I saw a guy over the road park his car and walk to the front door, then promptly run down the road after his car.

Thought, | used to have a dog that chased cars!

Like the one on a friend's Vauxhall which let go and wrote his car off after it smashed into the front of this house?

Time for a car with an electronic handbrake which is applied when the engine is switched off?

Peugeot 308 does this, switch the engine off & the electronic handbrake auto engages.

At the previous house whilst our drive was virtually level the neighbours drive had quite a slope (probably 2ft in the length of a car). One morning during the winter the neighbour had his Ducatto idling away warming up and I heard quite a few expletives and went to look. Either the handbrake had failed or not been applied and the van had rolled back into the gap between his house and our garage. The gap was just bigger than the width of the van and whilst the van had not actually contacted the house or our garage it had folded the mirrors back and was neatly stuck. He could not open either door and since his only keys were in the ignition he could not use the locked back door for entry.

He phoned his dad to tow him out but when I left the Honda Accord would not budge it. No idea how he got it out.

so that if the very worst case scenario occurs, the car will roll towards somewhere innocuous such as an expanse of grass or convenient low wall, or even a lamppost or tree.

Don't rely on lampposts, they fall over very easily - don't ask me how I know!

I only leave the car in gear when on an incline - then I park San Francisco style as already described - learnt that when holidaying in San Francisco not in the UK. In autos I use both hand brake and "P" setting, since I only drive autos if I've hired a car probably this confuses the hire company drivers as the hand brake is rarely engaged on collecting the car.

My drive's on a slope and I had one car that had a habit of the handbrake sticking on if it was left applied over several hours, so I used to leave it in gear. SWMBO could never get the hang of it and would lurch forward on the starter.

Cost me a new starter eventually.

Don't you just hate it when people pull on the handbrake without pressing the knob on the handle. Sheer laziness!

That's another one on my rather long list of pet hates!

I must admit that I never leave my car in gear, surely if the handbrake is adjusted correctly there's no need? Although to be honest I can't remember the last time I had to park on a steep slope.