On level ground, I rarely hold the brake pedal, which is primarily for comfort. I'm with Bobo and have been doing it for years and never been rear ended at a light. I would expect getting rear ended at a stop light is going to happen regardless whether your brake lights are on or not.

However, I generally always put my foot on the brake whenever a car is coming to a stop behind me and wait until they are stopped to let it off again. One other thing I always do on uphill slopes is before someone pulls up behind me, I let off the brake, roll back a hair and make sure they realize I'm in a MT and don't need to pull right up on my a$$. I've kissed an old lady's Lexus hood with my Explorer Sport trailer hitch before when she pulled up too close and I was still learning the clutch - she was very nice about it, tho, and understood it was her fault.

I had a funny smell and some fluid leak from my rear-end once. :icon23: