An open letter to handbrake levers that may be phased out soon

We want to start this by saying it’s always been a good time with you, dear handbrake lever. We know we had a few rough times whenever we forget disengaging you before stepping on the accelerator pedal. However, do know that we very much appreciate your reliability, be it from parking lots or in traffic jams on uphill roads.

It’s hard to hear about your rumored departure; worse is that it seems that it would be for good and might happen soon. The rumors pose great plausibility and there’s a study that supports it. According to a report published on financial website, ThisisMoney.co.uk, we found out that electronic parking brakes are slowly taking over as the default parking brake in future cars.

Findings in the past already warned about certain dangers and reliability issues of push-/pull-button parking brakes. Online car marketplace CarGurus, according to This is Money, even stated that only 37% of new models on sale in United Kingdom have manually-operated handbrake (that is you). 

People in the car drifting scene are among the earth’s population that are being hit hard by this news. We heard your “high tech” replacement, the push-/pull-button parking brake, can’t perform the things you finely do? Well, in addition, according to the UK-based website This is Money, there had been recalls involving cars with electronic parking brakes, which we think would be the main issue here. 

Technological advancement is good but it could also be scary at certain extremities. It has been known that Volkswagen once issued a recall on 134,000 UK models in 2017 due to this problem. The Golf, Touran, Tiguan, and Passat are the ones that suffered. Tesla faced problems, too.

Of course, electronic parking brakes are designed to further improve safety. But, since your “supposed replacement” uses electrical wirings and a computer’s help, one can’t really assure how accurate and long-lasting this piece of tech is. Reports also said that there are now only two mainstream brands, Suzuki and Dacia, that remained planted to utilizing manual parking brakes. 

CarGurus believes that you are of dying breed and may soon face total extinction. CarGurus UK editor Chris Knapman said that within the next few years, the number of cars with traditional handbrakes are expected to further deplete. Also, Knapman stated that one of the hardest-to-resist-temptations, the art of performing handbrake turns, may soon be just a thing which future drivers can only fantasize doing. 

But, if they’ll replace you, why can’t electronic handbrakes come in the image like the one Ford introduced last year? You know, the one that looks exactly like you but is, in essence, not a hydraulic handbrake like you. Rather, it’s hooked to the car’s system and is calibrated through a USB cable – we mean, it’s the closest thing we could get out of electronic parking brakes. 

It may be a long shot to hope that car manufacturers will find a way to preserve you, dear handbrake levers. As much as we don’t want to bid farewell, the industry’s already beginning to. 

P.S. You’ll always be the image of ‘parking brake.’