A Cycling & bikes forum. CycleBanter.com

Go Back   Home » CycleBanter.com forum » Regional Cycling » UK
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #11  
Old August 19th 16, 12:15 AM posted to uk.rec.cycling,uk.transport,uk.rec.driving
jnugent
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,574
Default The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear

On 18/08/2016 20:36, NY wrote:

"JNugent" wrote:
On 18/08/2016 16:29, NY wrote:


My grandpa used to coast in neutral as he approached a junction, but
this was a wartime remedy that he never unlearned afterwards - right up
until his death in 1999.


A peaceful passing, I hope!


He carried on driving, with self-imposed limits like not in rush hour
and not going into the city centre, until well into his 90s. The last
time I rode with him as a passenger I was impressed that he got up to a
reasonable speed on the open road, rather than dawdling, and I felt
completely safe. Sadly he had a fall when he'd popped down the road to
the shops, and that marked the start of a gradual decline. He spent his
final months, after he'd left hospital for his injuries (broken wrists
etc) in a very opulent nursing home where they looked after him and made
a fuss of him - and he let them do it, whereas always before he'd been
annoyed and embarrassed if anyone made a fuss and did things for him.
It's a shame he didn't quite achieve his goal of living into the next
millennium - he died on Boxing Day 1999.


I'm sorry to hear the last bit but amused and cheered to read the first bit.
Ads
  #12  
Old August 20th 16, 01:15 PM posted to uk.rec.cycling,uk.transport,uk.rec.driving
AnthonyL
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5
Default The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear

On Thu, 18 Aug 2016 16:09:06 +0100, JNugent
wrote:

On 18/08/2016 15:47, Alycidon wrote:

Terrible tragedy.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...cDonald-s.html



Whether or not coasting saves fuel I am very sceptical that any modern
car cannot negotiate a downhill run with its brakes. I certainly
remember it being essential to put my Dad's old Austin 12 into the
right gear and I'm fairly sure my early Morris Minor suffered brake
fade on steep slopes - but a Seat Ibiza? Even fully laden.

Now if the guy was trying to see how the car would go out of gear and
without touching the brakes on a nice hill - I might believe that - or
else Seat brakes are crap.



--
AnthonyL
  #13  
Old August 20th 16, 04:13 PM posted to uk.transport,uk.rec.cycling,uk.rec.driving
Recliner[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1
Default The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear

AnthonyL wrote:
On Thu, 18 Aug 2016 16:09:06 +0100, JNugent
wrote:

On 18/08/2016 15:47, Alycidon wrote:

Terrible tragedy.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...cDonald-s.html



Whether or not coasting saves fuel I am very sceptical that any modern
car cannot negotiate a downhill run with its brakes. I certainly
remember it being essential to put my Dad's old Austin 12 into the
right gear and I'm fairly sure my early Morris Minor suffered brake
fade on steep slopes - but a Seat Ibiza? Even fully laden.

Now if the guy was trying to see how the car would go out of gear and
without touching the brakes on a nice hill - I might believe that - or
else Seat brakes are crap.


Let's not forget that the driver was a 21 year old bloke in a car full of
his (younger) mates. That's not the demographic which typically exhibits
the best example of skilled driving.

  #14  
Old August 20th 16, 05:02 PM posted to uk.rec.cycling
Alycidon
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,921
Default The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear

On Saturday, 20 August 2016 16:13:13 UTC+1, Recliner wrote:


Let's not forget that the driver was a 21 year old bloke in a car full of
his (younger) mates. That's not the demographic which typically exhibits
the best example of skilled driving.


Which is why my insurance at age 57 is £150 for a 2.2l car.
  #15  
Old August 20th 16, 06:18 PM posted to uk.transport,uk.rec.cycling,uk.rec.driving
MrCheerful
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,757
Default The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear

On 20/08/2016 16:13, Recliner wrote:
AnthonyL wrote:
On Thu, 18 Aug 2016 16:09:06 +0100, JNugent
wrote:

On 18/08/2016 15:47, Alycidon wrote:

Terrible tragedy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...cDonald-s.html


Whether or not coasting saves fuel I am very sceptical that any modern
car cannot negotiate a downhill run with its brakes. I certainly
remember it being essential to put my Dad's old Austin 12 into the
right gear and I'm fairly sure my early Morris Minor suffered brake
fade on steep slopes - but a Seat Ibiza? Even fully laden.

Now if the guy was trying to see how the car would go out of gear and
without touching the brakes on a nice hill - I might believe that - or
else Seat brakes are crap.


Let's not forget that the driver was a 21 year old bloke in a car full of
his (younger) mates. That's not the demographic which typically exhibits
the best example of skilled driving.


He hit a kerb, whether he was in gear or not would make no difference to
the car that would cause him to hit a kerb, UNLESS he had also turned
the engine off. I can remember hitting a kerb through inattention/beer
at about the same age, I got away with it, he didn't.
  #16  
Old August 20th 16, 08:03 PM posted to uk.transport,uk.rec.cycling,uk.rec.driving
NY
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 34
Default The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear

"MrCheerful" wrote in message
...
He hit a kerb, whether he was in gear or not would make no difference to
the car that would cause him to hit a kerb, UNLESS he had also turned the
engine off.


Oh hell. I hadn't thought of that complication. Please tell me that when he
coasted, he didn't turn off the ignition, causing his power steering to lose
its power and potentially (if he turned the key too far) locking the
steering. Surely that wasn't the cause.

If it was just down to lack of engine braking and footbrake not being able
to cope, well so be it. But if it was down to locked or unassisted steering
then that makes it even worse.


When I first got a car with power steering I chose a deserted road and
turned the ignition off (taking great care not to turn the key to the "lock"
position") and then back on again, which temporarily disabled the power
steering, in order that I'd find out how the car handled if the power
steering were ever to fail. It was heavy, but controllable. (*)

This stood me in good stead many years later when, on another car, the
fanbelt broke on the motorway, knocking out the power steering pump. Armed
with the knowledge of how much heavier a power-assisted car with failed
power steering is than a car with no power steering (**), I was able to
steer the car safely at motorway speed and get it off the motorway at the
next junction (which fortunately was only about 1/2 mile ahead and where I
was planning to leave anyway) and to drive safely to a nearby garage where I
could wait for the RAC to arrive to tow me the last 20 miles home.

Without "testing" in a safe environment, I might have panicked.


(*) Turning the engine off while driving (this was on a car with a
carburettor) demonstrated another thing: with no spark, but with fuel still
being drawn through the carb into the engine, a lot of unburned fuel
accumulated. When I turned the ignition back on, there was a very satisfying
bang from the exhaust, which probably didn't do the engine a lot of good :-)
I'm afraid I once used this technique to scare the living daylights out of
another car that was tailgating me (and possibly stalking me in a road rage
attack). He hung back after that ;-)

(**) I'd always put the difference down to differences in steering geometry
(eg difference caster angle) which gave better feedback to the driver at the
expense of heavier steering without assistance. But from recent discussions
it sounds as if the geometry is unchanged between PS and non-PS, and only
the lock-to-lock ratio is different. This is odd because I once drove
otherwise identical two VW Golfs, one with and one without PS , to help me
decide whether to pay extra for PS on my next car, and I wasn't aware of
having to be careful to make smaller movements when driving straight ahead
in the car with PS, as would have been the case if it had had higher-geared
steering. My impression was similar amount of movement of steering wheel in
both cases, but in PS case it was easier to turn wheel and the car seemed to
lean into the bend better which I (wrongly?) attributed to steering geometry
which gave better driver feedback.

  #17  
Old August 20th 16, 08:06 PM posted to uk.transport,uk.rec.cycling,uk.rec.driving
jnugent
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,574
Default The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear

On 20/08/2016 16:13, Recliner wrote:
AnthonyL wrote:
On Thu, 18 Aug 2016 16:09:06 +0100, JNugent
wrote:

On 18/08/2016 15:47, Alycidon wrote:

Terrible tragedy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...cDonald-s.html


Whether or not coasting saves fuel I am very sceptical that any modern
car cannot negotiate a downhill run with its brakes. I certainly
remember it being essential to put my Dad's old Austin 12 into the
right gear and I'm fairly sure my early Morris Minor suffered brake
fade on steep slopes - but a Seat Ibiza? Even fully laden.

Now if the guy was trying to see how the car would go out of gear and
without touching the brakes on a nice hill - I might believe that - or
else Seat brakes are crap.


Let's not forget that the driver was a 21 year old bloke in a car full of
his (younger) mates. That's not the demographic which typically exhibits
the best example of skilled driving.


Exactly.
  #18  
Old August 20th 16, 08:38 PM posted to uk.transport,uk.rec.cycling,uk.rec.driving
AnthonyL
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5
Default The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear

On Sat, 20 Aug 2016 20:06:06 +0100, JNugent
wrote:

On 20/08/2016 16:13, Recliner wrote:
AnthonyL wrote:
On Thu, 18 Aug 2016 16:09:06 +0100, JNugent
wrote:

On 18/08/2016 15:47, Alycidon wrote:

Terrible tragedy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...cDonald-s.html


Whether or not coasting saves fuel I am very sceptical that any modern
car cannot negotiate a downhill run with its brakes. I certainly
remember it being essential to put my Dad's old Austin 12 into the
right gear and I'm fairly sure my early Morris Minor suffered brake
fade on steep slopes - but a Seat Ibiza? Even fully laden.

Now if the guy was trying to see how the car would go out of gear and
without touching the brakes on a nice hill - I might believe that - or
else Seat brakes are crap.


Let's not forget that the driver was a 21 year old bloke in a car full of
his (younger) mates. That's not the demographic which typically exhibits
the best example of skilled driving.


Exactly.


I agree and that is my point, but all the blame and subsequent
discussion here seems to be directed to the 'coasting' issue downhill
in a fully laden car. The coasting is a red-herring in my view.

--
AnthonyL
  #19  
Old August 20th 16, 09:37 PM posted to uk.rec.cycling
Bret Cahill
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 875
Default The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear

Terrible tragedy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...cDonald-s.html


Whether or not coasting saves fuel I am very sceptical that any modern
car cannot negotiate a downhill run with its brakes. I certainly
remember it being essential to put my Dad's old Austin 12 into the
right gear and I'm fairly sure my early Morris Minor suffered brake
fade on steep slopes - but a Seat Ibiza? Even fully laden.

Now if the guy was trying to see how the car would go out of gear and
without touching the brakes on a nice hill - I might believe that - or
else Seat brakes are crap.


Put an automatic in drive on ice on even a slight incline and it's obvious why it's safer to be in neutral.

Heavy vehicles deliberately enhance engine braking because the brakes were never designed to dissipate enough heat going down long grades. The drums expand and the pads fail to engage. Compression braking is offered as solution but it's better to brake all wheels, not just the drives.

Light vehicles have long had properly sized brakes. As long as the brakes work properly as they generally do on most cars there is no physical reason that being out of gear idling down hill is unsafe. It might be slightly more dangerous in rear wheel drive cars to be _in_ gear.

What the court may be trying to say is that there is danger inherent playing around with motor vehicles. Public streets are not test tracks. Human passengers aren't lab animals. You don't need a big machine to determine coefficients of friction, experience accelerations, save fuel, etc.

You can do all that safely with a bicycle, even w/o a rear brake!


Bret Cahill


  #20  
Old August 20th 16, 10:10 PM posted to uk.transport,uk.rec.cycling,uk.rec.driving
MrCheerful
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,757
Default The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear

On 20/08/2016 20:03, NY wrote:
"MrCheerful" wrote in message
...
He hit a kerb, whether he was in gear or not would make no difference
to the car that would cause him to hit a kerb, UNLESS he had also
turned the engine off.


Oh hell. I hadn't thought of that complication. Please tell me that when
he coasted, he didn't turn off the ignition, causing his power steering
to lose its power and potentially (if he turned the key too far) locking
the steering. Surely that wasn't the cause.

If it was just down to lack of engine braking and footbrake not being
able to cope, well so be it. But if it was down to locked or unassisted
steering then that makes it even worse.


When I first got a car with power steering I chose a deserted road and
turned the ignition off (taking great care not to turn the key to the
"lock" position") and then back on again, which temporarily disabled the
power steering, in order that I'd find out how the car handled if the
power steering were ever to fail. It was heavy, but controllable. (*)

This stood me in good stead many years later when, on another car, the
fanbelt broke on the motorway, knocking out the power steering pump.
Armed with the knowledge of how much heavier a power-assisted car with
failed power steering is than a car with no power steering (**), I was
able to steer the car safely at motorway speed and get it off the
motorway at the next junction (which fortunately was only about 1/2 mile
ahead and where I was planning to leave anyway) and to drive safely to a
nearby garage where I could wait for the RAC to arrive to tow me the
last 20 miles home.

Without "testing" in a safe environment, I might have panicked.


(*) Turning the engine off while driving (this was on a car with a
carburettor) demonstrated another thing: with no spark, but with fuel
still being drawn through the carb into the engine, a lot of unburned
fuel accumulated. When I turned the ignition back on, there was a very
satisfying bang from the exhaust, which probably didn't do the engine a
lot of good :-) I'm afraid I once used this technique to scare the
living daylights out of another car that was tailgating me (and possibly
stalking me in a road rage attack). He hung back after that ;-)

(**) I'd always put the difference down to differences in steering
geometry (eg difference caster angle) which gave better feedback to the
driver at the expense of heavier steering without assistance. But from
recent discussions it sounds as if the geometry is unchanged between PS
and non-PS, and only the lock-to-lock ratio is different. This is odd
because I once drove otherwise identical two VW Golfs, one with and one
without PS , to help me decide whether to pay extra for PS on my next
car, and I wasn't aware of having to be careful to make smaller
movements when driving straight ahead in the car with PS, as would have
been the case if it had had higher-geared steering. My impression was
similar amount of movement of steering wheel in both cases, but in PS
case it was easier to turn wheel and the car seemed to lean into the
bend better which I (wrongly?) attributed to steering geometry which
gave better driver feedback.


the steering will not lock unless the key is actually removed.

PS or non PS will often have the same lock to lock. If a PS system has
no power input it will always be very heavy, draining all the fluid will
make it much lighter.
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Cycling- The Dangers spindrift UK 28 August 9th 07 05:11 PM
The dangers of fixed!!! G.T. Techniques 15 May 16th 07 12:22 AM
the dangers of fixies G.T. Mountain Biking 8 July 10th 06 09:56 PM
Downhill Coasting? jsm Unicycling 0 January 29th 05 06:55 AM
The dangers of bright yellow gear tony R UK 12 May 18th 04 06:50 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 06:14 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 CycleBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.