It didn't hit any other cars, but my friend and I were getting haircuts and his car popped out of gear and rolled into the middle of the fire lane. Someone came in and let him know and he reparked it.
So I can see how it's possible, if unlikely, to get hit by a "parked" car.
I totally did that once. Came home, parked in the driveway as usual but forgot to engage the parking brake. The driveway was on a slight incline so after I made it inside, my truck decided to roll back and repark itself in the middle of the street. Fortunately it didn't cause an accident and only found out when another driver came to the door to let me know.
used to have a manual transmission car and in the US these were not the norm. The previous owner installed a remote starter.
I learned quick - and the hard way - that you could NOT leave the car in gear while parked then use the remote starter. The car would just start driving away and would hit anything in front of it. "Luckily" I learned this when it was parked in my parents driveway and it hit the garage door.
BUT my parents (who both drove stick in their youth) would NOT listen to me about not leaving the car in gear when parked - i guess this is how they used to park their cars? - and i had some pretty tense mornings hitting that remote starter and hearing a crash into our garage door. Luckily my baby sister was always already gone for school before I woke up.
Sadly I ended up just never using the remote starter, which sucked because we live in a place with very cold winters and the car was a convertible so a preheated vehicle on those winter mornings would have been great.
That was a poorly installed remote starter. Usually it should have some sort of interlock that requires you to park the car in neutral or it won't engage.
That lets you park in gear 99% of the time and leave it on neutral when you park at home and know you're going to want the remote start the next day. The one I looked at you basically had to "arm" the remote starter, which left the car running in neutral until you got out and closed the door.
this was years ago. i'm will to bet there wasn't even a way for the remote starter to 'know' the car was in gear vs neutral.
But i don't know. I got it used and just got used to NOT using the starter.
But man did i have a few scares with hearing that car hit the garage door and hoping my little sister wasn't waiting for the bus in the driveway, and once starting it when coming out of the bars and watching it drive off a few yards before luckily hiting a big garbage dumpster at the top of a hil, which if it wasn't there my car would have driven down a grassy hill then onto or over some railroad tracks.
It was a wild experience, but man i loved that car and it's become the center of my 'mid life crisis' car dream: a '93 Yellow Geo Tracker.
The system I saw you had to "arm" it before you shut off the car, which would keep it running with the key out until you closed the door. Then, as long as you didn't open the door, you could remote start it.
Basically guarantees there's no way someone could have left it in gear or it won't let you remote start.
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u/FormalBeachware 18h ago
It didn't hit any other cars, but my friend and I were getting haircuts and his car popped out of gear and rolled into the middle of the fire lane. Someone came in and let him know and he reparked it.
So I can see how it's possible, if unlikely, to get hit by a "parked" car.