Block gear changes?

Since cars stopped having 3 gears, low revving engines and drums all round? Plus about 30 years for the driving instructors to catch up...

I'd love to imagine no instructor when he bought his first 5-speed Fiesta in 1987 thought it was even slightly necessary to work backwards through them all, but you can bet there's one somewhere with a 6 speed box still doing it now.

Block changing was taught to me when I took lessons in the early 70s by the same instructor that had taught several of my older sisters, yet a crap driving instructor that my wife used for a few lessons in the 80s tried to teach one gear after the other and always change to third at any hazard, all sorts of rubbish, happily my instructor was still alive and took over and taught her properly. He had his own private driving school and was a great and safe teacher. Many instructors now just do it as a job and not a vocation and teach by rote from some tome that a wally has written.

It was on a police driver improvement course that I/we were told to adjust speed to the hazard, then select the gear to be able to accelerate gently through it. Changing down in or after the hazard was a sin.

However, on a motor sickle it is lovely snappily going down through the gears from speed to standstill. ;-)

The crap instructor was teaching to change down merely at the sight of a hazard, not for any direct purpose or because you have slowed, just change down to third regardless, it was quite bizarre.

IPSGA: Information, position, speed, gear, accellerate.

BSM in Bristol were still teaching full sequential changes in the late

70's, I assume because that was what the testers expected. The tests were all in heavily built up areas where there was no opportunity for block changes "up".

I was much influenced in the 60's by the father of a school friend who was a police driver (Hendon-trained top category). He used to drive us to university together in their Austin A40 (4 speed), and he never did block changes.

I wasn't "instructed" in block changes until being sent by work on a couple of driving courses around 2000.

Hehe, I was tought that the car MUST be in gear at all times. e.g. when approaching a red traffic light, you change from 5 to 4, from 4 to 3, from 3 to 2, from 2 to 1, and only when the car starts canguroo jumping, then keep the clutch half down and apply the handbrake! Utter rubbish, even dangerous in IMO.

johannes put finger to keyboard:

My ex was taught that way, when she braked heavily it was quite a laugh watching her try to use every gear from 5th to 1st. She never asked herself *why* she was doing it.

I was taught that way in 1987/1988.

HGVs with just a 4 speed box? Or those with 4 + high/low + splitter?

IME gearbox wear is most common on the synchro for 2nd gear. Which should make it better to avoid changing from e.g. 5th to 2nd in a block.

I took half a dozen lessons in 2010 before a test. The instructor did advise block changing on the way down, but after the test , the examiner queried why I did not block change up the 'box also.

David

Unless one's thrashing it up through the gears, the opportunities for block up-changes are limited. It also seems to lead to people skipping a gear (say 4th on a 5 speed box) unnecessarily and lugging in 5th.

Certain American cars, such as the Corvette, have a built-in device that forces a block change to preserve fuel economy, so a change from first, say, to second forces the gearlever into fourth (of six) instead. There are ways of defeating this, of course. Spirited driving is understood, and prevents the little rod from being extended. If I had paid for a performance car, I would want it to perform.

for interest.

Bloody hell. That's mental (though they did it for good reasons).

Car or HGV ?

Perfect for The Land of the Free, right? I want 2nd, I get 4th.

Fits some Americans inability to drive a manual. Seen yanks on forums state that gear changes should only be above 4000rpm and that handbrakes are entirely for emergencies only (they call them Emergency Brakes) and definitely not for hill starts.

Also makes you wonder just how strange the gearing is.

And then: In general, and there are exceptions, American Parking brakes are horrid pedals, that need to be pushed by a foot brought up to the driver's neck, and then ratcheted to 'On'. There is no way that they are any use in emergency, you would have emerged out the other side before they could be activated. When you find a handbrake, it is usually ok, and usable for emergency, parking and hill starts, unlike the foot-pump thing described above. Hill starts in a manual transmission foot-pump parking brake car are a contorted mess of leaning forward to pull the brake release lever, while at the same time releasing the clutch in a controlled manner. The one manual car that I had for a long time had a Getrag 5-speed box, so was not bad, but still had the terrible braking arrangement.

I usually found that the engine was more than big enough to move the car away with the emergency brake fully on, you could then release it once you were moving, autos were of course no problem at all, just use both feet.

The difficult part was that you had to hunch over nearly into the footwell to reach the brake release, thus rendering precise control of the clutch rather difficult. I didn't like moving forward with the brake still on, out of habit and good practice.