Stopping in neutral?

_feedback_

Hi All, sorry for dragging up an old thread!!

Just a quick one ... I've my test in a couple of weeks and over the weekend went for first refresh lesson.

My instructor insisted I must change down through the gears approaching roundabouts and stops.. I don't usually do it and found it generally off-putting!! I would usually approach a roundabout using the brake to slow, if i have to come to a complete stop, I'll clutch & brake. If not, I'll slow down and just entering the roundabout, I'll clutch and change to relevant gear. Similar at traffic lights, depending on whether they're green/amber/red and traffic conditions.

He told me I was coasting... I was to a very small degree, but I feel much more in control of the car that way. He also told me I was coasting when he asked me to turn in to a housing estate while i was travelling approx 50km/h in 4th and had to take a left and approach slowly. I kept the clutch down from when i was just about to turn left (after braking) until i completed the turn and proceeded straight after the turn by lifting clutch and changing to 2nd.

Am i going over board with the coasting?

Stark

elviscostello wrote:

My instructor insisted I must change down through the gears approaching roundabouts and stops.. I don't usually do it and found it generally off-putting!! I would usually approach a roundabout using the brake to slow, if i have to come to a complete stop, I'll clutch & brake. If not, I'll slow down and just entering the roundabout, I'll clutch and change to relevant gear. Similar at traffic lights, depending on whether they're green/amber/red and traffic conditions.

Stopping in gear and block gear changing don't count as coasting in themselves (unless you have the clutch in for a few seconds). It sounds like your instructor is one of the many Irish instructors who are decades behind the rest of the world.

elviscostello wrote:

He told me I was coasting... I was to a very small degree, but I feel much more in control of the car that way. He also told me I was coasting when he asked me to turn in to a housing estate while i was travelling approx 50km/h in 4th and had to take a left and approach slowly. I kept the clutch down from when i was just about to turn left (after braking) until i completed the turn and proceeded straight after the turn by lifting clutch and changing to 2nd.

This is coasting. Do this 4 times and you'll fail your test. Never disengage gears when going round a corner.

Wishbone Ash

elviscostello wrote:

I kept the clutch down from when i was just about to turn left (after braking) until i completed the turn and proceeded straight after the turn by lifting clutch and changing to 2nd

:eek: elvis - you'd want to get rid of that habit immediately. Never take a corner with the clutch pedal pressed!

wil

elviscostello wrote:

I kept the clutch down from when i was just about to turn left (after braking) until i completed the turn and proceeded straight after the turn by lifting clutch and changing to 2nd.
Am i going over board with the coasting?

I'll doublle that :eek: and raise you an OMG, I would have thought this should be an instant fail, but maybe they are more lenient over here.
To answer your last question by coincidence, a girl took out a signpost and her boyfs car almost outside my door as she attempted similar maneuvre from main road in to side road a few weeks back. While coasting she lost control. I was first on scene expecting the worst but apart from bruising and extremely upset seemed ok. Car and pole written off. Lucky for her she wasnt going that fast. And she was able to explain what had happened.

If you as a learner think you are coasting to a small degree, then you probably are to a much greater degree than you think.

Anyway I agree there is alot of confusing info on the subject and perhaps there is no simple definitive fully correct answer because of the distinction between different slowing situations eg emergency stop (straight line or bend), anticipated braking to a complete stop in traffic, braking at speed, braking in different driving conditions and normal anticipated slowing of the car to carry out a maneuvre, so there is no one set of instructions that apply to all situations.

I too was taught that brakes should be used sparingly, anticipation is much more important, and an emergency stop should almost never be necessary, usually only happens when your ability to anticipate and read the road is not as good as you think. Your engine is the primary control over your speed and when you disengage you are losing control momentarily. In slippy conditions you should use the brakes hardly at all.

Choose the correct gear before entering a roundabout/side road, not during. What gear that is depends on the traffic/road conditions and how you read them. Generally it would probably be third or second. If you are going to have to stop, your observation should already interpreted this and you would have dropped from the high gears before needing to come to a halt.

As for handbrake, I concur with MrP, thats one thing about learning in the UK, its pretty consistent, and they've been getting it a lot closer to right for a lot longer than the nonsense I see so much over here. (some reasons for it could be rollback or being rearended and pushed into oncoming traffic)

Aside - Does anyone in Ireland actually depress handbrake button before lifting or is that only taught in UK.

Stark

wil wrote:

Aside - Does anyone in Ireland actually depress handbrake button before lifting or is that only taught in UK.

We're taught to do that over here as well.

galah

Funny, I never use the handbrake (apart from hill starts and things like that)

- I was taught it's a "parking brake", and it's not necessary to use it when driving (again, excluding hill starts). (but please don't let that influence you for your driving tests here...)

It's really interesting what you learn in different countries around the globe when it comes to driving...

Stark

In countries where they drive a lot of automatics like America, they don't use the handbrake much.

I think with the dark evenings these days, it's polite to use it so you don't give the driver behind you a face full of red when you're sitting at traffic lights.

Vegeta

bonkey wrote:

Its more fuel efficient, and with a modern engine, you have to screw up enough that stalling would occur pretty-much no matter what gear you're in.
.

How exactly is it more fuel efficient? Honest question here as from my experience there is no difference

My brother has a 1990 e30 BMW with a mpg needle which is excellent for highlighting poor driving when it comes to fuel economy. Much better than the modern digital read outs

There is no difference between block gearing and chaning down gear by gear

Changing gears while braking should be avoided because you reduce control of your car if you take one hand off the steering wheel

Ok so you need 2 hands on the wheel to steer more effectively. What steering would you need to do in an emergency. Do the IAM promote swerving to avoid hazards??

yes you have more steering control but that is just one aspect (and as I said how much steering/swerving is sensible in an emergency) with changing down gear by gear you are in better overall control of the engine.

That logic is just plain dumb. By the same logic no one would indicate. How long does it take to take your hand from wheel to stick and back to wheel. I do it in under a second anyway. Roughly the same time it takes to put on lights, wipers and indicator.

Wertz

Coasting eh? That's been somewhat of a bad habit of mine too since I started learning....I think it's the fear of stalling that causes it. I've changed my habits after a pretty close call at a roundabout a while back...up til then I had this amazingly stupid habit of depressing the clutch too early whilst braking hard....this obviously is very hard on the brakes and is also dangerous since the gears and the engine's reducing revolutions aren't aiding in slowing (or controlling) the car...
Now if only I could manage to keep my hands on the wheel for longer than 10 seconds at a time...

prodigal_son

I think i will throw my 2 cents in..

I think the reason people are thought to just brake and then push the clutch in on the point of stalling, is simply to make the test easier. Its the safiest easiest way to do it. But i would like to suggest that going down gears is the absolute safest option, although a little harder to perfect, and it is something people should strive to do.

My reasons for saying this are as follows..

1.Using gears helps the car slow down.
2. Brakes fail, why not assist them with the help of the engine
3. You will always be ready to make progress.

If the only reason for braking to a stop in 3rd, is that you need your hands on the wheel, well i would call this point a moot one. You need 2 hands on a wheel to stop, but not to turn wide corners, to start off etc etc..

You can bring the car to a complete slowdown without even using the brakes.

I would suggest that the best way to slow down is to do the following.

Hit the brakes a bit, clutch in down one gear, clutch slowly and evenly out, you may be able to come off the brake a bit at this point as the car slows. Clutch in, down a gear and do the same, off the clutch nice and easy while using the brake to smooth the transition.

Finally you will get to 2nd gear, at this point the brake will sitll be pushed in a bit, but you will be going slow enough to come off the brake a lot, as you aproach a slow speed, maybe 2 or 3 km an hour, the car will gently stop, as you press the clutch in..

If the stop does not leave you enough room to come off the clutch slowly and evenly each time, do it more quickly in the higher gears, and apply the brake a bit more.

By the time you reach 2nd, you should always be in the same situation, going fairly slow, and in complete control.

I would suggest that driving to a stop, is a far far far safer approach than just jamming on the brakes.

Thats all my personal opinion though.

About skipping gears.. Its perfectly ok and should not do much harm to your clutch or gear box, unless you pop it into first from 6th, where you might blow your engine.

For example, if for some reason you high rev in first gear to something like 8000 revs, if you go to second, you will be high rev, maybe 5 thousand off the bat.. But you will more than likely be going fast enough for you to saftley put the car into 3rd, and it will then be medium reving in 3rd and you can go on your way as normal. That presuming when you reach 8000 rev in first your wheel speed is matching the gear speed, and you didnt just blip it high and plop it in 3rd.

Let the syncro mesh do its magic. If you are going fast enough to skip a gear, you can skip it, in both up and down directions.

Sometimes coming to a sharp corner, the best approach is to just brake and put the gear from 4th straight to 2nd

Lastly a little tip i found is that if you are buying a car second hand, let the owner bring you for a drive, and watch to see if they use the handbrake. If they dont they may be in the habit of holding it on the clutch, and it could be a warning sign that it may live a short life.

bonkey

I think the reason people are thought to just brake and then push the clutch in on the point of stalling, is simply to make the test easier. Its the safiest easiest way to do it. But i would like to suggest that going down gears is the absolute safest option, although a little harder to perfect, and it is something people should strive to do.

Why do you think your preferred way is safer?

I'm not being smart here...you've described your way, and then basically said "I think this is safer", but not really why. You give 3 reasons, but I'm not sure that they're a good comparison. You're not looking at the pros and cons of both sides...

My reasons for saying this are as follows..

1.Using gears helps the car slow down.

Using the handbrake also helps slow the car down, but no-one's suggesting we use that

Running into the car in front of you will also slow you down...but its also not a good way of doing things

Seriously though...no-one questions that lower gears will help in braking. The question is whether this is the best approach.

It used to be so with older cars, where the brakes were a lot sofer, brake-wear was higher, and where the brakes could rapidly decrease in capability once they wore beyond a certain point.

In modern cars (assuming you keep them serviced etc.) this is not really the case. Brakes today are far more powerful, far more durable, and far more reliable.

So we need to look at the cost of using the gears to slow the car versus the benefit.

The benefit is.....

2. Brakes fail, why not assist them with the help of the engine

But everything fails. We don't drive on the assumption that things will fail. If we did, we'd probably never get above walking speed.

There are costs associated with downshifting and with not downshifting, and the question is whch on balance is safer.

Yes, brakes fail. So do clutches, gearboxes, and everything else.

The driver is least in control when the car is out of gear. You will have your car out of gear whilst downshifting far more often than I will by not downshifting....and at much higher speeds.

The experts say that on balance you are more at risk than me....especially in a modern car where the risk of brake-failure is very low. You're free to disagree with them...but like I said, teh comparison you should make here is more :

risk of brakes failing
vs
risk of clutch/gears failing + increased risk from not being in gear, particularly at higher speeds.

In a modern, maintained car...I'll discount the failure options, and end up with:

no-risk
vs
risk from not being in gear, particularly at higher speeds.

I don't see how I'm losing out here.

3. You will always be ready to make progress.

Eccept when the car isn't actually in gear, and also (to a degree) when you're clutchingor declutching....which by your description is actually quite a lot of the time that you're coming to a halt.

Even if that weren't the case...how does being ready to make progress make you safer?

Wishbone Ash

prodigal_son wrote: »

But i would like to suggest that going down gears is the absolute safest option, although a little harder to perfect, and it is something people should strive to do

It's odd therefore that, when driving a truck, the motto is "gears to go, brakes to slow". It's one of the first things that is taught.