madness

[perlmonger]

I've just been reading (on cix:bikers if anyone cares) that the UK Official Line on learning to drive now is that using engine braking or even, Pry Mincer forfend, changing down to get more engine braking is bad, wrong and generally verboten.

I can just see all these new, approved drivers coming down a hill in Wales or the Highlands or the Pennines or anywhere not in Lincolnshire or East Anglia happily controlling their speed in 5th with their brakes until the magic smoke exits from their poor overstressed brakepads and they end up performing a graceful loop over a drystone wall followed by a plummet to a reservoir 500 feet below.

Still, their clutchplates won't wear out, so that's ok...

Comments

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Get them all Priuses (Prii?). You need to engine brake to get maximum regenerative effects.

And will they reprogram all the automatically controlled manual gearboxes that do a rather neat double-declutch as you slow down...

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

Oh, those are ok. After all, they require no intelligence, skill or judgement from the driver (I'm assuming that hybrids do automatic optimisation of regenerative braking, 'cos if they don't, they're severely broken).

/me winds back upon observing that he's about to go into his standard everything-must-be-easy government-imposed-march-of-the-morons rant

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's how they work.

It's rather fun watching the LCD monitor on the dash showing just how and where the power is flowing...