Do you keep your foot on the break while at a red light (flat road, no hill to...so your not rolling back or fwd)?

 

as opposed to what? slipping the clutch? yes of course.. foot on break in neutral =) if it's flat, and you won't roll, nothing wrong with taking your foot off the break.. as long as people behind you don't rear-end you

 

Def... Always leave your foot on the brake but you should leave it in neutral with the cluth out while sitting there....

I think you are talking about 'enging braking'.. you really dont want to do that unless you feel like you have too (steep hill) since it strains the engine and can cause damage if you do it enough...

 

Sorry, to be more exact....(at a red light) flat road, break not pressed in, clutch in neutral.

 

Yes, I almost always keep my foot on the brake regardless of whether the car would move if I took my foot off. It's a reminder to other drivers that the car is stopped. Also, there are so many people with automatics who don't know how to drive a real car and who don't know that the mere fact that you take your foot off the brake doesn't mean that you're starting forwards—drivers of automatics are used to their cars rolling forward when they take their foot off the brake and they generally assume that all other cars are the same way.

Because of this, I think it's safer to keep your foot on the brake.

 

Of course you should. All it takes is for someone to hit you from behind to roll forward........

 

For the most part, my foot is OFF the brake while at a light, train, etc etc. Even if I am on an incline/decline, I will roll a bit just so I can distribute the heat throughout the rotor.

By keeping your foot on the brakes, auto or 6mt, this will lead to possibly warping the rotors. While the rest of the rotor has access to air to cool them down, the constant pressure and heat to that one stop will cause warping.

miiipilot

 

I'd rather pay for new rotors than have to deal with being rear-ended.

 

I do keep my foot on the brake on manual transmission cars even when stick shift is in neutral and clutch pedal is not depressed. Having been rear-ended while stopped at least 3 times, I figure that having the brake lights illuminated might decrease the chances of being rear-ended again (2 accidents occurred before the advent of the high mounted stop lights). Brakes would also serve to keep my vehicle from moving forward as much (into the car in front or into the intersection) if I were to get hit.

 

Please provide info to back this one up....

 

I HIGHLY doubt that keeping your foot on the break while stopped is going to warp the brake rotors. I agree with JERU....cite something that backs that claim up. And even if true, if you want to just sit in neutral at a train crossing and risk some nut in a car behind you pushing you in front of an oncoming train....go for it ! lol.

 

Most of the time my foot is on the brake. Ill take it off once in a while for a second if a bunch of cars are lined up behind me to stretch my foot or something.

 

Where is this coming from??? By your reasoning then, every AT owner is warping their rotors because they have to sit on the brake unless they want to roll forward...

I keep my foot on the brake for the same reasons cited previously (letting others know you're stopped, not risking getting rear-ended and thrust forward...)

 

nah when I had my CL and I was on flat ground I never put my brake on until I saw someone creeping behind me and once they fully stopped I would release the brake.

 

Im sorry but I cant believe you even have to ask....

Why would you not have your foot on the brake at a red light?

 

if you get rear ended with your brake off you have a better chance of not having serious injury than with your brake on exactly why they tell you if you know your going to get hit release the brake and reapply after you get hit to stop yourself. and you only need to barley touch the pedal to get the brake lights to come on.

 

I was curiouse, to tell you the truth I've been doing this since I was 18 (not pressing my brake while at a red light)....might not be safe(I see where your coming from)...I guess it's just a bad habit

 

I find myself doing it like if Im in the drive thru at the bank or something.

But at a light I generally keep my foot on the brake. I guess my concern would be the brake lights not being on. Im just afraid of whose around me ya know?

 

I know exactly where your coming from and I'm pretty sure what I'm doing is illegal...I'm trying to break the habit, but its something I only do on automatic cars

 

I should mention that sometimes if I'm on a steep hill and the car behind me looks like it's going to pull up really close, I might release the brake and roll back a little. It usually causes them to leave some more space than they might otherwise leave.

 

I do the same thing...

sometimes I use the hand brake for further help within a stip hill (so that I don't roll back to much)

 

Unless if you were pushed so hard forward by the rear impact that you end up in the middle of the intersection, or hitting a pedestrian crossing the street, or hitting the car in front of you. That would be disasterous, wouldn't it? I think there is wisdom in keeping the brakes applied at a stop.

 

if there are already cars stopped behind you i dont see why its a big deal

 

I don't have any literature stating this, im sorry.

This was taught to me in High Performance driving school for BMW CCA and SCCA at Mid-Ohio way back in 1998. After that, it was reinforced through SCCA competition. Once coming into the pitlane. I was instructed to NEVER hold your brakes.

I'll agree that on the street there is no where near the load and heat generated during track use. But, I have taken A LOT of info from those experiences that transfer over to the street.

Ya know, this thread made me think a little about the "Lights-on" safety issue. I have never been rear-ended. I'm sorry for those who've had. I will pay more attention to when exactly I let off the brakes. I might also put slight pressure on the pedal to engage the lights.

Thanks for the discussion,
miiipilot

 

The people who are telling you to use your brakes are giving you good advice. Unless you constantly monitor vehicles behind you (and you should do this a fair amount), you just don't know what's going to happen at any given time. I have preached this to my daughters and my wife and I know it to be fact since it, in all probability, saved my life in 1998.

Just don't hold your car on a hill with the clutch.. VERY BAD.

 

Even if you do monitor them, you can't control what the dumbarses will do—if someone oblivious comes down the road, you can be rear-ended even though you see the car coming. It's amazing how FAST it happens when it happens (I was rear-ended twice in my 1997 Accord; the second time totaled the car). In one sense, the whole scene almost happens in slo-mo, but at the same time, you can't react quickly enough to slam it around the corner or whatever.

On the way home from work tonight I took my foot off the brake briefly at one traffic light so as to raise my leg to scratch my nuts. The driver behind me saw the brake lights go out and rolled forward a bit until he saw that I wasn't moving (I promptly stepped on the brake again once the itch was gone). This was confirmation to me of something I've known for a long time—if people think there is a reason to start moving, they start moving. Try watching the traffic at a red light with a left-turn arrow sometime. I'd say the chances are better than 75% that when the cars in the left-turn lane start moving with the arrow, the idiot in the lane next to them will start moving even if he still has a red light.

I guess I'm cynical, but I just don't trust anyone anymore.

 

im not saying dont press it. but if you pay attention to the road like i do you know when there is a car coming up on you. and "IF" you get hit imedietly press on the brake. i have taken defencive drive classes and they tell you if your going to get rear ended releases the brake and reapply immedetly after the impact.

 

wait... i think this is the dumbest thing i've ever heard. and i quote "Even if I am on an incline/decline"... i think we have a consensus when i say that the clutch should be out when sitting at a light in Neutral. so quoting you... w/ your foot OFF the brake. you would be rolling forward or back. If the road is level, taking your foot OFF the brake may be alright. Hell... i do that. but thats not what ur saying.

Yes... as someone else said, you really can't be serious about this w/o explaining yourself. You say "I will roll a bit"... i think you'll be rolling a little farther than that, and probably into someone/something else.

Secondly, the fact that you are worried about warping your rotors by keeping your foot on the brake at a light when the car is NOT in motion means you really need to find better things to worry about. Warping of the rotors is caused by heat YES!, but the kind of heat that needs to be generated to warp the rotors in any considerable way is caused by friction. Friction is caused by moving parts in contact w/ each other. In the manual world, one of the reasons why we downshift is to save our brakes, both pad life, and rotor wear/warping. When a car is stopped and the brake pad in gripping the rotor, there is no friction and consequentially no chance of warping. If you are referring to the ambiant heat generated by the fact that the pad is touching the rotor and that somehow the areas in contact are hotter than the remaining portion of the rotor that is exposed... then i say you are smoking crack and you should seek some help.

not flaming you... just need people to be a little more informed before sounding like they are informed.

 

LOL....I think the response by jennarocks about the warping of rotors while at a stop pretty much hits the nail right on the head.

 

Back in the day, when I used to live in the U.K., it was standard practice that when you come to a stop light and you were fully stopped with your foot on the brake and the clutch dipped, you had to apply the handbrake (even on a flat road), select neutral, let the clutch out and then lift off the brake pedal. You would most likely end up failing your driving test if you didn't do this.

I think the reasoning behind this is that if you get read-ended while sitting at a stop light with only your foot on the brake, the impact will probably cause your foot to slip off the pedal allowing the car to "free-roll" probably into the back of someone else, or even into oncoming traffic (on a two lane road). With the handbrake applied you won't be free-rolling after the impact.

 

took the words right out my mouth..

 

Yep.. you're right about things happening quickly. Get out of the way if you can and let the approaching vehicle hit the one in front of you (if there is one there). Better them than you. Hard rule but a necessary one.

Your comment about the brake lights is a very good one. If a car is coming up on you and you do not have your foot on the brake, he may think you have started to move and not react until it's too late. Two-footed drivers are just as bad a threat to others for the same reason except in the opposite.

 

I would agree with everyone so far that says just keep your foot on the brake.

Now I am guilty of occassionally not doing the above...maybe after a hard run or something. One to thing to watch out for is sometimes, if you really are out of it, you'll think the car is stopped but the car is actually rolling very slowly and you won't notice unless you're paying attention! Sounds silly but I'm betting I'm not the only this happens to.