My kid’s just finished the classroom part of driver education and it prompted a discussion of crazy things we’ve seen other drivers do.
The craziest thing I saw, many years ago now, was I came up behind a guy driving a Ford Ranger pickup and could see through his rear window that he was doing tricep extensions with a dumbbell in his right hand. I was more surprised as I passed to see he was shaving with an electric razor in his left hand. I don’t really know how he was steering.
Kiddo said they were told personal grooming was the fourth leading cause of accidents.
Wow that’s crazy. You have taught me a valuable and potentially a life saving lesson today. I really appreciate your knowledge here.
So I have an automatic so how do I keep it under 50 or 20 without using the breaks?
You can use your brakes to slow down to where you can then engine brake, you just don’t want to use them for miles all the way down a mountain.
Once you’re under ~50 and you shift down to second, your engine does the work. It will keep the car slower. Maybe you need to tap on the normal brakes here and there, that’s fine, but you shouldn’t have to keep them pressed the entire time.
My dodge will engine brake if I use the cruise control. Down near the bottom (or far side) of your shifter you should have a low gear that isn’t first. You can shift into it under 50 and let off the gas, your car should slow down. Test it’s rpm range on some flat ground first by accelerating to around 50… On the mountain is not where you want to first try it.
At minimum, shift out of overdrive into regular drive.