In general, turning a pickup into park while traveling at highway speeds is something you want to avoid. The majority of cars and trucks throughout history have had gear selectors or other mechanisms that make it very difficult to do this wrong. While push-button transmissions took their time in the late ’50s and ’60s, they’re making a comeback stronger than ever today. One owner discovered exactly what happens when you hit the parking button on a modern car.
What happens if you move your truck into a parking lot while driving?
Accordingly, this story was first published on a Rivian FaceBook group, where the owner of Rivian has acknowledged his incident and issued a warning.
I started slowing down quickly. He quickly let go of the button once he realized what he was holding.
As Goldberg puts it, “He let go of the button quickly…and there was no problem. But I could see someone doing this, potentially causing an accident.”
Rivian owners to the rescue
The group members spoke quickly to explain what the truck had done. The Rivian user manual states that if you press the park button while driving, it activates. There, it tells owners “If the brakes are not working properly, press and hold the Park button to immediately downshift. An emergency deceleration notification appears on the driver display.”
Hitting the park button while driving sounds pretty exciting and dangerous, but luckily Rivian thought that possibility was built in and designed the truck to avoid a transmission lockup or anything weird like that.
The manual explains that as soon as the stop button is released, the truck stops idling quickly, Goldburg found. Drivers can also depress the accelerator pedal to cancel emergency braking.
Before we get too carried away with Goldberg’s teasing of his seemingly easily avoidable mistake, others seem to have also hit the wrong button.
CarScoops found another entry on a Facebook group that admits to the same mistake. “Even after sharing this post this morning, I hit the park button for the windshield wipers course today,” said one comment. “I have [sic] I did that too. The crap scared me. I do not like that. It’s where the cruise jobs are,” read another. A third commented on it said, “Yeah. The same thing happened to me trying to learn the functions of cruise control. The crease factor was off the charts. I was surprised the truck tried to stop.”
Are Rivian’s controls confusing?
If many Rivian R1T owners make the same mistake of accidentally pressing the stop button when trying to hit the windshield wipers, it may be because Rivian miscalculated the layout of the controls. Although the parking brake feature is pretty nimble, Rivian owners may want to pay extra close attention when using the windshield wipers.
