Let me take a wild guess here, Peacefrog. Is it possible you drive manual transmission all day, maybe even a truck there in the Frozen North, and so your brain is trained for a manual transmission, and your brain is trained to brake with your right foot, because you must on a manual tranmission.
So, if you try to drive left footed, it is clumsy and hard on the equipment. Much like how it was when you first learned to drive a car. With experience, your driving got better, and now it’s probably highly professional.
Anyone who makes the change has to learn to do it, just as you had to learn to drive in the first place.
Once you learn to drive that way, as long as you drive only automatics, and I do just that, one becomes just as smooth, no, much smoother, than right foot braking,
Yet, you are projecting your own experience on others who do not drive manuals, and who have learned to drive left foot. That is my best guess.
My experience says this is not the case. The nerves that tell you how hard you are pressing the pedal are the proprioceptors further up the leg. The bottoms of the feet tell you if there’s a nail sticking out of the pedal or not.
You do know that people with prosthetics can drive cars, I hope? With absolutely zero feeling in the foot? Whether it’s attached or not.
I prescribe broad spectrum antibiotics and 2 mg of Lorazepam on an IV push.
Only very fast young men? Because they are muy macho? While we’re having a measuring contest, I commend to you Taipei at rush-hour. Many cars have manual transmissions and old Chinese grannies seem to be able to handle it. The only rule is “buses have the right of way” and no one has insurance. Please, no more than five people per motor-scooter.
“Only very fast young men can handle that traffic in a manual”
Exactly right, irlandes! If I have the dexterity to operate a clutch with my left foot, which takes fine motor control, surely, I can develop the skill of left foot braking. It is only dangerous if you do it wrong, just like any fine motor control activity associated with driving.
Okay, I guess some people take things literally, "into the wind screen was a figure of speech and not actual. I always wear a restraint when I am in the car with him, I fear for my life. I always feel more safe in aircraft than in land vehicles.
Yes the issue is his driving skills and judgement but as you know, few men listen to women.
I have indeed attempted to demonstrate better technique. I am also a Commercial pilot and offer that if I flew the way he drives my passengers would be quite sick long before the landing. In the cockpit we work to keep your sensations of movement to a minimum, a good driver should not, in my opinion, jerk his/her passengers around the compartment while maneuvering the car, but unfortunately few drivers seem concerned with their passengers.
How about you print the thread out (yes you can edit) and leave it somewhere he will find it? If you want change you will have to do the difficult thing and confront.
It isn?t right foot left foot that?s at issue it?s the boyfriend?s behavior. He is driving in a way that makes his girlfriend uncomfortable. He can drive however he wants when he is alone. When he is carrying passengers he has a responsibility to change his behavior. He should suck it up and drive like he cares about her comfort. On the other hand, I had a mechanic friend whose wife nagged him to always drive 5mph under the speed limit. He changed the speedometer gearing. Problem solved.
“In the cockpit we work to keep your sensations of movement to a minimum, a good driver should not, in my opinion, jerk his/her passengers around the compartment while maneuvering the car, but unfortunately few drivers seem concerned with their passengers.”
I think you make a good point. Assuming there is no physical condition that he might be suffering from, lack of empathy seems to be a problem that he needs to address. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask a driver to make his passenger’s experience more comfortable if it contributes to overall safety as well. Maybe he’s unwilling to use the cruise control much either. I will return to; “it might be time for you to drive more.”
“You need to “reprogram” him. Left foot braking is unsafe and hard on equipment”
I think most of us are too limited in our thinking what people are capable of doing. I’ve never had a problem jumping on a tractor with a column throttle or separate brakes for each wheel. Or, jumping on a dozer and steering with levers for 8 hours before driving home. Or, operating the bucket with the right hand, the suicide nob on the wheel with the left, the locking differential with the left foot and changing gears with the right foot operated hydrostat, all at the same time.
Or steering an M20 scow dual rudder with rt foot, hiking under a strap with the other, operating the main sheet with the right hand and the traveler with the left and switching everything and adjusting the spinn. sheets on every tack; and I’m a clutz. Or, driving both an auto as a left footed braker and a manual trans truck in the same day.
Of course, he is wrong and she is right, but let us not lose sight of the fact that she misled us when she told us that his braking action results in “throwing me and everything else in the car into the wind screen”.
Later she does clarify the issue, “Okay, I guess some people take things literally, 'into the wind screen was a figure of speech and not actual”.
Since the OP is apparently a commerical pilot, I wonder how she would like it when, following her next slightly hard landing, one of her passengers complains to both the airline and the FAA that he/she"hit his/her head on the ceiling due to the force of a very hard landing". Just as she would not like to have a slightly rough landing incorrectly characterized, I do not like being led to believe that her statement about “being thrown into the windscreen” was accurate.
Criticize me if you wish for inferring that she was not properly belted, but I have come to expect truthful statements from people who are asking for help, rather than overdramatizing of a situation.
Reminds me of a time in grade school when the nun asked us all to tell a story about faith, and my classmate told a story about a time when he was in a boat and had to have faith about the boat getting him back to shore. The nun said “very nice story, but I think you just wanted to tell us about how you had a boat”.
Didn’t we finish with that on the first page? It’s not about you.
“Since the OP is apparently a commerical pilot, I wonder how she would like it when, following her next slightly hard landing, one of her passengers complains to both the airline and the FAA that he/she"hit his/her head on the ceiling due to the force of a very hard landing”.
I would say it was the passenger’s fault for not being belted in. Ironic, isn’t it?
Of course it’s not about me.
It is about posting truthful information, rather than embellished information for the purpose of making things sound more dramatic.
'Tis a pity that you cannot distinguish the difference.
In any event, I think we all agree that the boyfriend is the one who is at fault, and who needs “corrective” driving instruction.
Can we at least agree on that, “Tarcaulk”?