Why would a headlamp height be illegal? What matters is where it shines. I could have lights on the roof of my car facing onto the road in front of me, or I could have headlights in the normal position facing up slightly and into the face of oncoming drivers. Guess which one is dangerous?
Doesn't the dog look pissed off?
Totally! I think that if I were the dog, I would be tempted to make an example of those white trousers.
Aren't they still called handbrakes? If someone asked you to apply the handbrake, you'd know what they meant.
On that last sentence - bullshit. You don't need a handbrake in an automatic at all. And you only need it on a manual if you stop on steep hills.
Indeed, the brakes will overheat more easily.
Why on earth do you need a handbrake to do a hill start? That's for learner drivers who can't operate a clutch very well. To hill start a manual (autos do it themselves), you're sitting on the footbrake. You press in the clutch and engage 1st. Pull the clutch up as much as you can without the engine stalling, then let go of the brake. The car will stay still or inch forwards. Press on the gas and release the clutch fully. All this becomes a simple smooth motion done subconsciously. If you can't do that, you're a seriously shit driver.
Never drive gently, it makes you look like a woman.
When would you need a handbrake? I never ever apply a handbrake in an auto, and in a manual only on a very steep hill.
What?
Agreed - only happened to me on very old ones.
I thought they were for doing fancy manoeuvres.
Agreed.
Why would you ever need your left foot in an auto? I only use my right foot, I'm either accelerating or braking.
Then after thirty years of driving and having passed my advanced test, I'm still a seriously shit driver. I would always use my handbrake as the "buffer" as I'm moving my foot from the footbrake to the accelerator if the hill was steep enough that the car would roll backwards - ie any time that the car is not on a level road.
In article , Mr Macaw writes
Manoeuvring in a tight space.
Especially if the throttle pedal/cable/linkage is a bit stiff and suffers from stick-or-slip. Given that you only have the throttle to adjust the take-up of power (and not a combination of clutch and throttle in a manual, which allows finer control) you may need to blip the brake if the throttle pedal sticks and then suddenly moves more than you expected, or if the torque converter engages with a slight lurch - then you may need the brake to rectify things.
I would never use my left foot on the brake part from that circumstance, because the left foot is used to making fairly gross movements of the clutch and not the finer. more controlled movements of the brake and throttle. I remember when I went go-karting, where you physically cannot use your right foot on the brake, being warned that we'd all need to be very careful when driving home that we didn't instinctively use the heavy-footed left foot on the brake as we'd been used to on the karts :-) And that skidding round corners with the back wheels locked, go-kart style, wasn't a good idea on the public highway :-)
It doesn't take much practice to learn the required control with the left foot. I remember asking my father about it as I was driving him in an auto on a longish journey and he said something along the lines of "ok, but be careful" - at that point I told him I'd been using my left foot for braking for the entire trip :-)
Agreed. And also, if you do need to make an emergency stop, you instinctively push down harder with the left foot than with the right, as that is when fine control is not required.
Left foot braking is a useful part of driving with an automatic gearbox.
because sometimes you want to be both accelerating and braking. But that's for grown-ups.
In article , Davey writes
If you are right footed then that limb will react and move more quickly than the left. Also there is a danger that in a violent emergency some may press down with both feet. Of course we're all up to F1 driver standards in here so it doesn't apply.
So the ABS comes into action. That's what it's for.
(on braking on an auto-equipped car)
That's not a danger, that's a good thing. People don't press the brakes hard enough anyway, hence the various brake assist technologies. ABS will take care of the problems associated with braking too hard for the available traction.
Correct. Which is why this practice has always been heavily deprecated. Right-footed drivers in automatics should only ever use their right foot for both pedals.
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