While taking my car driving lessons an interesting idea occurred to me.
Isn't driving a geared 2 wheeler easier than driving a car? Of course keeping aside the balancing aspects.
A geared 2 wheeler has gear at the feet and rest of the options at the hands and the car is just the opposite. Considering our hands are more skilled and more in control than our feet, wouldn't it be a better idea to have the important levers like accelerator, clutch and brake as hand operated and leave the gear to the feet even in cars?, as you could go wrong with a gear and it would still be ok but if you went wrong with any of the others.... hmmmm.....
This view is based on my limited knowledge of both the vehicles, may be someone more experienced could throw some light.. and if possible this idea could be patented under the name vmw (visakhapatnam motor works) ;)
V Madhavan Nair (1945-2025)
3 months ago
Very good thought indeed :). but lets think about why the current day cars are the way they are. When the first cars were designed and manufactured, they were purely mechanical in that braking and accelerating involved more power in moving parts to archive that(more than those required for smaller lighter two wheelers).As we came down the lane of modernization we now have power everything which makes it possible to have accelerator and brakes as hand operations. Two things restrict this, one we have been so used to driving cars the old fashioned way getting people to unlearn the old way and adopt this concept is difficult and getting this idea to be a industry standard even more, Two - the cost factor involved in making this shift, right from need for creating proprietary components to the overall cost of the car.
ReplyDeleteIf the second point of cost is not a limitation then with the current technology why limit to doing old things easier, rather why not make everything automatic, sit back and relax!! :)
But yes given the cost factor and say it is possible to get people to accept this idea, it would be easier to have brakes and accelerator as push pads on the steering wheel and also have paddle shift gears as in formula one cars.
Good thought though .. and vmw is hilarious ;-)
Kewl !! especially the vmw part :)
ReplyDeleteDpt...your idea has already been implemented in the form of the ubiquitous autorickshaw...why dont you take your driving lessons in one of them..hahaha
ReplyDelete