what is the waving hand button next to the electric parking brake button

A reminder to release the brake? Read the manual!!!

If the "waving hand" doesn't remind you to release the parking brake before driving surely the smoke and sparks will.

thanks,the symbol is not in the manual...at least it did not wave at me...

The guy with the smug “read your manual comment” is completely wrong. It is a break assist button. I just bought an explorer and it has the aforementioned button. You use it in places where there is stop and go traffic so that you don’t have to constantly hold the brake. Once you have applied the brake, you can remove your foot and the car holds position. You need to be careful however because once you press the gas pedal it is disengaged until you manually apply the brake again. It takes a while to get used to.

Does that help get through those first 4 gears, up to 40 mph, go a little more smoothly? I do hate chug chugging along when I can't giddy up and go! Appreciate the heads up on the learning curve.. that level of coordination takes me a few tries to tame!

It does do that, holds brakes in stop and go, but I think it's actually for stopping on a steep hill especially while pulling something. It keeps you from rolling backwards. You will be forced to figure this out really quickly at a carwash when they tell you neutral and foot off the brake and it applies brake! lol

Thank you! The hill holder makes sense! Ford does a very poor job explaining some of the console button features on my Ford Escape!

Why on earth would the symbol for brake assist be a waving hand? That's another problem with "Icon Only" labelling... Use Words!