OT: "Mixed up the brake and accelerator"?!?

[Commander Kinsey]

Why would I have that hand on the wheel? My right hand operates the wheel, my left hand operates the gears and the indicator.

It's further to move the lever.

[Rod Speed]

Yeah, makes no sense to use just the one foot if you only ever drive automatics,

Yeah, I do too but have never owned an automatic, the automatics I drove a lot were the work cars.

Nope, 7 states and territorys.

[Commander Kinsey]

Nope, they give you more silly rules to follow, and that makes you a worse driver. My friend took an IAM test. He follows every silly little law instead of actually thinking about his driving.

Oh dear god, you took advice from a pig!?

Accidents are not caused by arrogance, they are caused by incompetance. Not indicating, not looking, not reacting quickly enough.

Then that driver should f****ng well indicate.

Do they not know the green cross code? I have no intention of looking out for morons that want to become Darwin Awards. And they should buy a car instead of using pubic transport.

Anyone with a brain doesn't need to be taught that.

Agreed there - I indicate subconsciously. Why waste time thinking about if you need to indicate? I just do it as part of making a turn.

You mean the fast lane. Don't tell me the IAM have drummed that out of you?

The problem with the IAM is they think flashing lights is a warning. For everyone else it means "you go first". Doing something differently from every other driver makes you the danger on the road. I have even seen the police flash to let me go first.

You mean the speed limit was wrong?! My god no....

I have braked for a dog, a rabbit, and a bird. But never a human. They should know better.

He can probably do what is done in the carry on films - dip the thermometer in a cup of coffee.

Any garage that does the test in OCD format doesn't get my custom next year.

[Steve Walker]

I've never had that happen, but then I park sensibly. I'd love to see someone try though - my towball is likely to do their vehicle a fair bit of damage!

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

Ford and Vauxhall have that as well.

My previous car (Ford) had that, the current (Vauxhall) has push-buttons for fog lights.

SteveW

[rbowman]

I was sitting in my pickup when a woman backed into it. I didn't even bother to get out to see how much damage she did to her car. A step bumper with a dropped hitch isn't something to mess with.

[Dave Plowman (News]

I'd guess it's one of those urban myths those who don't have autos like to believe.

I've had some 10 assorted autos over the years, and always used park on them. And never had - or known personally of - a parking pawl breaking.

Of course many base their opinions of autos on the one they tried many years ago. Here, successive generations just get better. Except the ones fitted to cheap cars. ;-)

[thekmanrocks]

Add: "I'm American"

[NY]

I would say that it is better to use the *same* strategy (footbrake with right foot) in both manual and automatic, then you are not having to alternate when you go from one car to another.

The *only* justification I can see for using your left foot is that it gives it something to do when otherwise it would never be used since there's no clutch. Having learned to drive in a manual, I prefer the differences when driving an automatic to be as small as possible - brake and accelerator with right foot, always put car into neutral when stopped in traffic and apply handbrake (NEVER hold it on the footbrake when stationary), always use the handbrake to prevent me rolling back when doing a hill start. But then I was taught that the handbrake is an essential part of driving, and not just a parking or emergency brake.

But (as with so many things in life) I think I'm in the minority. "Canute" isn't *really* my middle name ;-)

[NY]

Apparently in large French cities like Paris, it is the convention to park (when on level ground) with the handbrake *off*, to allow the car parked behind or in front of you to nudge your car out of the way if they need more space to drive off. Failure to do this can mean a crunched bumper (for both you and the other car) if it assumes that your car will move and it doesn't because the brake is on.

Sounds a highly dangerous practice. Who is liable if your car is nudged into the car in front, damaging it, while you are away from the car?

I'm not sure whether it still happens, but in the past it was one of those French quirks like priority from the right, even if "right" is a tiny farm track, or those ghastly yellow headlights.

[NY]

I presume the VW pull-for-fog-lights on the side-light switch is a mechanical interlock with the side lights, so it gets reset when you turn the lights off and later turn them back on. In my cars (Peugeot and Honda) it's a spring-loaded collar on the lights/indicator stalk, and it resets electronically rather than by a mechanical interlock.

My Mark 2 Golf in the late 80s had a totally separate toggle switch on the dashboard. Just after I got the car, I encountered fog so I was scrupulously careful about turn the rear foglights off every time I saw the headlights of a car behind (to avoid dazzling him) and then turning it back on when there were no headlights. It wasn't until I got home that I realised I'd been accidentally toggling the heated rear window switch alongside, and had been unwittingly dazzling cars behind me :-(

[The Natural Philosopher]

In a way it is. Consider precision manoeuvring at low speed. On a manual you use the clutch to inch as the accelerator hasn't got te control. On an auto if you try that you do what my mate did. Revved up to back up a slope, and smashed into the closed garage doors. The brake on an auto functions like a clutch on a manual. Controls the power fed to the wheels.

In a similar vein use of the brake and accelerator together will force a kickdown and makes for smoother and faster driving - mid corner leave the brake on and feed power in, the kickdown happens then release the brake to accelerate away...

It takes me less than 5 minutes to get used to a manual again. You don't dump the first 39 years of your motoring existence that easily.

In similar vein I prefer to drive a RHD car 'on the continent' because I don't have to learn a new car AND remember the 'new' rules: I spent a lot of time over there years ago and it all just 'clicks into place' as soon as I get off the ferry...

Total tosh. See above. It is a vital safety feature to left foot brake. Ther is no otherrway to control the power when takjiong off 'on the torque convertor'.

On my XF its not something you can use for a hill start. Its driven on and off by an electric motor. You HAVE to hold the car on the foot brake and feed in power on the other foot. Unless you want the ugly experience of revving up with the handbrake on, and then, on releasing it, having a completely uncontrolled take off.

[Mike Duffy]

I have on several occaisions 'mixed-up' the two, being never drunk, old, drowsy or distracted. Usually, it is due to being in an unfamiliar car or if your someone has changed seat positioning.

My point is that the feeling on the foot should be different enough for your reflexive proprioception to detect the error in a few dozen milliseconds. The accelerator is hinged at the floor, but the brake is hinged somewhwere just below knee level. They both have roughly linear tension/desplacement coefficients, but even blindfolded one should be able to disambiguate.

'Mixing up the brake & accelerator' in this context should be re-defined as 'Not noticing immediately when the brake & accelerator have been mixed-up'.

Even if you are driving an unfamiliar car with sloppy pedals, you should also notice when the car screaches off the mark and starts mowing down pedestrians. For this, drink & age are probably the key factors, so from an empirical point of view what you said is still cogent.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Up to the individual. Some are happy with both, some not.

If you can remember you have a clutch which needs to be used when driving a manual, why not remember which foot to brake with too?

[Dave Plowman (News]

Not on my auto. Touch the footbrake when manoeuvering and it disconnects the drive.

[Bob Eager]

Someone tried to do that on a vehicle I owned once.

• The handbrake was on. * It was a Series I Land Rover. * It was a brake on the propshaft, of course. * The other vehicle crumpled against my nice steel bumper.

[NY]

That's interesting. I've only driven on the right in an LHD car (in the USA). I found I adjusted remarkably well, though it was in the late 90s so I was 20 years younger. The only time I had a momentary problem was turning left at a traffic light which didn't have a filter lane. And of course trying to work out who the F had priority at a 4-way-stop, because I'd never encountered a junction before where priority is determined by order of arrival rather than position on the road, so I'd never paid any attention to who was there first. On the other hand, I found the big roundabout ("rotary") as you go from mainland Massachusetts onto Cape Code a piece of piss. I stopped a few miles further on and another guy stopped in the same place and complemented me on my "awesome" driving, especially when he heard that I wasn't even American. Americans encounter them so rarely that they are apprehensive of them.

I'm not sure I'd be as confident in a RHD car, because I'd be on the wrong side of the car so I wouldn't have such good visibility for overtaking, especially as a (passenger) mirror that is further away has a smaller field of view, in that you'd have to move a very long way to make a different bit of the road come into view, whereas it's a smaller movement if the mirror is on the driver's side. Maybe when I actually tried it, rather than theorising about it, I'd find it came naturally to me.

Did you find that because you were in a familiar car, you had more difficulty adjusting to the fact that you were now driving on the opposite side, whereas in an LHD car the very fact that everything was the opposite way round helps to reinforce that the rules of the road are the opposite way round.

Did you drive on your own, or did you have a passenger to act as your "overtaking eyes"?

[rbowman]

The urban legend has made it to Wikipedia although that doesn't confirm its accuracy. I do remember helping a friend replace the pawl in his '59 Buick. It wasn't a bad job and only required dropping the pan. I don't think he knew what led to the failure.

Have you ever lost your brakes? I have, twice, on cars where one master cylinder served both front and rear wheels. I also lost the front brakes on a dual circuit system when a porcupine chewed a brake hose through. Rear brakes on a F150 are not particularly effective. Just saying... Shit happens. I've never had a broken pawl but I do tend to use the parking brake on inclines.

[rbowman]

Back when the brake pedals were often the full width that would have been occupied by the brake and clutch I embarrassed myself more than one when driving an automatic by attempting to throw the clutch out with my left foot and getting the brake pedal. After you scrape yourself off the dash...

I do not shift to neutral when stopped in traffic. It's a habit carried over from bikes. On a bike you want to be able to instantly get out of harm's way when you see the person coming up behind you isn't showing any signs of stopping.

[rbowman]

That's not a problem I've encountered in the last 50 years or so.