Never had that problem, but I do hate it that automatics start going when you lift the break rather than when you press the gas (and engage the clutch).
An automatic car has no clutch; automatic transmissions aren’t just manual transmissions that do the work for you. It has a thing called a torque converter which is kind of a hydraulic pump and hydraulic motor in one unit which allows the engine to deliver torque and yet still slip.
I’ve driven a manual once - in a parking lot. Most of my driving has been in an automatic. I agree with this. I should have to press the “go” pedal to go, not just release the “stop” pedal. Thankfully, I now have an EV where I can choose to have it stop when I release the “go” pedal and not go again until I press the “go” pedal.
Most newer cars that have electronic parking brakes have an auto brake-hold feature that you can turn on. It keeps the car still when you depress the brake pedal a little deeper. Then the car won’t move when you release the brake and will only do when you step on the gas (or brake) again. It’s very useful at stop lights and drive thrus so you don’t have to keep your foot on the brakes all the time.
My car is manual, and my work car was automatic, I’ve done this several times
I find this terrifying. I drove a manual for 20 years and often switched to an automatic and never did it, and can’t imagine how it would even happen. The pedals aren’t that close.
I’m not understanding either. When I drove manual, I used the left foot exclusively for the clutch, and in an automatic, I don’t use the left foot at all.
Basically, monkey brain expects the left foot to meet with a pedal and will absolutely settle for the brake pedal if not reasoned with. I’ve done it a few times myself.
Is it monkey brain or lizard brain?
It’s usually when I realize that my turn is “right there,” and kind of an oh shit moment
I have an automatic, drove a manual for years and a few times a year I still need to drive a manual, but I’ve never really done this, aside from maybe a couple times the very first time I got my automatic.
What usually happens is I stall the manual once or twice forgetting to press the clutch while decelerating. Not that often anyways.
But maybe it’s cause I learned on a manual, not an automatic
Changing back to a manual I had to remind myself to press the clutch while putting the car in gear with the engine running. And not just having the brake pedal pressed. But you get used to that quite fast with the awful grinding noise.
What happened to that statue lol
It hit the extra wide brake pedal instead of the non-existent clutch pedal.
How could that possibly happen? Do you left-foot-brake?
… no, but you left foot clutch, and the brake pedal in an automatic is the width of both pedals in a manual. Forget, floor the “clutch” to shift, and that’s that. Just hope you forget when you first start going rather than when getting up to speed on a highway.
and the brake pedal in an automatic is the width of both pedals in a manual
Yeah… no.
The clutch would be to the left of both pedals in an automatic. Your foot rests in the empty space left of the brake pedal, usually there’s some kind of footrest roughly where the clutch would be. If anything you’d slam on that rest. Lifting your left foot off that rest (where the clutch you intend to slam would be) to hit the center pedal (which is where the brake is in any car) makes zero sense as a potential mixup. Not to mention it would feel extremely unnatural to operate a pedal so far right with your left foot if you tried.
If you are used to driving a manual, you don’t rest your foot on the foot rest area, you keep it just about to push the clutch. Also, saying the brake pedal is the full width of two pedals is wrong, but it is certainly wider. I have gone for the clutch in an automatic once and just barely caught the edge of the brake pedal. The results were very confusing, and without exaggerating it took me 5-10 seconds to figure out what I had done. It was while driving my mom’s car with her in it and she looked at me with the most “what the fuck are you doing?” look she has ever made.
This was all over twenty years ago but yes, it is definitely possible.
The footrest is still there in a manual car. The brake pedal is smaller, the clutch in between.
When you brake you hit the clutch with the left foot and brake with the right one on the brake pedal. Unintentionally smashing the wider brake pedal can happen if you switch from a smaller car to one with a very wide brake pedal. (Mercedes have quite wide brake pedals, for example)
It also happened a few times to me over my. life until I got used to put my left foot very close to the seat when driving automatic, so I don’t subconsciously use it. (Just “away” from where I’d have it in a manual car)
It typically happens if you need to do emergency braking anyways and just all the reflexes kick in. In normal situations it never happened to me.
The brake pedal in automatics is twice as wide as a brake pedal in manual cars.
No one is intentionally hitting the brake pedal. They’re moving their foot to push in a clutch pedal that doesn’t exist, and accidentally hitting the left hand side of the wide ass brake pedal.
Okay. Well, it’s happened to me… twice. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a real thing that happens.
Exactly. For over ten years I regularly switched between manual and automatic and this meme happened zero times.
I quite often did stall the engine of the manual at red lights though.
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So you literally had the opposite problem but can’t imagine someone having this one.
Yes, because while muscle memory may make your foot move (or not as in my case), I’ve never seen a car where the break pedal is broad enough to be anywhere close to where the clutch would be.
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I’m with you, we got some neanderthal MFs in here
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I think you’ll have to explain to most of the audience what a clutch is
The clutch is a third pedal to the left of the brake which lets you disengage the engine and transmission so you can change the gear then let the pedal out, engaging the new gear.
With a clutch, the brake pedal is usually really narrow. So when you get into an automatic instincts will tell you to press the clutch and change gears but that pedal doesn’t exist and the wide brake pedal is there instead. Instead of changing gears, you slam the brake.
Also you press the clutch pedal a lot harder and quicker than the brake pedal so you really slam it.
I actually have done this in my auto Civic after daily driving my manual Prelude for a while. The good thing is I was only moving about 8 miles an hour when it happened, so it looked weird. Would be kind of cool to have the narrow brake pedal in the Civic lol
But yeah, I’ve been thinking about swapping the auto Civic for a manual Accord of the same vintage.
Needs to explain why they think the clutch would be so far to the right.
I’m thinking the OP doesn’t understand how to drive a manual.
Or they don’t know how to drive automatic and brake with their left foot. Either way, it doesn’t check out
I’ve done it before. Granted it was one of the first times I’d driven an auto, but the reflex to engage the clutch for rolling to a stop, combined with the extra wide brake pedal can be a real gotcha.
Eh there’s also sometimes the foot e brake and sometimes when you’re thinking really fast and maybe have done a few switching from car to car you might just try to start a car and move with the e brake engaged thinking it was a clutch
Wider pedal in an automatic. You can catch the edge of it if you’re going for the clith
You probably shouldn’t go for the clit while driving
The cluthhy
Probably because we don’t dead reckon off the position of the gas pedal, but rather, our mental shortcut is, “clutch is furthest left pedal.”
As others have said, brake on automatic tends to be a wide pedal. Pedals on a smaller car or sports car tend to be small and very close together for heel and toe and whatnot.
Pedals on a smaller car or sports car tend to be small and very close together
Exactly. Nobody is making this mistake in a semi, with the throttle and brake all the way on the right and the clutch (if it exists) all the way on the left, and a huge gap in between, but a little car, and big feet? Absolutely
A lot of cars with automatics and manuals have slightly different brake pedal sizes for the same models (bigger on automatics usually, takes a bit of the space a clutch might). So theoretically it makes some sense.
I’ve never owned an auto, only manuals. But there’s been a couple times when I drove automatics for friends and family and accidently slammed my left foot into the floor or brake due to muscle memory. The pedals are close together in modern manual cars so you can heal toe, and automatic gas pedals are nearly always wider, because why wouldn’t they be?
So yeah, not only do I believe op drives a manual, I bet they do it often enough that when they do drive an auto they have to consciously hold their left foot back. I know I have to. I’ve been using a clutch too long, my left foot just wants to go.
As a guy who dailys a manual and weekend woriors a automatic car from the 50s it gets even more confusing because dispute not having a clutch it does have a floor dimmer switch so I still have 3 pedals and if I screw it up at night then sorry about blinding the guy in front of me with my upgraded led headlights
My parents 77 ford maybe f-150 (not sure if they were called that yet–actually I think it was something starting with an E) had the floor dimmer switch.
On topic though, I have driven manuals for 31 years now and currently have 3 5-speeds and 2 automatics in my driveway and I’ve never done this. What’s wrong with you people?
For me i suppose it doesn’t help that im also experienced 30s and 20s cars that have button pedals so everything but the brakes feel like a dimmer switch so I guess that also doesn’t help
Every once in a blue moon, I will slam my left foot into an empty space on the floor.
The brake is a right foot pedal, and I’m not sure what models others are speaking of when they say automatic brake pedals are wider. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that.
I think it’s been over twenty years since I’ve driven a manual transmission. I wonder if I could still do it. In my younger years when such cars were still common, it was second nature, but here 'murca, it’s tough to even find one if you want one anymore.
This
VS this
The brake pedal in the first picture is more than twice as wide as the accelerator, and it’s only about ~50% wider in the second picture
We have both types at home and yes the brake pedal on the automatic is twice as wide as the gas one. The only way for me to prevent using my left foot is to have it on the little rest spor on the left.
Well, judging fron the foot slamming, you haven’t completely forgotten how to drive a manual. So I’d say you’ll still be able to drive those after getting used to them for a bit.
As for the pedals, it is possible since to hit the brake with the left foot by mistake. Since not all foot wells are designed the same and in my experience the automatic brake pedals usually are quite a bit wider.
On some cars that empty space where the clutch would be is the handbrake
I’ve done this in my ambulance and nearly ate the steering wheel. All that weight DOES NOT like coming to a sudden stop
Why would you want to slam on clutch, and that too without simultaneously slamming the brakes??
You slam on the clutch to change gears. And you get used to changing gears while decelerating to use the engine brake as much as possible
What “slam” though? Why not just press the clutch down? I’ve driven manuals before and definitely didn’t have to do any slamming of the pedals, it worked great.
Well, it goes a lot further down than the brake pedal. It’s a relative slam.
Yeah, it’s not “emergency brake” levels of slam (where you would indeed slam on both pedals), but it usually gets pressed a lot faster and harder than how you’d press on the braking pedal when braking normally.
You seem to be imagining people HYAAAAAHHing their foot on the clutch pedal full force with bulging veins on their temples. It’s just that you typically put quite a bit more force on that pedal compared to a brake pedal even if it’s not exactly violent. It’s slamming in relative terms.
Because there is no inherent benefit to easing the clutch “in”. At least that’s the reason they gave me when I was learning how to drive, and my mechanic doesn’t seem to disagree. Basically, you want to disengage the transmission from the engine as soon as possible (especially when you’re doing that to benefit from the engine brake), change your gear, then gently ease the clutch “out”
Easing it in could in theory lead to a slipping clutch plate which might wear it out sooner. Completely disangaging the clutch without delay seems to be the best to me.
It’s only when you are driving off that you’ll want to ease off and have it slip ever so slightly.
I figured this meme and all discussion around it was in the context of an emergency situation. Emergency stop needed, adrenaline boosts, pedal slamming ensues.
Some automatics have extra wide break pedals. You’d put both feet on the same pedal.
Or hit while just changing gears. Then panic and push harder because your brain doesn’t understand why you’re slowing up.
If you’re new to automatics, or don’t drive them often, the trick is to tuck your left foot behind your right leg to stop you from doing this.
Or just cut it off tbh
When you give a cheap axe to your wife as a anniversary present.
Seems kind of erotic
Never learned manual, and been so long since I’ve driven I can’t even remember which pedal is gas and which is break lol
Actually, don’t think I’ve driven in over 5 years, and that was just for work.
Next time you’re driving somewhere, just pick a pedal and push it to see if it has the desired effect. If you go faster that’s the gas. If you go slower that’s the brake. If neither of them do anything try switching the engine on. You might need to fiddle with the gearstick as well, one of them makes you go backwards, the others are forwards. Just experiment and you’ll figure it out.
Preferably well away from any othe traffic.
That’s literally my process. Each time feels brand new
Though because of brain problems I try to avoid driving
Somebody’s in the [email protected] chat!
It’s not me! Didn’t even know there was a chat!
There’s Lemmy chat now? How does that work?? Is it like IRC?
No clue.
Crazy coincidence then! Someone made a very similar joke yesterday in our meme chat room.
I’ve had to drive manuals at work and after a day of it I do this driving home at least twice.
I understood this joke… then felt sad because I felt old… then felt mad because I miss my manual cars…
