"I have always had bad dreams about accidentally kicking one of those release levers while under the car, so I always put a tire/wheel under the car or a second jackstand to back it up...."

Can that actually happen?

While I don't have a picture handy, my stands are over 30 yrs old, they came with a car I had bought for parts. They were like new when found, but had no stickers on 'em, and probably are china units, just old(er) ones.

With mine, when you lift the lever to disengage the upright, it actually lifts the upright a little before releasing. To 'accidentally' disengage it, you'd essentially have to lift the car in the process. If with no real weight on it, just blocked from moving up, they will not disengage.

Regardless of who made them, they were a HUGE improvement over these suicide stands I originally had (pic pulled from web)




I had them under a '68 Valiant, the ground wasn't perfectly level, they twisted just a wee bit, and folded. I wasn't under the car, had just set the car on the stands, but the jack went all the way down and I couldn't get the jack back up fast enough to catch it.

This was probably what got me in the habit of throwing the removed wheels under the car for back up.