my left foot is for clutch and brights/dimmer switch only. that was virtually the first thing they taught me in driver’s ed back in 1973, and it stuck.
of course it has been a while since i used my foot to change headlight brightness
Same here, I learned and droves manuals for a long time in Uk and US and elsewhere in, when the left foot goes down it is not a deft and subtle thing, so breaking with the left foot is exciting.
Ok I am not a good driver either , so it could be just that.
There is no need to swap the peddles just because they drive on the other side . The wheel and driver has to be moved obviously. Can’t remember what happens with the indicator stalks windscreen wipers stalks.
When swapping from left to right or vice versa I’d find I’d drop my hand down the gear stick and end up starting to wind down the window as that was the first thing the hand found
That’s the message I got. The teacher acknowledged that some race car drivers brake with their left foot and that anybody who tries to drive like a race car driver in his class would get an automatic F.
In the UK, as WW1 approached, the Government started thinking about using motor transport Pedals and other controls were put wherever the designer decided and it was decided to specify a fixed pedal layout to make driver training easier.
Any manufacturer who wanted to bid for the supply of vehicles had to follow the agreed specification with the throttle on the right, brake in the middle and clutch on the left.
After the war, those manufacturers wanted to sell their cars to the general public, so they stuck to the familiar layout. It’s a bit like the QWERTY keyboard, which, despite not being the ideal layout, has stayed with us because - familiarity.
I picked “right foot” in the poll. I do know how to drive a manual transmission (and my current car is manual), but I initially learned how to drive, on an automatic, about two years before I learned how to drive a stick, and the “right foot for both pedals” had already been drilled into my head.
I’ve known several senior citizens who have changed over to using their left foot for the brake, to compensate for slower reflexes. It does seem to also lead to the left foot resting on the brake pedal heavily enough to engage the brakes (and activate car’s brake lights), which is annoying, at a minimum, to those who are following them on the road.
I’ve been using my left foot since I drove race cars. The only time I don’t is when I drive manual transmission vehicles, I haven’t driven one of these in over 15 years when I traded in my old Toyota pickup.
Many cars have very sensitive brake pedals where the lights go on before there is any sort of engagement of the brake with the slightest resting on the brake pedal. I’ll just mention the left foot brakers may have no idea that their brake lights are fluttering on and off.
^This. It’s very distracting when you don’t know whether the car in front of you is braking. And I imagine them thinking, ‘Why do my brake pads wear out so quickly?’
This would not surprise me in the slightest.
While I was still driving on track I happened to see a video of a NASCAR driver’s pedal work and was interested to see how he used left foot braking to slow the car slightly without lifting off the throttle. (Race car drivers generally don’t have to worry much about wearing out the pads.)
So I started teaching myself to left-foot brake when driving on the street, and tried applying it on track. It was occasionally somewhat useful, but I wasn’t such a great driver that it made a great difference. That was pretty much the only time I did it.
Back in college, I was driving a friend of mine’s car and her car had that set up. My regular car was a stick, and unbeknownst to me, I was turning the brights on and off as I put my foot on the missing clutch. I noticed when some car flashed its brights at me.
At least most (all?) of us are young enough to have never used the starter button on the floor that used to be located where the headlight dimmer switch used to be located.
Race car drivers who drive manual transmission cars learn ‘heel and toe’ braking, where you move your heel over to the brake pedal while keeping your toe on the gas. That way you can keep the revs up between shifts while braking.
I’ve tried heel and toe braking. I suck at it. For normal driving, manual or automatic, the left foot stays on the dead pedal (all the time for automatic, when not clutching for a manual) and the right foot does all accelerating and braking.
Regardless of which method you use, I believe it’s key to be consistent. If you sometimes use your left foot and sometimes your right foot, you are just asking for a muscle memory mistake in an emergency.
Left foot all the time. Just like I use my right hand for writing and my left hand for mousing. Why wouldn’t I use both feet for driving?
Never learnt to drive a standard, auto all the way.
And I’ve seen the comments before on this board, about wearing out brake pads, or risk of hitting brake and gas at the same time. So a few years ago, I started a thread in GQ, asking if there were any studies to back up those types of comments.
Even though I asked solely for factual responses, it ended up in IMHO, as I recall, because that’s all the answers I got.
With respect to brake repairs, all I can say is that I’ve only had to fix brakes on the dealer recommended schedules for my vehicles.
With respect to slamming on both at once, I don’t see how that’s possible. As @Sam_Stone says, it’s all about muscle memory. If I want to slow down, I take my right foot off the gas; if I want to stop quickly, I take my right foot off the gas and hit the brake with my left foot. I’ve never had the situation of hitting both hard, and I’ve been in occasional tight spots where quick decisions were needed.
I use only my right foot, because that was the way I was taught. I also keep the heel of my right foot lined up with the brake pedal, so that if I suddenly reflexively stomp the pedal, it’ll be the brake pedal.
For those two-footers who mention situations where they expect they might need to be hitting the brakes suddenly, when I’m in a situation like that, I take my foot off the gas. Worst case scenario, I lose a couple of MPH, and have to regain them when the situation’s past. And if I do need to brake, then the brake and throttle aren’t fighting each other, and I need to use the brake less.
I doubt the time it takes to move your foot from the gas to the brake significantly impacts reaction time. Recognizing the need to brake in the first place is the slowest part of the process. Moving my foot from one pedal to the brake is very fast.
I also do not leave my left foot on the clutch pedal. One I’m done clutching, my foot goes back to the dead pedal unless I’m doing something that requires multiple fast shifts. I never drive with my foot resting on the clutch or brake.
Also, I do not rest my hand on the gear shift lever. It’s bad for the transmission.
Heel and toe is more like moving your foot to the gas while trying to maintain maximum braking in deep braking zones. In my case, I blip the throttle with my heel while keeping the ball of my foot on the brake.
Most standard pedals are set up for size 13 boots, so this is hard. I modify all the pedals on my track/race cars. At this point I can heel/toe just about anything but I’d never have learned on some cars’ stock pedals. It’s also very hard to learn on the street, because you’re rarely pushing on the brake pedal hard enough to get the pedals close to the same height.
As for left foot braking while racing, most race cars are automatics so it just makes sense. I taught myself to left foot brake in a manual, but you can only do it in corners where you don’t have to downshift. I have to be very deliberate about it, but racing is very repetative so there’s plenty of time to slowly work on the muscle memory.
There’s basically no evidence that it’s any faster than not doing it, and many successful drivers from the manual transmission era never practiced it. I certainly didn’t pick up any speed from it. I still do it just so I can say I do. Racecar drivers are annoying like that.
I voted both feet. I almost always use the right foot, but in some 4x4 maneuvers on the trail I’ll use the left foot, like when I did this obstacle:
I transitioned to an automatic after driving a manual transmission for 15-20 years. I did this manouver once or twice, but no biggie because it’s pretty obvious it’s just left foot conditioned behavior. Didn’t take me that long to de-condition myself.