Left-foot braking

[AMGeed]

My first experience of driving a car with an automatic was after an 8 hr flight and landing at Orlando.
As well as coping with driving on the "wrong" side of the road and not sure of my directions (long before sat navs) I now had to master an automatic.

The guy at the car hire company was pretty brief.
"Ever driven an auto before?"

"Nope"

"Well forget you have a left foot, put it on the floor and switch pedals with your right foot"
And that was my only introduction to driving an automatic.

It was a doddle and changed my outlook on automatics. I wrongly thought you had to be a coffin dodger to want an automatic

So, I'm not changing the habit of many years driving to start left foot braking.
It's gone very well so far and I can switch from an automatic to a manual without thinking about it.
I found the way you are taught becomes a habit of a lifetime.

 

[John]

I went through a phase of using my left foot to brake a few years back.

This was mainly to give my left foot a bit of exercise and gave me the option of using it if I ever needed to for any reason (a la Happytalk73's post).

I found it quick to calibrate (two or three brake presses) to braking with it and since then I can use both feet on the brake interchangeably.

There's no advantage to it except in my case, having a left foot calibrated to a clutch for a few years when I had manuals, I found braking a lot less effort with the left foot.

I gave it up in the end though as I found I got a slight pain in my left leg after a few months which went away when I changed back and have never done it since.

So it's more unnatural with MB brake pedals.

I've done it in our Juke when my left leg was aching in a particular long drive with lots of traffic.

Now I use the S500 so I don't have that particular issue anymore!

 

[rf065]

You have two pedals and two feet - there's no reason you can't use both at the same time.

I have two pencils and two hands but no desire to use them both at the same time!

 

[219]

Do you use your right foot to operate the clutch?

No , but it is still true that the clutch pedal , like the brake pedal is used only for a tiny proportion of the time spent driving - hence what I said is correct ; and with cruise control available then both feet can have nothing to do for much of a drive .

 

[219]

Apart from heel and toe, when would you need to operate all three pedals?

You need to operate all three pedals in order to drive a manual car - obviously . You need to use clutch and accelerator to move off and , driving correctly , clutch and brake when coming to a halt .

 

[219]

Apart from heel and toe, when would you need to operate all three pedals?

When I had my Ponton , for a while it wouldn’t idle correctly , and would cut out if I took my foot off the throttle , so I used the heel and toe technique to keep it running while changing gear ( mine wasn’t a hydrak ) .

 

[219]

I went through a phase of using my left foot to brake a few years back.

This was mainly to give my left foot a bit of exercise and gave me the option of using it if I ever needed to for any reason (a la Happytalk73's post).

I found it quick to calibrate (two or three brake presses) to braking with it and since then I can use both feet on the brake interchangeably.

There's no advantage to it except in my case, having a left foot calibrated to a clutch for a few years when I had manuals, I found braking a lot less effort with the left foot.

I gave it up in the end though as I found I got a slight pain in my left leg after a few months which went away when I changed back and have never done it since.

So it's more unnatural with MB brake pedals.

I've done it in our Juke when my left leg was aching in a particular long drive with lots of traffic.

Now I use the S500 so I don't have that particular issue anymore!

I’ve used both feet in MB autos ranging from W108/123/124/201/203/107/129/116/126/140and never found the pedal placement an issue in any of them .

My manual W124 with four pedals to contend with was more of a challenge .

 

[Mactech]

I've been lucky enough to drive all sorts of vehicles over the years, but never really been badly caught out by any of the controls. You seem to adapt very quickly to the type of vehicle you are driving be that a car, truck, motorcycle, race car or vintage car with the the throttle pedal in the centre of the three !
My mind seems to adopt the appropriate 'chip' and driving/riding becomes intuitive for that vehicle.
Just occasionally I've got muxed ip!
Taking the XJ220 on to the circuit last year I went to shift with my right hand.....race circuit, race car therefore right hand shift?
Wrong! Despite this being a RHD car and having driven it 100 miles on the road that morning....
I've also gone to heel and toe in the Land Rover entering a sharp downhill turn at speed in the Peak District only to discover the pedal spacing was made for farmers in wellies.
The environment you find yourself in seems to have and effect on what you feel are the appropriate controls to use and how many and which limbs are required to control the vehicle.

 

[Deleted member 126251]

This is becoming a bit like that thread about taking our foot off the brake and switching off indicators when waiting in traffic (so as not to dazzle drivers behind )......some people have a preferred way and of doing things and..........................

 

[Deleted member 149005]

No , but it is still true that the clutch pedal , like the brake pedal is used only for a tiny proportion of the time spent driving - hence what I said is correct ; and with cruise control available then both feet can have nothing to do for much of a drive .

clearly you don't spend much time driving in town with constant stop start.... we don't all have the empty roads of the highlands...

 

[Deleted member 149005]

You need to operate all three pedals in order to drive a manual car - obviously . You need to use clutch and accelerator to move off and , driving correctly , clutch and brake when coming to a halt .

Thank for that - i wondered what i had been doing wrong all these years...perhaps I'll try your technique of " apart from moving off , I tend not to use the clutch"

My reply was to your comment about having more pedals than feet with the inference it is too complicated...

 

[Deleted member 149005]

This is becoming a bit like that thread about taking our foot off the brake and switching off indicators when waiting in traffic (so as not to dazzle drivers behind )......some people have a preferred way and of doing things and..........................

It's more about people stating preference as fact....

 

[219]

clearly you don't spend much time driving in town with constant stop start.... we don't all have the empty roads of the highlands...

I try to avoid cities ; if I do go in to one , rather than pass through on an urban motorway or arterial route , I tend to take the train .

 

[219]

Thank for that - i wondered what i had been doing wrong all these years...perhaps I'll try your technique of " apart from moving off , I tend not to use the clutch"

My reply was to your comment about having more pedals than feet with the inference it is too complicated...

It is ‘more’ complicated than one pedal for each foot , the four pedal setup in the manual 124 was bordering on ‘too’ complicated .

 

[Deleted member 149005]

It is ‘more’ complicated than one pedal for each foot , the four pedal setup in the manual 124 was bordering on ‘too’ complicated .

3 pedals aren't more complicated than 2 if you only ever use 2 at at time...

 

[Deleted member 126251]

Who's driven a vehicle with the clutch on the gear knob......??

 

[219]

3 pedals aren't more complicated than 2 if you only ever use 2 at at time...

It’s the shuffling of feet from one pedal to another rather than having a 1:1 correspondence that adds it , however slight it might be .

 

[Londonscottish]

My first experience of driving a car with an automatic was after an 8 hr flight and landing at Orlando.
As well as coping with driving on the "wrong" side of the road and not sure of my directions (long before sat navs) I now had to master an automatic.

The guy at the car hire company was pretty brief.
"Ever driven an auto before?"

"Nope"

"Well forget you have a left foot, put it on the floor and switch pedals with your right foot"
And that was my only introduction to driving an automatic.

It was a doddle and changed my outlook on automatics. I wrongly thought you had to be a coffin dodger to want an automatic

So, I'm not changing the habit of many years driving to start left foot braking.
It's gone very well so far and I can switch from an automatic to a manual without thinking about it.
I found the way you are taught becomes a habit of a lifetime.

In the dim and distant past I'd driven two achingly-slow British automatics. One a Wolslely 6 I think - the transverse I6 2.2 - which had an engine presumably designed when Prince Albert was around. To say it was glacier-slow would be an insult to many mountainous ice formations. And a Cortina Mk 3 2.0 GXL which basicaly turned a lot of 4 star into very little forward motion.

BUT they both had normal auto gear levers in the transmission tunnel. On my first ever trip to the US in 1991 I picked up a Chevy Lumina hire car in Washington DC at 10,00 at night. The plan was to drive the 1,110 miles to New Orleans overnight and get there in time for some early evening beers with some mates who'd flown down ahead of time. But could I figure out how to put the thing into gear? Could I hell. Column shifts had gone out with the Ark over her and I'd never come across one in my life. Cue much embarrassed fumbling until the penny finally dropped.

Roll on three decades and I love the fact that MB put one in my 212. They actually make a lot of sense.

I still don't left foot brake though......

 

[Deleted member 150136]

It’s the shuffling of feet from one pedal to another rather than having a 1:1 correspondence that adds it , however slight it might be .

It must be a nightmare when you have to steer and shuffle your hands to keep them in the 10 to 2 position.

 

[Steeve]

No , but it is still true that the clutch pedal , like the brake pedal is used only for a tiny proportion of the time spent driving - hence what I said is correct ; and with cruise control available then both feet can have nothing to do for much of a drive .

Going off topic (as the original topic has been done to death by now!)...

It would be really useful to have a foot rest on the right side too, annoying to have your foot "hovering" whilst on cruise control