Mother in law drives with one foot on gas and one foot on brake.

My advise is hide your Prius and go borrow a manual transmission car for a few days, that will sort her out.

Ok seriously, that's a terrible driving habit, but I don't see it hurting the prius as it's all "drive by wire". Sometimes people actually deliberately hold a foot on the brake while revving the engine (in "D") to force charge the HV battery. So I don't think the occasional intermittent overlap of brake and accelerator will hurt it.

 

as long as she isn't over 50? no prolemo.

 

Who the heck taught her to drive like that? Wow.

 

Not to worry, If she has done the left foot brake thing all her life, she knows well enough not to ride the brakes.

In close traffic, the right foot on the gas, left foot on the brake actually improves braking raction time. No need to lift your right foot off the gas, move it left and step on the brake, the left foot is already there and ready to step on the brake.

Try it yourself and see how much better control you have in tight manuvering conditions using both feet to operate brakes and throttle.

 

thats how i drive my prius and A/T cars with no problems at all. its actually fun! started with go karts then applied it to A/T cars. i only do it on M/T cars when i choose to trailbrake a particular corner on a track. the rest is the conventional technique.

 

Oddly enough, when I was browsing teslamotorsclub.com on a different topic awhile ago, I came across Two foot driving. I'm surprised that there are defenders of the practice (when driving an automatic)...

 

Indeed. I can attest to the advantage of having a better time reacting to a situation as your left foot is already hovering on the brake pedal when an immediate braking situation presents itself. You just have to re-train your brain-left foot coordination for that purpose. Easiest way to do that is have some track time on rental go-karts. When you apply it to everyday driving, you just have to remember to brake gently at first as your left foot is either still accustomed to not pushing on anything or accustomed to jabbing the clutch quickly. With practice, your left foot will soon have the same sensitivity as the right foot in feeling for the brakes. And as one memeber in the tesla forum said, the pedals in the prius are of different height and she almost ran over a pedestrian when her right foot almost missed the brake pedal.

 

Ok, I'm surprised we had so many closet "both feet fiends" lurking in our midst.

I'm pretty sure in Australia (when going for your license test) it's an instant fail if you drive that way!

 

If the situation warrants hovering your foot over the brake it might as well be off of the accelerator.

 

That is why rubens barrichello was forever 2nd to schumacher. he was always used to using his right foot to control both pedals even though the engineers pleaded for him to try and use his left foot for the brake because it made more sense (cars designed to having two pedals and people designed to having two feet!) and it showed in the telemetry that he could shave off heaps of time if he did it.

It's not that difficult to re-learn what you've been taught at driving school. it's definitely faster if you apply it on the track, and safer (actually both) if you apply it on the road. transition time between left and right pedal using left and right foot is practically zero versus a couple of tenths if done with one foot. In a high speed braking situation, that couple of tenths could equate to a couple of feet!

just like in music, if you have a bongo in front of you, would you use just one hand to do complex rhythms and fills? Of course not. In fact it's almost impossible to duplicate what two hands could do with one hand. If you were trained to play the bongo with one hand, how easier it would be if you relearned and play with two hands. Our brain is so versatile and intelligent that training it for safer driving by using two feet would be more logical.

 

And that's why his mother-in-law will be Schumacher to my Barrichello.

How silly.

 

Sammy Hagar Lyrics - I Can't Drive 55

 

You betcha! She's a cool mother-in-law!

 

I would not let her near my car. Take her were she wants to go . Keep the key in your pocket and remove the battery in your spare FOB. H

 

Hey what's best out on the track for shoe muncher and the baritone cello isn't necessarily what best for most of us in everyday driving.

- For one thing, driving an auto with both feet makes you prone to resting your foot on the bake pedal, with the result of sometimes flashing misleading brake light signals to following drivers.

- Personally I think it can make you more prone to pedal confusion in an emergency.

- And lastly, I know of people who adopted this habit from learners and then ten year later or so they had to learn to drive a manual and they were just complete lost causes.

 

the issue comes for the over 50 driver, in a panic situation, the brain tells the right foot to brake instead of the left foot. some call it 'unintended accelleration'.

 

I have driven manual trans rigs for 50 years and find it no problem at all to go to left foot braking when driving an automatic, never have, and I am 64. I would bet 99.9% of untended acceleration involves the right foot firmly on the gas while the driver thinks it is on the brake