My driver training instructor had been a fighter pilot. He was pretty good buy mainly concerned about railroad tracks. I remember him getting into a screaming match with a realtor who had jumped the gun on a green light. We didn’t really talk about failure reactions. I guess we didn’t have time since class was only one hour and there were three of us. I didn’t care for the styling of that 64 Ford, but I liked how it drove.
Not that it really relates but when I was in Sioux Falls, back then they didn’t operate their own snow removal equipment and just contracted it out. So the side roads were not always in great shape. One morning on my way to church with my 59 Pontiac, the fast idle was still on, there were ruts in the road, and cars parked on both sides of the street. So my drive wheels spun and put me in the ruts and no way to not side swipe the parked car. Those old mechanical fast idles were a pain. Thinking back now, I could have waited more until the car warmed up or taken a different route. Putting it in neutral wouldn’t have done much because I’d still have to get out of the ruts that were too close to the parked cars. Just screwed either way.
Yeah, I can understand in a panic it can be tough to select neutral. You are looking straight ahead and cannot shift your eyes to the gear shift, so it’s by feel only as you rack the gear shift. When the truck was backing into me, I couldn’t even manage to get it into reverse in time to avoid the hit. Not like a Sunday drive. Still if you have any time at all to react, sure put it in neutral. I guess that’s where clutches are nice.
I think the ages they give are a little off. I ranged from.388 (first and 3rd tries) to a .300, 297, and .288 in 10 tries. I am over 80. When I started driving a school bus after I retired from trucking, we had a machine that had a red light a gas pedal and a brake pedal and rolling graph paper. They kept throwing out my times because I must have been hearing something that tipped me off. Yet the hearing test showed 35% loss.
I am not as fast as in my younger days, I used to be able to catch the dollar bill where on person holds a dollar bill vertically and I hold my thumb and forefinger on either side of the bill and grab it when they let go . Not every time, but about 1 in 3.
I can well understand this if a vehicle is new to somebody, but–after having owned a vehicle for several years–shouldn’t somebody be able to go from D to N without looking at the shifter? I can’t speak for anyone else, but my practice is to shift to neutral as I roll into a parking space in a parking lot, and I don’t have to look at the shift lever in order to nudge it forward one notch to Neutral.
That being said, I’m always fascinated by the people with new-ish cars who have to look at their shift lever during parking maneuvers in order to shift from D to R, back to D, back to R, back to D, and then to P. Every vehicle with which I am familiar has had a fairly large readout on the instrument panel for the gears for… many years.
Obviously, you can’t look at that indicator during a panic situation, but I think that everyone who has had a vehicle for more than a few weeks should be capable of shifting from D to N without having to look at the shift lever. And, if somebody can’t currently do that, then this is the time to practice it–before it’s too late.
I have 3 vehicles in my family now, 2 of them with “unorthodox” shifter designs I gave pictures for above.
After owning Honda for 2+ years, I still curse and look at these damn buttons. The only one of them easy to get with no looking is reverse, which happens to operate sideways.
Prius is OK-ish: my hand gets to the central console, finds no shifter, then I have “aha!” moment and reach to the mini-stalk on the dash, then reflexes take over.
Pathfinder is the most intuitive of all, it’s “classic” design and I can operate one intuitively.
I do not consider myself “tech impaired” at all as I drove many stick-shift ones and automatics before and these fit my hands like a glove even if I get to the manual transmission car after many years not driving one.
Still, for example, for modern Camry - I like that they kept the “classic” shifter… still blaming myself I’ve got Accord back in 2019
My mom’s got an Acura with that shifter. I drove it maybe once every 3 months before the pandemic. I just drove it about a month ago to take it to an oil change for her, and was able to find the buttons without looking at them. They’re all different shapes. If it’s recessed and round (hers is slightly different from yours), it’s drive. If it’s square and flush, it’s neutral. If it’s sharply recessed and you have to tug backwards on it instead of pushing it, it’s reverse. I don’t consider that overly difficult. Mind you I also don’t consider it particularly necessary, because it’s not like they’re saving space by removing the shift lever, but I don’t think it’s a safety issue as long as the driver does what they’re supposed to do and gets familiar with the controls of the vehicle they’re in.
Park and Neutral are very similar to the touch in that design, separated by recessed Reverse (which is indeed easy to spot).
When it was snowy/icy, I tested if it would allow me to engage P while still moving and it did, at least on the slow speed… that’s probably why I do not trust this design.
Yes, D is rounded/recessed more, yet my brain still does not get it “right”… and YES, I see no space saved in making this controls change.
Considering it is hybrid and engine is not at all controlled by the gas pedal (once again, unlike Toyota, where they at least pretend), I don’t care much for that controls, I’m in “smile & wave” modus operandi.
As far as a manual transmission with a clutch, that won’t be the cure-all in terms of failure modes. I have had the clutch cable break on a motorcycle, and that could have gotten kind of exciting also. Neutral on the foot pedal can be a little hard to find, especially if the drive train is under a load.
And let’s not forget Edsel. I’m not sure who had it first. Just thinking though, if this unintended acceleration didn’t die down, I can envision a mandatory clutch button on all future cars. Push the button and everything disengages. And for the cheaper car models, and actual pedal on the floor instead of a button. Red, yellow, orange, or something noticeable. Of course I jest but it’s Friday and the weekends are low volume days here.
I would like a 58 or 59 Edsel, but do not want the versions that had the push buttons in the steering wheel.
Other brands offered push button transmission, but I like the Mopar best.
Chrysler introduced their push buttons on the '56 models.
The Edsel did not premier until the '58 model year.
And, one of the noted problems with Edsels was a tendency for the electrical connections at the transmission to get screwed-up by road grime. Chrysler’s mechanical push button trans connections were far more reliable.
If everything is electronically controlled, the car will do whatever the computer is telling it to do, regardless of whatever buttons, levers, or pedals you are manipulating. It could be a software bug, a malfunction, a hacker, or a cosmic ray that passed nearby. A record of the malfunction could be in error.
All the 58 Edsel automatics had push buttons, 59 they changed to a column shifter. I know my 56 Desoto had push buttond and I think the 56 Packard did also. Some sources credit Chrysler having push buttons in 54 but it must not have been in all models because I remember the 55 Plymouth having a small chrome lever sticking out of the dash, to the right of the steering wheel.
There was no position on the 56 Desoto. You were supposed to use the emergency brake to secure the car when you parked.
You made me remember my Corvair. It had that lever on the dash to select the gears, like a lawn mower. Trying to remember if that’s how you put it in park but just don’t remember.
I’m not 100% sure but believe the lowest level 58 Edsel (reskinned 57 Fords) had column shift.
My brother had a 57 Dodge, no park position, had to use the emergency/parking brake which was on the drive shaft. Frankly I can not remember on my 60 Dart, but my 62 Port Fury Convertible with a 361 ( I sure would like that car now) had a lever to engage the parking pawl.
Wife’s Prius has been gone 5 years? Think I drove it 5 times? The shifter is confusing for a non Prius owner. It’s spring loaded. You move it left-back to go into drive mode and release it. It returns to vertical “home” position. I think you move it left to go into neutral? Why would you want it in neutral mode? With car on? I ain’t pushing a Prius when it’s on. Might decide to go rogue and take me out.
… and those sources would be wrong. As you surmised, Chrysler didn’t introduce their push button trans controls until '56. All of their automatic trans cars used that dash-mounted lever in '55, and I well remember it on our '55 Belvedere.
I’m not sure if this was the first year that they introduced that feature, but my father’s '63 Plymouth had a lever next to the trans push buttons that engaged the Park Pawl on the transmission.
Here is a pic:
Just like your '56 DeSoto, our '59 Plymouth lacked that feature, but whether Chrysler added it in '63–or possibly in '62–I’m not sure.
All chrysler corp. cars with auto trans had pushbuttons from 1956 through 1964. they all had a lever sticking out the dash in1955. They had a lever next to the buttons to select “park” from 1962-1964. The transmission had no parking lock until 1962.
