Do you always turn your car off if you get out of it?

A tragedy happened where I live yesterday.

A woman had a minor crash backing out of her driveway, so she drove back onto her driveway, and then got out of her car (SUV actually) to see the damage. While behind her car, the car rolled over her and killed her.

The reports said the car wasn’t in park. Her son was right there during the incident. I can’t imagine it. I’ve met her, but I didn’t really know her. She’s a neighbor of a friend of mine. She was only 62 years old.

When my husband and I had clutch cars my husband used to sometimes get out of the car while it was running and rely on the parking brake. It used to really upset me. I still think that is horribly irresponsible. I never even thought about something like this happening in an automatic car.