Something completely differentFollow

Except that the "DRSs" referenced in the document are "Driving Rehabilitation Specialists". So this is separate from the general issue of pedal misapplication. It's a subset of data gathered from a group of people who train people to drive under various handicaps (and assess whether they can drive at all). So what they're saying is that people who had driven with two feet for a long time had no problems making adjustments as they got older, suffered an injury, etc, while those who'd always driven with just the right foot, upon trying to drive with two feet (presumably because the DRSs were teaching them to do so as a means of alleviating some problem they had), had a hard time adjusting.


Like I said. Just more evidence that two foot driving is better. These people were not encountering random people driving with two feet, but people who, because of physical problems, were trying to shift to driving with two feet and found the process more difficult. Had those people been taught to drive with both feet from day one, they could have handled their rehabilitation better.

I'm pretty sure I can tap my brakes enough to get the lights on and not deactivate the cruise control. But, seeing as I'm driving and can't see my brake lights, I could be wrong.

Um... I'm talking about two buttons and which method would allow you better control of them. Don't get caught up on what we're controlling or why. We are talking about a situation in which you have just two pedals and all you do is push them. No joysticks involved.


That was also the second example I gave, just in case the first one didn't drive home the point. Do you agree that if you were standing in front of a panel with two buttons on it, and were required to push one or the other button as quickly as possible in response to some external indicator, you'd do vastly better if you placed one hand over each button and pushed as needed than if you used just one hand and went back and forth? And while I suppose we could speculate about the two handed person mixing up his right and left, or getting the buttons confused, no sane person would think that would cause him to do worse than the guy using one hand for both buttons.

Why are pedals on your car any different?

Edited, Aug 1st 2012 5:49pm by gbaji

He's mentioned before that he gave up video games in a huff some ten years ago because they had too much plot so, yeah. He probably is horrible at them.

While technically correct, that's a meaningless point to make. They aren't comparing two footed drivers to the "average" at all. So... um... grats on posting random gibberish I guess?


The quote tells us nothing about whether people who drive with two feet are any more or less prone to pedal misapplication than those who drive with one foot. It's not evidence of either position. What it does say is that among the set of drivers being handled by these rehabilitation specialists, those who drove with two feet all their lives did not develop dangerous habits as they got older (arising from the use of two feet of course!). But those who, for a variety of reasons, attempted to switch to driving with two feet were dangerous doing so and had to be trained to avoid driving dangerously. I'll note that no where does it say that merely driving two footed is dangerous, despite this being the perfect place for a group of people specializing in teaching people to overcome their driving difficulties to have mentioned it. Strange, isn't it?



Um... no statement learning to drive two footed at an early age is dangerous or bad. A case brought up where doing so is good and prevents dangerous driving. Yup. No evidence at all!


Of course, then there's this guy.

If only he'd thought to use that perfectly good left foot of his instead of continuing to use his tangled right foot, that motorcyclist would be alive.


Then... There's this guy.

Once again. Someone who could have avoided an accident if only he wasn't utterly dependent on using a single foot for operation of his pedals. Shocking!


I could link all the accidents where the cause was determined to be someone hitting the gas instead of the brake, but it'd take me a week just to link a small percentage of them. It happens far more often than most people think. And pretty much all of them could be avoided if people used both feet on the pedals of an automatic. As I've explained earlier, it's very close to impossible to accidentally press the gas with your left foot, and any expert will tell you that no street car has sufficient power to overcome the brakes if both pedals are applied. Add to this the overwhelming frequency with which the driver insists that they were pressing the brake the whole time, despite witnesses insisting the engine was roaring and a complete lack of skid marks, and it's reasonably safe to say that the massive overwhelming majority of those uncontrolled acceleration cases are caused by people who control both pedals with one foot and accidentally push the wrong pedal.


Still not sure why some people can't accept this. As I said earlier in the thread, it's interesting how blindly people believe what they were told at some point instead of the overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary. Those people *had* to be using their right foot and thinking they were braking. There's no other explanation.

Edited, Aug 1st 2012 6:42pm by gbaji

ITT: Gbaji thinks hands are the same as feet.

So, gbaji makes stupid statement, then goes to the ends of the earth to avoid having to recant it in the face of logic and evidence?



...this thread has failed to deliver on its premise.

I never disputed your 2nd example. I only pointed out that your video game controller example didn't support your stance.

Same with my '05 Chrysler Town and Country. I even tested it out on the way home from work today, if I push on the brake enough to make the pedal move, the cruise is disabled until I press the Resume/Accel button. Same on the Ford Taurus sitting in my drive (I forget what year that one is). Gbaji's just spouting more "obvious facts" to try and support his point of view.

For safety purposes, I would imagine that the disabling of cruise control would be priority as soon as braking was detected. Unless of course you are driving a Toyota.

Braking up is hard to do, yo.

Yes, it's fairly obvious that the "brakes pressed" switch controls them all. Seems the most efficient way to control numerous things queued off the same action, just use the same switch.

I'm a controls engineer (in the automotive industry, no less) and it's the way I would do it. If I were designing something where real estate was at a premium and I had to spend as little as possible, adding a second switch to do something that an existing switch already did would not be in my handbook.

That's too easy.