I change gearing with the engine, up and down,always have done from being shown from me daddy, that way you are always in the right gear with the traffic, plus if the lights change you can hit the fast pedal,
happy days.
M-m
hmm, i was always taught to keep the car in gear as long as possible as engine braking will help to shed some speed, as well as leaving you in an appropriate gear to pull away again should you need to. I even go down through the gears as I slow down. I’m 22 and only passed my test 3 years ago, so can say with some confidence, unless it’s changed dramatically in the last few years, that this isn’t how people are taught to drive nowadays!
MX-5s do cut the fuel on the overrun. In a Mk.1, if you lift off the accelerator, leave it in gear and don’t press the clutch, it’ll cut the fuel and won’t start injecting again until it gets down to around 1600 rpm.
Hmmm… an interesting debate. It seems to me that there are three different schools of thought here.
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Use brakes only. Stay in gear.
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Use brakes only. Put the car into neutral.
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Slow using a combination of brakes and changing down.
A police driver friend was taught to use method 1. Brakes for slow, gas for go. And as a single rule to live by, that seems to be the most sensible. You’re still in gear so you can accelerate if you need to. Engine braking helps to slow down. If you need to slow more suddenly than you thought your foot is already on the brake pedal.
By contrast, if you slow with the car in neutral you can’t quickly accelerate if road conditions change. If you slow only by changing down the gears you aren’t covering the brakes. An emergency stop will take longer because your foot isn’t on the brake pedal…You might need to brake suddenly when you are in mid gear change.
But … I guess it depends on circumstances. If you slow from a high speed to a low speed you will often need to dip the clutch to prevent the car from stalling. Slowing on the gears is okay if you want to make a small correction to speed and know that you aren’t going to do an emergency stop.
Going back to the original question, I cannot imagine any learner being taught to put the car in neutral whilst braking. That seems wholly wrong and dangerous. New drivers especially need to keep it simple with as few things as possible to think about.
Do drivers of automatics also slow in neutral? I learnt to drive Landrovers and progressed onto HGV2 courtesy of the RAF, and taught that if your “coasting” you are not in control of your vehicle.
As an ex instructor I can tell you that if on test you put the car in neutral whilst moving or coast with the clutch peddle down for to long you will FAIL on MISS USE OF GEARS.
Yeah, to get back to the OP, I think Polyanna’s son in law is just plain wrong about that. Drivers used to be taught to gradually change down through the gears while they brake, but for quite a while now they’ve been taught not to change down while they brake. I seriously doubt whether anyone has ever been taught to brake in neutral.
Ok, so what happens when you brake from 100mph to 30mph in 5th or 6th gear and then need to accelerate again to keep up with the baddies? Answer: start stiring around for the right gear to make the best use of your power.
The way the police are taught to drive is at best old-fashioned and at worst plain stupid, hang on
most police operatives are bit fik anyway so perhaps this is the safest way for simpletons to learn to drive?
It requires more brain power to drive correctly i.e changing down while braking and in a rwd car, balancing the total braking effort equally between the axles with the clutch.
Am going to check if my daughter has been taught to drive in this modern manner, if so I may have to re-programme her lol!
Dr. Eunos
This Could be because of the infamous problems VW group had in the US with some Audi’s (?) hanging on the throttle, similar problem that Toyota had. One thing that was mentioned was that braking should automatically be made to Cancel any throttle input, as one of the problem seemed to have been that some drivers could not stop their careening cars by braking. Since it is all computer controlled the system can easily be setup this way, and presumably most drivers won’t notice the difference.
However, it was not clear if they actually failed to stop the car by braking (seems unlikely considering the brake force available) or just pressed the wrong pedal when panicked.
Surely the brakes must be able to stop a car, even in full throttle. The brakes can apply Much more force after all, but they can also get overheated…
Sorry for the hijack… 
Hi Sven, I think its just another case of the machine taking over it prevents left foot braking as you can no longer keep the power on and kill the wheelspin at the same time. Modern front wheel drive cars now have things like electronic diffs which in reality use the electronic stability programme and ABS sensors to either cut the power or apply the brake on the spinning wheel or a combination of the two, whilst for the vast majority of motorists this is fine, for drivers its a bit of a pain - hence you often hear of people switching off the ESP to get the best out of a car ( on some vehicles the ESP can only be partially switched off unless you know how to completely disable it altogether).
I partially remember seeing an Audi R8 on the TV at Bruntingthorpe, it took ages for Audi techicians to completely switch off all the ABS, ESP etc. etc after which the car was pretty much un-drivable. Many modern chassis designs rely way too much on electronics, its often a cheap way to make a mediocre car perform better.
Aha! Reading this thread I’ve just had a Eureka moment!
With all this emphasis on economy and when using the brakes it cuts the fuel, maybe this explains why there are so many apparent dickheads driving about brakehopping on the motorway.
That’s it, of course. They aren’t being the previously envisaged moronic fools that are unable to judge relative speeds and distances, or over-react to another brakehopping clown further up the road, they are merely being good citizens and trying to use less fuel.
Well blow me down, I’ll have to try that myself sometime. Still not fully convinced though because I’m sure the cost to the government (and us via taxes of course) and the damage to the environment and vehicles, not to mention the stress and anguish caused to relatives when said brakehoppers cause a massive pileup behind them far outweighs the miniscule amount of fuel saved…
I have a suspicion that overreaction like that probably caused the terrible crash on the M5 recently. Some of the quotes really worry me, such as the one from what may have been the front of the involved traffic: “the lorry disappeared into the fog so I hit the brakes…”
ant 
I also remember Tiff at 5th gear supposedly finding the “secret” off-switch on the Veyron, and then suprisingly declaring that the chassis was actually very good 
Of course, for “drivers” it is a pain, but as I said, Most drivers (or perhaps motorists??) won’t notice any difference, as they would never drive that way (i.e. left foot braking) anyway.
Even I do left foot braking, but only on the BMW (an Auto 
) , saves time at the red-lights
It is exactly that act - hitting the brakes as the vehicle in front vanishes in to a fog bank - that stops you piling in to the back of crashed cars. If everyone slowed there wouldn’t have been a crash, if no body slowed there wouldn’t have been a crash. Only one of those two reactions is safe though.
I know this one - I’ve been around loads of traffic officers: their answer to this is “we use our awesome observation skills to ensure we’re always in the right gear”. If you ask them if they are sure their observation skills really are awesome all of the time they crawl over your car and give you a ticket for something. Which is a slightly unfair way to end the discussion.
I do take your point of course Cap’n and can’t argue against either. However as ever its the problem of over-reaction that causes so many accidents. You are quite correct that there MIGHT be very slow cars ahead in the fog, although the odds are there isn’t, but the wave effect that is caused by someone slowing abruptly is very often devastating because everyone behind in turn slightly (or massively) overreacts and that’s when you get the instant stop and consequent pileup.
Time and time again whilst instructing on rally, race or 4x4, when things get a bit out of shape or uncomfortable the overriding temptation for the client is to “do stuff”. There’s no conscious decision made, all you get is a flurry of arm waving and a big stomp on the middle pedal. Needless to say, it’s always inappropriate but under these more controlled conditions they normally get away with it. Out on the public highway with greater speeds and thousands of other equally uneducated or downright incompetent drivers it invariably results in a crash.
It’s so very hard for a driver to remain objective in those circumstances, but it can be done with a bit of training and a lot more general awareness, but do you think “they” will ever introduce compulsory re-tests or advanced driving courses? Nope, didn’t think so.
Anyway, my apologies for hijacking the thread - we seem to have wandered away from the origianl question of how best to slow down. The simple answer is anyway that doesn’t result in leaning on the vehicle in front…
While I appreciate you point about people over-reacting to nothing and causing a ripple that ends in traffic chaos in the case of fog there is a real hazard - you really should slow down for it. Observe it early enough and you can brake gently to a safe speed. You run the risk of being rear-ended by idiots, but I’d rather that happen than hope it’s clear and drive through it. If you are going to assume it’s clear you have to get lucky every time.
I’d love retests every 5 years, it’d be a nice money spinner for the government and instructors too. It’d be another “tax on the motorist” for people to winge about, but if it culls a few of the worst drivers off the roads it’d be worth it (like the girl I know who, after 6 fails, relied on a “lucky pass” before getting her licence entitling her to 50 years of careless motoring).
That’s easy. If you need to slow you hit the brake and leave the car in whatever gear it is in. Then if you need to accelerate you block change to an appropriate gear and apply power. Stirring around for the right gear is something that an untrained driver might do, but the majority of us have long since learned. And a trained police driver would have no problems with whatsoever.
Think about it this way, you are slowing from 100 in sixth because there’s an obtruction ahead. You aren’t really going to change down through the box as you go, from six to five, five to four and so on all the way down to first? That’s a lot of wasted effort, unbalancing the car and needless distraction from the job in hand. A novice might do it if they are unsure about their ability to block change gears. But a trained driver? Nope.
Granted, police driving techniques are old fashioned in places. But in this one I think they are spot on. If you need to brake suddenly in a modern car (ie with ABS and/ or traction control) , the best advice is to “shoot” the brake pedal (hit it as hard you can) and trust to the ABS to slow you down. In an emergency stop most people don’t apply enough force to the pedal, which is why some manufacturers have systems which detect an emergency brake and then apply full braking power. That and look to the steering to stop in a straight line or avoid the obstruction.
The very last thing you should be doing is faffing around with the gearstick thinking that you are making things better. You aren’t.
If your daughter has been taught correctly (ie not to change gear), then please please don’t reprogramme her.