Left foot braking.

[BEJ]

Originally Posted by iain cooper

just my opinion gained from 50 years of driving experience, no offence intended.

Iain

No offence intended Ian.
In 60 years of driving, I have never heard of a law that says that you may not brake with your left foot.
I have many years of rally driving behind me ( more than I care to remember ), and since those days I have always used my left foot for braking. There are two pedals in an automatic gearbox car and I have two feet, ergo, one foot for each pedal.
As my previous post, a small amount of reaction time may be saved, potentially avoiding an accident.
I also recognised that it takes experience to use left foot braking, hitting your head on the windscreen or having a following driver hit you up the rear end is not a nice experience.

[pookie]

Left foot braking is a driving skill that some of us have and some of us don't. To suggest that it's dangerous or somehow unsafe is utter rubbish. Only those who lack this skill would suggest this.


Salut!

Pookie

[classicswede]

Originally Posted by canis

I'm confused by, someone said earlier, "keeping the revs up". How?

Most likely dealing with a running issue where the engine will stall if allowed to drop to idle

[green van man]

Originally Posted by Father Ted

Not just me then. Harder to master coming back down the box. But still possible.
To me, these things make a better driver as you need to understand the vehicle to be able to do them, not just turn in on and go.

Mk1 escort snapped clutch cable on way to work. Drove 3 miles to complete the journey using clutchless gearchange and starting in gear at junctions. End of shift drive to factors on the way home baught new clutch cable, drove home through 2 sets of traffic lights and 2 hill starts to get tools to change it.

Realised the usefulness of the skill and keep it practiced.

Paul.

[green van man]

Originally Posted by classicswede

Most likely dealing with a running issue where the engine will stall if allowed to drop to idle

Nothing to do with running issues but keeping the engine in the power band, once you come off the brakes the car is immediately accelerating. Try watching some of the u tube vids already posted in the thread to see the effect.

Paul.

[canis]

Originally Posted by green van man

Mk1 escort snapped clutch cable on way to work. Drove 3 miles to complete the journey using clutchless gearchange and starting in gear at junctions. End of shift drive to factors on the way home baught new clutch cable, drove home through 2 sets of traffic lights and 2 hill starts to get tools to change it.

Realised the usefulness of the skill and keep it practiced.

Paul.

Same, but in a Ford Fiesta, only mine went on all week. I was living in Hove and working in Eastbourne, did the journey every day in rush hour traffic! My poor starter-motor! Stop-start traffic is no joke without a clutch.

[big bad wolf]

Find it second nature for left foot braking especially as in th V70 auto's the pedals are ideally sized and placed.
Especially useful coming up to a roundabout with power on slightly and braking at same time. Judge the traffic and you can power out whilst releasing brake slowly - nice and smooth and you're on boost for a quick exit.
I find it useful to balance the car on bends.

Having said that, i was a petrolhead in my youth and could only afford cheap low powered economical cars, so had to have some advantage over the boys who could afford the gti's but didn't know how to drive them fast except from traffic light to traffic light.

[beachcomber550]

I've been driving automatics since the mid 60's - mostly American muscle cars. ALWAYS brake left foot. I can't be arsed to read all the responses [ seems to me it's yes I do or no I don't ]. However here's a question for those of you with 2 hands ........ do you only use one to eat ?

[m0bzy]

Originally Posted by biggbn

Used it a lot in old freewheel Saab 96s. Huge fun. Good in fwd for tucking nose in and getting tail up on its toes. With freewheel you could match engine revs under braking and pull out of corners swiftly. Huge fun cars.

And the noise of the 2stroke at max revs was better than a V12.

[S60D5-185]

Impressive footwork from one of my all time favourite Rally Drivers in definitely my all time favourite Rally car when they were absolute beasts.

+ YouTube Video

Now that he is older and slowed down!

+ YouTube Video