Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 19:00:48 on Sun, 30 Jun
2019, D A Stocks remarked:
Most modern cars will shut off the engine if sitting at lights, etc.
Although this does rely on the driver selecting neutral and putting
the handbrake on, and how many people do that..? No, they just sit
there in front of you with their foot on the brake giving you full
brake light intensity, lovely at night, I don't think grrrr...

Strangely, with the only start-stop implementation I've driven (Alfa
Romeo) the engine cut when the car was stopped with the footbrake. If
you then selected neutral and applied the handbrake the engine
restarted when you took your foot off the footbrake.

I decided to bypass start-stop altogether on my latest car by buying a
full hybrid, where the engine has stopped long before the car comes to
a rest, and the car can be moved for short distances in heavy traffic
without starting the engine at all. However, the parking brake on this
car is electric and is quite hard to apply manually - it is applied
automatically when you shift the transmission to Park. The car has a
brake hold feature which leaves the footbrake applied after coming to a
stop. The brake releases when you press the accelerator to move off.
This works fairly well, but it doeas keep the brake lights on while
you're stopped.

I find all this gadgetry is fine on a reasonably level road. But trying
to do a hill-start in heavy traffic in an unfamiliar car with quite so
many individual quirks is a nightmare.

As with any automatic, hill starts should surely be easy?

In my car, the parking brake is also automatic. It's applied whenever you
stop, and released automatically when you're out of P mode. The doors lock
as soon as you start moving.