Bring Back the Stick Shift

Re:Bring Back the Stick Shift by CalChris on Sunday March 24, 2019 @12:50PM (#19477309)

I learned to drive with a stick shift in San Francisco. And while I do admit that at the time it was fun to parallel park on a hill, I have an EV now with a continuously variable transmission and I don't miss sticks at all. I don't miss replacing the clutch or servicing transmissions. The combination of less toil along with less noise makes for less stress.

Traffic Aware Cruise Control improves safety as well. I set my gap at 7 car lengths giving me a safety buffer that I've never had before. I don't think that'd even be possible with a stick.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bring Back the Stick Shift by Noumenon72 on Sunday March 24, 2019 @01:06PM (#19477406)

How long is seven car lengths in seconds?

In open traffic, I prefer to just maintain constant speed and move left one lane whenever someone is slow in front. That would be a cool setting for a cruise control.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bring Back the Stick Shift by CalChris on Sunday March 24, 2019 @01:40PM (#19477588)

The setting is 7 car lengths and I think that's for 60 mph or so. It is proportionally less at lower speeds.

Google tells me that 7 * 200 inches / 60 mph is 1.32 seconds which isn't that long. But in reality, the car in front of you is braking and you are braking. So the real measurement is when they hit the brakes can you react in time to hit the brakes. Not gonna do that math. Maybe the CA drivers handbook has a table.

However, 7 car lengths feels to me like a lot and 7 car lengths with TACC seems very safe. Yeah, people merge into my gap and so I drop back again; big whoop. It also reduces dings from pebbles getting kicked up by the car in front.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bring Back the Stick Shift by jdietrich on Sunday March 24, 2019 @02:26PM (#19477885)

The NHTSA treat 1.5 seconds as a typical reaction time, so seven car lengths is really rather marginal at 60mph.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/Safety1nNum3ers/august2015/S1N_S...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bring Back the Stick Shift by CalChris on Sunday March 24, 2019 @04:50PM (#19478687)

This begs the question as to why Tesla doesn't have a setting for 8 car lengths. I thought it might be car length but the car length average seems to be 204 inches which is 1.35 seconds. In any case, this 7 car lengths is for TACC rather than human decision.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bring Back the Stick Shift by mcguire on Sunday March 24, 2019 @03:51PM (#19478390)

The general advice I've heard from various safe-driving classes and state driving booklets is 2 seconds at any speed.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bring Back the Stick Shift by foxthatruns on Sunday March 24, 2019 @01:38PM (#19477575)

Totally depends on the speed. If we're both going 40 mph and a car is 15 feet long, then 7 car lengths takes me 1.8 seconds. But if we're going 80 mph, it's only 0.9 seconds.

[ Parent | on HN ]