That would set a very bad precedence indeed for the ‘wild fictitious claims’ brigade. If you’re going to state something as a fact, you’re going to have to back it up before you get taken seriously.

Please show evidence of the existence of this ‘wild fictitious claims brigade.’

Eh, surely she’d know it was in drive/reverse as it would be moving as she tried to get out?

When an old style auto is in drive it has a very small amount of ‘creep’ which doesn’t engage very quickly, so the above scenario is entirely plausible. And it actually happened too so by definition it’s plausible!

Ironically this post is at the start of our local school leaver carnage season – where skilled young drivers in manual cars take 3 or 4 or their mates to Top Gear Valhalla with them.

Males under 25 cause them most accidents I would ban them. Ageing is not linear RM you get fit 85 year olds and unfit 30 year olds. Age discrimination is illegal BTW so I suspect they may need to apply it universally.

Spot the irony…

While we were working at a hospital in Middlesbrough an old-ish woman pulled up to the car park ticket barrier, took her ticket and when the barrier lifted went to drive into the car park. Unfortunately her heel somehow got meshed into the throttle pedal and carpet and pushed it to the floor and her Porsche 911 proceeded to accelerate rather quickly across about 50m of car park, only stopping after it had shunted a Peugeot up a fairly steep grass verge and came to rest in the parking space the Pug had occupied only moments earlier. Porsche call it Tiptronic or something, but it’s an auto to all intents and purposes. Wrote em both off as far as I know. Made us laugh.

We used to have old series 3 Escort vans and the brake and accelerator pedals could be hit together when reacting quickly to a situation that required quick braking, needless to say this caused a few brown trouser moments with several drivers of all ages and abilities 😯

The only issue I have with autos is how they generally detract from the operation of driving a car, for me. Driving them becomes so uninvolved it’s almost….automatic lol… The less people pay attention to their driving, how exactly their throttle relates to their speed etc, the less they are connected to how they’re driving. That said, there’s the counter argument of “you can spend more time concentrating on hazards” but I think that gets traded off for listening to the radio or doing your makeup. 😀

I’d personally go for mandatory re-tests and Doctors being able to instigate licence revocation.

Doctors already can contact the DVLA if they think a driver should not be driving? As, I believe, can any member of the public.

We used to have old series 3 Escort vans and the brake and accelerator pedals could be hit together when reacting quickly to a situation that required quick braking, needless to say this caused a few brown trouser moments with several drivers of all ages and abilities

Indeed I once drove a friends citroen AX GT (fun little matchbox car!). Gently came round a country road to a junction with stopped traffic, went for the brake, hit the accel and clipped the brake instead. Tiny pedal box on those and he’d put on some silly racing pedals too. Took a lot of instinct reversal to come off what I’d thought was the brake and try again lol.

CK I don’t agree. Changing gear is just one more thing to have to concentrate on. If you’re going to ignore the road, you are still going to ignore it regardless of what type of transmission you’re using imo.

I do agree with you about Citroen AXs though – drove a mate’s once going from a pub to some other venue full of slightly pissed colleages. My driving was less than smooth due to the weird pedal arrangement, which caused much mickey-taking.

CK I don’t agree. Changing gear is just one more thing to have to concentrate on. If you’re going to ignore the road, you are still going to ignore it regardless of what type of transmission you’re using imo.

Fair enough, guess I just don’t really think about changing gear – I just do it as required. I suppose that’s essentially similar to an auto in that sense lol.

If you’re going to ignore the road, you are still going to ignore it regardless of what type of transmission you’re using imo.

Totally agree. Having driven auto’s and manuals my concentration is the same no matter what type of vehicle i’m driving.

Fair enough, guess I just don’t really think about changing gear

Yeah, you don’t.. nor do I. But it’s not as instinctive for some people.

What a load of bollocks this twaddle about gear changing methods is.

I suppose it gives the wee boys something to do with their left hands and stops them playing with their joysticks.

There’s no point in trying to go fast in a car. “Fast” cars are for wannabes and any idiot can exceed the speed limit, and there’s no real skill involved in driving a car on public roads.

If you want to go fast, that’s why god invented motorbikes.

😉