I'm not helping the cause of women drivers much...

D Natalie. D. You want the gear selector on the D.

Jeez, girl drivers are sooo stupid. ;-)

I was banging down the road in my BMW (on more than one occasion), and noticed similar behavior. I had been in a traffic jam that opened up, but I had left the shifter in 3rd up to about 80 or so. You gotta love cars that are smooth and silent, but you also hafta keep an eye on the tach ...

You can't be as bad as this girl:

LOL I've heard that one before, but thanks for showing me where to find it, since I'd lost it when my old puter crashed

Natalie

It's OK to have a "brain fart" once in a while. ;-)

My personal embarassment was on a motorcycle trip when I was playing around a backroad weaving between one side of the road and the other when the engine died. I checked out the electrical system and the was no power in the ignition system. I managed to hotwire the bike and was many more miles down the road before I realized I had hit the tank bag with the handle bar and turned of the kill switch.

Speaking of women drivers and motorcycles, I taught motorcycle safety in the late 1970s and had to write a paper as part of my certification. I was a womens' rights activist and chose to study the accident statistics with an eye to debunking all the women driver stories. I discovered that the majority of actions by men prior to accidents was to apply the brakes even when braking would not allow stopping in time while steering could have often completely avoided an accident. Unfortunately, the tactic applied prior to a accident by the majority of women in the study was to throw their arms in front of their faces and scream. Of course the study did not cover the drivers who succeeded in not having an accident.

Pat

No can do, Natalie. The shift pattern on my wife's Subaru had an extra pause-point compared to my Avalon's. I often found I hadn't moved the Subaru into its highest gear.

You deserve no more ridicule than I do. I guess it's you and me against the world. :-)

Brent

I did that once, myself. The light in my shifter doesn't work anymore, so I have to do it by feel.

Charles

So *that's* what that smell was!

:-)

Natalie

O_O

Doncha hate when that happens?! I guess some things are just imprinted in our DNA

Natalie

"Charles @ Kankakee" ...

My light works just fine - it's my brain that checked out early. LOL

Natalie

I can imagine that poor bastard was ECHOING as you ran the rpms up entirely too much.. "Why won't this damned thing go any faster? WTF? "

-LMB

Oh, but now, they're idiot-proofing cars (HA!) with those stupid "Wiggle the damned shifter around and try to hit the Detent / jigsaw puzzle" style shifters.

Makes downshifting / manual upshifting real fun. If I wanna hunt gears, I'll just drive a stick.

-LMB

Well I was tired that night and didn't feel the bump from D to 2. There is a 'bump' going from D to 2 and you have to hit the lock switch to move it past D. I've done it on the column shift on the Previa, too.

Charles

"Brent Secombe" ..

Wickeddoll®

Heh - but that's cuz the car was made differently - not your fault LOL I've had my Echo for five years.

LOL - I just felt like such a lox when I realized what I'd done

Natalie

"Charles @ Kankakee" ...

I'm sure that's what I did, since I reached for my 'Bubba Keg' (A 52-oz covered jug that holds hot or cold beverages wonderfully). I'm sure I put it in 'D' when I pulled out of the lot; it wasn't until after grabbing the keg that I noticed the noise.

Natalie

Your sympathy is underwhelming, Loomis...

:-P

Natalie, fwapping her old pal

Wickeddoll®

Gotta go with gun-boy on that one. Those 'newfangled' gearboxes are confusing as hell

Natalie

Unless you look at 'em. Of course, you can't very well DO that if you're up in the mountains, and decide to downshift..... so you do the whole "where the f*ck is low?" thing while burning brakes.

No thinks, I'll stick with the older fashioned column shifter. ;-)

-LMB

Seriously, as long as the tranny wasn't blasting fluid out the vent tube / screaming / smoking / generally not moving anymore, fuggedit about it.....

-LMB