"Dad ? Your handbrake didn't stick."
Context
I'd just passed by driving test. My car on the drive. Dad's car was behind it. So I could not get out.
I asked Dad to move his car but he was watching the football. He threw me his keys.
I went to move his car. But I was nervous about driving it, only being a week in to passing. So I figured the easiest thing would be to just release the handbrake, and let it roll back.
This is because our drive was a 20% slope, down to the main road.
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In my mind, the intention was to release the HB, roll sedately back, then hard lock right as I came out backwards, align to curb, stick on HB, job done.
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The reality was the car shot backward, because cars are heavy, I panicked, hard locked right, took out a concrete post with the passenger's nose side, then shot across the road through 2 directions of incoming traffic, and landed boot first in a deep 4' ditch, with the nose of the car pointing at the sky. I did "try" to apply the HB during this chaos, but it was having none of it.
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The car was his pride and joy. A Triumph Stag.
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I went in the house with his keys in my hand, he looked glum as his team had just missed a goal attempt, and I said,
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"Dad ? Your handbrake didn't stick." |
