Bob,
How is coasting going to increase your risk of an accident? Because you can't pop the clutch back out quick enough to be able to jump on the throttle to avoid an accident? Give me a break!! If this is the case then all cars with a maunal transmission must be death traps in city traffic. Because who in the hell down shifts/chugs their car all the way down to zero mph at every stop? Is anyone/everyone raising their hand? I didn't think so.
Patrick
You have the context of the law wrong. If you lived in an area where highways crest at 6-7000 feet, where down hill grades are 10 to 15 miles long, where truck runaway lanes exist 1/2 to 1 mile, where road grades are often in excessive of 8% you would understand why coasting is a dangerous activity. To be sure these laws were written in an earlier time when it wasn't always possible to put the car back into gear. Same as occurs today with the 18+ wheelers. If one could always downshift there wouldn't be a need for runaway lanes. Throughout this thread no one even suggested that cars with manual transmissions don't coast to a stop or shouldn't coast to a stop in an urban or non urban environment. The coasting laws refer to taking the vehicle out of gear and coasting on a downhill grade. Will they ever know, probably not unless there is an accident. If you think that coasting on a long downhill grade will be a hoot try it sometime, I only hope that I'm not any ways near. I'd like to see you put it back into gear when you're at 100+mph.
Richard
The anti-coasting law is really old, I won't defend it, and I certainly do what I want in my 5-speed Mustang.
ISTR my father (who drove teams of horses and teams of mules before he first drove a car) explaining that the danger with coasting downhill in early cars/trucks was that the increased speed could overwhelm the capability of mechanical brakes. And he listed an accident or two on a nearby hill that was blamed on free-wheeling.
{OT, but that same hill was long enough that Dad said some cars could only get up it in reverse -- gas got to the carb courtesy of gravity, and steep hills caused starvation.}
Richard,
I told them I was coasting up to stoplights. There aren't too many traffic lights in the middle of steep mountainous downgrades. And while I was said, "hills", again, I never mentioned coming down mountainous passes. Dispite this their counter was coasting is dangerous because you wouldn't be able to get it back into gear quickly enough to avoid a possible collision. I find their counter silly, don't you?
I have. Many times. The car was well maintained, the road ahead was clear and the weather was good. What's the problem?
Why do you find it hard to get it back into gear at 100+ mph? I've done it hundreds of times without incident.
Patrick
Likewise, I wasn't defending the law (there are a *lot* of silly old laws still on the books...), but simply responding with an example for the guy who had never seen a law against coasting in neutral.
Sure, the "downhill" part was probably a little more specific than he was looking for, but it was still *a* law against coasting in neutral.
[shrugs]In the Jeep I usually will just let it coast in gear until about 1000 RPMs before pulling it out of gear. In the Mustang and the van, I don't get to worry about it, since the torque converter does it for me. :)
Yes, of course.
And straight or without sharp turns.
I didn't mean to infer that one couldn't put put it back into gear. I was thinking about coasting with the transmission in neutral vs the clutch being disengaged.
I'll bet that wasn't done with the engine at idle speed. Sure you can match the revs to speed and it's harmless. However, I am inclined to think that the guy that tried doing this for the first time didn't think about that.
Richard
I think it has more to do with the drivers ability to use his clutch, (this is a great illustration of what a clutch is for) rather than "matching" engine speed...
Yes. Now if I was driving a Vette or Viper...
Normally, I try to match revs, but if I was trying to scrub off some speed I'd use a slow clutch release.
Patrick
at 19 May 2006, Joe [ snipped-for-privacy@home.now] wrote in news:Xns97C852056342nospamforme@216.77.188.18:
*laughing* I doubt any of those would get you anywhere near 100mph if yu coast down them. Now in PA I can see this as a very sensible law. Which is why I stay well away from trucks on downgrades there.The biggest downgrade in my area would be the Skyway bridge ;)
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