For my fellow Brits confused by the terminology...

Emergency brake is an Americanism for the hand brake. Sometimes they call it the E-brake too. I'm not sure if it's common practice in the US to park without using the hand brake (instead just leaving it in gear) hence the idea that it's only used in emergencies (although I wouldn't like to try and stop the car with the hand brake if the normal brakes failed!) Certainly when I hired a Mustang in the US I used the handbrake just like I always would, including at traffic lights although I think I was the only one judging by the seemingly perpetual glow of brake lights

On a semi-related note, this kinda reminds me of that MTV Punk'd episode with Hilary Duff (she's a pop singer from Texas, and a rather hot one at that

) where she was learning to drive but of course it was all a setup and the "instructor" was in on it. At the start she gets a telling off for not releasing the "emergency brake" before trying to drive off, and it only gets much worse from there! The instructor's phrases were things like "The car is not a toy, you're driving a bomb on wheels here" lol... rather humourus

Apologies, yet again I digress
