Car in the middle of Woodlands Road

Why, oh why does this sort of thing always seem to happen to me? Especially when I'm supposed to be hurrying home to babysit Thomas...thought I was doing quite well to start with, managed to score a "fast" bus yesterday from Redhill (the one that goes via the hospital *before* going half way round the rest of Surrey) got as far as Woodlands Road and a car rolled backwards, directly across the road in front of us and pulled suddenly to a halt, then proceeding to just sit there (as you can see it above), we waited, and waited as a little traffic jam formed on either side of it until finally I decided I had waited long enough and told the driver I would hop off and go and see what was going on, when I got up there a small group of local residents had begun to gather around it (having come out to discover why quite so many car horns were suddenly blaring out in their quiet little road) and it quickly became apparent that there was no driver in it! Evidently what had happened was that the handbrake had either *partially* failed, or wasn't applied properly enough to counteract gravity and it had bumped itself down into the road (completely blocking it) and then (miraculously) managed to reapply itself *just* before it struck the two cars parked on the opposite side of the road...I spoke to the residents, they said they knew who the owner was, but they had tried and there was no answer from their door...a little frustrated I tried to push the car (on my own) but the handbrake (of course) was now firmly wedged on...the bus driver tried in vain to reverse up the road (more cars and buses kept on arriving behind us), some of the residents announced the police had been called, but despite much false hope (sirens in the distance that then just faded away) no rescue arrived. Eventually nurses due for start of their shifts at the hospital were forced to give up and start walking the rest of the way and then, when I had almost decided that I was going to have to do the same a bloke appeared next to me, as I was giving another desperate shove to the back of the vehicle and announced that you can trick a handbrake into disengaging (momentarily) by bumping the back of the car up and down, we did this, and lo and behold, it moved - just a little bit - at this two other people from the crowd, heartened by our minor success, came and joined in, and so, with much bumping and huffing and shoving, we managed to get the car back up onto the drive, calling out (fairly urgently) for bricks (before it rolled back and ran us all over) which duly appeared from the garden of a lady from over the road...the bus driver was extremely grateful (having done absolutely nothing to help) and I got a few smiles and waves from the remaining couple of passengers when I got back on board, but of course everyone we picked back up along the way had no idea of my role in their rescue, so I had to content myself with modesty (and only being half an hour later than usual)...