake on then do so. You should not sit with your foot on the brake as this a) can eventually cause disc warping, and b) the glare from your brake lights inconveniences drivers behind you.

Having said that, it's a good defensive idea to dab your footbrake anyway to show your brake lights until you're sure the driver behind you has noticed that you've stopped!

Ken D

Stopped at Traffic lights or zebra crossings or anywhere for more than the count of 5, you should put the handbrake on for extra safety, imagine a rear end shunt two or three cars behind you at great speed at traffic lights and the momentum pushes you over the lights into oncoming traffic, think safety.

george d

Scenario 1 is the correct one. Then no 2 - without foot brake, no 3 - you could select reverse by mistake!!
Think of the driver sat behind you at traffic lights. If you keep your foot on the brake you will dazzle him/ her with 'High Level' brake lights. In the UK the highway code states that 'At red traffic lights , and 'stop' signs apply hand / parking brake an engage 'neutral' The number of times I have been behind inconsiderate drivers in my hgv is beyond belief. I usually return the favour with 'full beam' until they pull away, but being stupid they probably do not realise what they have done!!

CHUCKY

I can only drive a auto due to disability , i always leave it in drive and foot on the break, only when im stuck stationary in traffic do i put handbreak on but only when im stuck for a while.

A.J.

The reason this question is causing so much confusion is because in the U.S., on our driving tests all that is required is for the driver to step on the brake pedal. You should have made it clear that you were in the U.K. I'm sure a few posters thought you (or your teacher) were deranged.

David in Madison

At a traffic light:
1. Keep the car in drive.
2. Keep your right foot on the brake.
3. Don't even think of touching the handbrake!

Geoffrey K

The advantage of solution 2 is that you can move off promptly with no need to move the selector lever, but should your foot leave the brake pedal accidentally you will either stall the engine or move off unexpectedly!
Solution 1 is the safest option. One selects park when the car has stopped and after the ignition is turned off. Not apprpriate when at traffic lights! When in park the engine acts as a brake and the vehicle cannot be moved at all.

Neil

If you keep your foot on the brake when there is a car immediately behind you, you are blinding the person behind with your brake lights, which is an offence in the UK. (You must not use your lights in any way which may cause annoyance to other road users).
If you keep the car in drive your are causing increased load on the engine, so using more fuel.
The correct procedure is the same as in a manual car - handbrake on and select neutral. Anything else is just lazyness.

talon699

Car in drive . Foot on brake. hands on steering wheel. Handbrake is for parking , not driving. Your foot should not slip off the brake pedal unless you have a motor control disease , or you dropped your smoke when reaching for your coffee with your cell phone stuck on your shoulder talking to your friend while eating a sandwich

EvelynThe ModifiedDog.

My God, how on earth have all these people passed a driving test??
As an ex driving instructor, who used to teach in both manual and automatic cars, I can tell you that the correct practise in the UK is as follows:
Approach the lights, brake. when you have stopped, apply handbrake and select neutral. Once lights change, select drive, apply footbrake, release handbrake, go.
If a driver sits with only the footbrake applied, with the car in drive, they will fail the test.
Maybe the fact most people do what some of the incorrect answers suggest is the reason why many autos wear prematurely and also seem to suffer from seizure of their handbrake mechanism.

Edit: OK Paul W, you spotted my typo, now corrected. No need to get so snooty about it, everyone thinks we're wrong anyway!

bronnimoose

Don't need to put the car in P at traffic lights. I drive an automatic and it won't go anywhere even if you lift off the brake. Try it on a hill - in drive the car will not roll down if you are in D and you have your foot off the brake.

You don't ever need the handbrake with an automatic.

Sorry, your husband is right (apart from the handbrake bit)!

theguy

All the shifting of gears puts a lot of stress on your transmission which I do not think it is necessary. Put car in "D" or Drive and Right foot on brake. Handbrake can be optional, but I do not recommend it.

Vince M

Puts more wear on the tranny to take it in and out of gear at stops. The torque converter allows the gears to, happily rotate in place, thanks to it's planetary gear configuration. The drag on your brake is what causes this feature to engage. It takes added torque from the engine to engage the gears and get the car moving.

Leave it in gear, keep you foot, firmly on the brake, (NOT just your toe!) and keep your hands off the parking brake.

srbyn1

I leave the car in D & keep my foot on the brake

"isitme"

Depending on the time you are stationery you can either;
Sit with the car in drive with the handbrake on or with the car in neutral with the handbrake on.
Never sit with your foot on the brake. Brake discs generate a lot of heat and sitting with the footbrake on will, in time, warp the discs as they cool.
When moving off, footbrake ON, select drive, release the hanbrake then release the footbrake.
Both the above methods are acceptable on the driving test.

Further to the above, you will notice that you can move the selector from neutral to drive and back again without having to press the selector-lock on the lever or negotiating a gate.
It's built like that for this purpose. In fact, on most cars you can move it from reverse to neutral to drive and back to neutral without pressing any buttons, reverse from neutral is locked so you can't mistakenly put it into reverse when moving off from traffic lights!

6/11/07, biggi, I am!

Evelyn the modified dog...Sorry mate, it just wound me up that nobody knows how to drive these things. Snootyness removed!!!

nosdda

By putting your car into "N" and right foot on the floor and handbrake on, you save wear on your automatic gearbox.

Paul

First, let me state my qualifications. 46 years of driving everything from farm tractors to motorcycles to trucks.

Stop at the light with your foot on the brake and don't TOUCH anything else. There's no reason to put on the parking brake or put the trans in "N". It just makes it that much more difficult to get going again on the green, and makes other drivers mad as they wait for you.

jason c

Car in Park, handbrake on, foot of the peddle.

Shaggy

Hopefully you would put in Neutral i wouldn't like to cross in front of you if you had it in drive

babyfacemichael

Evelyn The Modified Dog, a few years ago after having completed and passed both the AIM Driving Test and the Rospa Driving Test I undertook the ADI Driving Test which had been made open to the public. As in the previous tests this was undertook in a automatic and at the end of the test my examiner marked me down for keeping the car in drive with my foot on the footbrake when stopped at traffic lights. After unsucessfully querying this with him I took the issue up with the Chief Examiner of the area and was sucessful in having this downgrading for keeping the car in drive as opposed to shifting into neutral overturned.

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