yeah.. this is a makeinu classic.
I'm actually shocked at myself for responding to this thread in the first place. But, I have, and so have others.
makeinu, dude,
you really are fishing.. and I'm not sure for what. And as Paul L. and BikEthan have said. It sounds like, from your inability to keep your hands firmly on the handle bars AND reach two (cus that's all you need) fingers to reach the brake levers; means its not hand brakes that are bad. It's your bike setup.
If you really wanted help you could just post a picture of your bike to the thread and say "I don't feel comfortable reaching my hands to my hand brakes while my hands are on the bars, what should I do?" and then you could get real advice.
Since you have never done this (especially in the threads where you get argumentative) many of us, myself included, conclude that you're not much more than a clever troll.
Prove me wrong, please? I like to be proven wrong about people I have a bad opinion of.
(and for anyone who wonders, the OP spends most of his time in the folding bike forum and talking about those tread bikes)
EDIT: I reread the long post from makeinu in the middle of this thread. And I gotta repeat, that's a pretty subtle piece of trolling there. A whole lot of "you're wrong you're wrong you're wrong" on both sides. But, a good bit of it from the OP reads as trolling to me because it seems to be argumentative for arguments sake.
examples:
originally posted by makeinu
--I suppose you also drive your car with just your pinky finger on the steering wheel. Newsflash: despite the fact that you don't need two hands to turn the wheel, it's still safer to drive with two hands then just your pinky finger.
-- Stopping distances on a bike are too long for most emergency situations anyway and if you need to lift a pedal to prevent it from striking the ground then your bottom bracket is too low and you need to get a new bike.
-- This has nothing to do with front versus rear brakes. Not all bikes are rear wheel drive.
If hand brakes are dangerous and depending on rear brakes are dangerous then it wouldn't mean that hand brakes are no longer dangerous. It would mean that rear wheel drive bikes are dangerous.
WTF?!?
so yeah... troll or not troll? you decide!