Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My original cars were stick shift. Even later in life I had an automatic and a stick shift. It was natural for me to drive with two feet. As I got older it became easier to drive with one foot.
My mom does this - brakes with her left foot and accelerates with her right foot. It's just a bad habit for some people. However, I also have a friend who does this for medical reasons. He has a special attachment on the brake pedal that lets him keep his legs in a comfortable position while driving. He gets chronic back pain from constantly shuffling his feet back and forth.
I'm sorry to say this but...maybe your friend shouldn't drive until they sort out their back issues?? I'm serious. I took my wife to the orthopedic surgeon and while I was waiting I saw a fairly large number of severely arthritic, crippled or incredibly old people limp, hobble, stumble and then fall into their cars and drive away from the clinic. Until that day I had no idea just how many people are driving around with legs that don't work properly. And that was just one clinic in one part of one city in this country, and only for about 45 minutes. If people can't properly manage a car the way it was designed to be operated they shouldn't try.
Thats because the driving schools want you to take your foot off of the go pedal and let the engine do some of the braking.
Engine braking only works with manual transmissions so that is NOT the reason. When I learned to drive it was in an automatic. Moving the right foot quickly from the brake to the gas. Notice I said from the brake to the gas. My driving teacher made absolutely certain that I understood that the brake was the important pedal in the car! The gas pedal was only for accelerating, at all other times the right foot was "covering the brake" ready for instantaneous application. Covering the brake, not depressing it, not even a little.
Covering the brake should not bring on the brake lights but many people do that. Don't assume when you see some idjit driving with their brake lights on that it automatically means that they are driving with two feet. In a city like NYC it is important to be ready to brake at all times. This should NOT mean covering the brake with your left foot. Most people are right footed as well as they are right handed. Your left foot will never be as nimble and reliable as the right foot unless you are ambidextrous. In NYC, a left foot braker would inevitably wind up in a collision, if they are lucky, or run a pedestrian down if they (and the ped) are unlucky. Why risk it.
The driving schools stress coming off the gas because most people don't need the encouragement. Quite the opposite. They need to be trained to get off the gas and stop accelerating as soon as possible. I get incredible gas mileage when I drive around town because most of the time my right foot is off the gas! I'm doing just fine with throttle at idle position while icoasting on momentum. If you read that as I am slow in traffic you would be wrong.
Engine braking only works with manual transmissions so that is NOT the reason. When I learned to drive it was in an automatic. Moving the right foot quickly from the brake to the gas. Notice I said from the brake to the gas. My driving teacher made absolutely certain that I understood that the brake was the important pedal in the car! The gas pedal was only for accelerating, at all other times the right foot was "covering the brake" ready for instantaneous application. Covering the brake, not depressing it, not even a little.
Engine braking also works with automatic transmissions. Many times I have driven down an incline with one of my cars (all with automatic transmissions) in 2nd gear so engine braking can help slow the car.
Only this one time someone gave me the finger as he was trying to turn onto the road even though I had the right of way and was at the speed of the road, and after that he was behind me at the light so when it turned green I did a huge burnout and some of the smoke even got into a restaurant adjacent to the light, I would have undoubtedly gotten a ticket that day if police saw it.
His finger cost him nothing, you, on the other hand, probably bought a new set of tires sooner than you had planned.
I use both feet driving a automatic or manual shift. Using my left foot on the brake feels normal to me. My right foot feels awkward on the brake if my left foot is not on a clutch. There no thought about it, my feet just do it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
