Edit: I would likely soften the "dangerous" wording above. I'm not trying to claim this is guaranteed to get you killed. Just pointing out that bypassing a well established signaling mechanism of your vehicle should be a deliberate act. Not one of convenience.
That said, engine braking isn't appropriate in all situations; I personally wouldn't do it in heavy stop-and-go traffic, but for highway and around-town driving it's perfectly safe. I definitely wouldn't do it with a tailgater behind me, just out of common sense.
I have the same problem on my bike. I don't always signal when I'm about to stop at a corner, and have had folks near hit me for it. (Granted, if you are stopping on a bike, it is literally harder to signal that you are stopping. Point stands that if I could, it would be safer.)
One can always use hand signals too; that was something I was taught when I first learned to drive. Open hand out the window pointed up for a right turn, pointed straight for a left turn, and pointed down at the ground for slowing/stopping.
Of course that was 25 years ago; I wonder if hand signals are even still taught in driving schools.
I find that the fuel economy savings from engine breaking are largely a matter of incentives. You can drive the same way in an automatic, and you will get nearly the same fuel economy savings. You're just not incentivized to do so, since the break/gas dance is much easier in an automatic and you don't have the cognitive feedback of needing to shift gears each time you accelerate or decelerate.
Is it guaranteed to get you in a wreck? Not at all. But, I would be surprised if people weren't more keyed to the "red light" in front of them than you are letting on.
As I said down thread, I think I can logically and in full conscious support both of those statements. :)
So, yes, folks that are being negligent deserve the blame in wrecks they cause. However, signaling benefits everyone. Including folks driving in fog/rain/night/whatever.
One of the first things i notice when driving an automatic that scares me the most is that it doesn't stop.
Thankfully electric cars are bringing this back. And i think studies are showing its safer.
In particular, I agree with both points that "you should signal folks behind you that you are slowing down" and "you should pay attention to how fast the car in front of you is going." Neither point diminishes the other.
Engine braking results in a slow drop in speed. If the car behind you cannot handle a slow speed decline, he is the problem, and is driving too close to you.
Most good instructors teach students to try to slow down as much as possible just by getting your foot off the accelerator (not with engine braking, and not with real brakes).
As in don't wait till you are near the stop light to apply the brakes - just get your foot off the gas much earlier, and apply the brakes when you have to. In real terms, when driving at 45mph, I usually don't need to apply the brakes until I'm at 35 or 30mph. Puts less load on the brakes, and is supposed to be safer - you are easing into a lower speed as opposed to doing it suddenly.
The people behind you will not see a brake light, but will still slow down behind you. If they hit you, they are driving poorly.
Also as I said, though, I should have been a bit softer there. I'm not saying it will get you in trouble guaranteed. But, just as I agree it is more dangerous to ride a bike without a helmet, I recommend against not signaling folks behind you that you are stopping.
And, also as I mentioned up thread. If someone hits you because they didn't see you stopping, yes, it is their fault. I don't exactly care who is at fault in many ways, if I'm hit. I'd just as soon not get hit. :)
To that point, I'm not trying to claim it is insurmountably dangerous. It is more dangerous that just using the brakes, though.
https://gearbrake.com/collections/shop/products/gearbrake-sm...
Given how often I've driven on stretches of road where engine braking is prohibited, I beg to differ.
Engine braking is usually braking by shifting to a lower gear.
[0]: https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/96447/why-prohibi...
Edit: That said, I fully agree that most times I hear folks talk of engine braking, they mean shifting down to slow somewhat faster than just coasting.
The parent is essentially right; engine braking is using the engine to slow the vehicle down.
Similarly, when I'm braking very lightly in my plugin-in hybrid in order to charge the battery all the way down a long hill, I wish there were a way to not have the brake lights activated the whole time. It's only barely slowing me down, and I've driven other cars that decelerated more going down the same hill just due to wind drag and rolling resistance.
I can see no reason why this wouldn’t work equally well for cars.
edit: apparently, it's UN regulation, not federal.
https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/traffic/rules-of-the-r...
Though, to directly answer your question, I don't know how cars that only have a single pedal work with this. Embarrassingly, I didn't realize those existed, so would be as interested as you in the answer.
This is akin to teaching a kid to ride a 21 speed bike. They can probably get up to that rather quickly, all told, but just learning the basics of balance and pedaling will already be difficult enough.
Similarly, just learning the basics of the car will already be tough. Why add to it? Why not take away power steering? Because it would make it harder.
When I was tall enough, he'd have me move his car around on our long driveway so I learned to feather the clutch for start/stop maneuvers in first gear. By the time I was getting my learner's permit and hitting the road for the first time, I already had the theory and practice for the drive-train and could focus on the more important traffic rules and vigilance.
I still remember his "graduation" test for me, which was taking me on a ride to a nearby very steep hill and parallel parking. Then, he gave me the keys and said very sincerely that I needed to pull out, drive around the neighborhood, return, and park back in the same spot without burning the clutch and without stalling the engine...
To that end, I just don't know. I expect I will have an issue teaching my children. Biking has already thrown me some curve balls. Nothing insurmountable. But the more you have on the bike, the harder it is for the learner to get it going.
I mean, I hate biking without my shoes that attach to the pedal nowdays. I would not at all attempt to teach my kids on such a bike for a while.
I also hate attaching my feet to the pedals. I do not want to confess that I've hit the ground in a very undignified manner more than once because I couldn't get my feet unclipped in time :(
Nowadays, i feel more stable clipped in.
And i know countersteering is a thing. Don't really process it, though.
The shop that built my engine told me they wouldn't have done it if I was under 40.
Though to be fair, the latest iteration of the stability and traction control is pretty amazing. Short of turning it off, or driving with inappropriate tires for conditions, I can't really get the car out of shape without turning off the nannies. I can hang it out a bit but I could never manage to pull off those beautiful crowd-killing losses of control that Mustangs seem to apt to pull at Cars & Coffee events around the country.
So aside from just driving too fast and making physics an insurmountable issue, they could probably drive it pretty safely if I somehow made it so the nannies could not be disabled.
I haven't driven a nanny car and don't know what they're like. They should have a "teenager" mode which detunes it to 100HP :-)
Driving is easy. Interacting safely with the other people on the road is what is hard.
A few years later they sold the car and both my sisters learnt to drive in more modern automatics.
My learning experience was miserable but after learning in that old crappy wagon I can drive just about anything now. Once you have parked a car without power steering any other parking you have to do in a modern car feels like a complete non issue.
Our truck has bad power steering. Such that it often handles as if it didn't have it. Holy crap is that a pain.
I drive a manual steered car. It's no problem at all. It's more physical than fingertip control, sure, but I like that. You can feel the road better.
I own a manual currently. One big disadvantage (or possibly an advantage...) is when Friends ask to borrow car you need to ask "Can you drive a manual?" 9/10 times I've found answer is no.
Just look up survivor bias sometime. It is a thing. This is an common refrain of it.
What? Have you even driven anything that's not a big truck without power steering (and I don't mean a car with power steering disabled). It's not _that_ big a difference, if at all.
You would clearly stop short of taking away vision. Why not make people drive with a vehicle that doesn't have a rear window? All told, shouldn't be that big of a deal. That said, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/02/backup-... was a headline story for a reason.