Anti-theft device

[6ft3Aussie]

Hill starts in the manual definitely take practice, but practice makes perfect.
When my wife passed her driving test, she was driving our 6-speed manual 2017 Toyota Corolla, so she can now drive anything. (Here if you pass your test in an auto, there's a condition on your licence that means you can ONLY drive an auto, or re-sit your test later in a manual). She's fine with hill starts.

I have the habit of driving two-footed in an auto (left foot braking), but obviously use both feet for the manual in the usual way, it does take a little mental training.
I've only once hit the brake hard in an auto with my left foot......once was enough!

[Stevie D]

I've launched on some pretty steep hills and I've never rolled back more than a couple of feet or less to get going.

A 'couple of feet' ?!!!

I think most people drive manual shift cars in the UK. We have some pretty steep hills here in Sheffield and you learn very quickly how to do efficient hill starts without rolling backwards. When I was learning to drive in the 1970s, my driving instructor would make me park facing upwards on a good hill. He'd get out of the car and place an empty matchbox just behind one of the rear wheels, then he'd get back in and make me hill start without crushing the matchbox. I soon learned how to do it!

[moonshadow]

I've launched on some pretty steep hills and I've never rolled back more than a couple of feet or less to get going.

A 'couple of feet' ?!!!

I think most people drive manual shift cars in the UK. We have some pretty steep hills here in Sheffield and you learn very quickly how to do efficient hill starts without rolling backwards. When I was learning to drive in the 1970s, my driving instructor would make me park facing upwards on a good hill. He'd get out of the car and place an empty matchbox just behind one of the rear wheels, then he'd get back in and make me hill start without crushing the matchbox. I soon learned how to do it!

Unless you're slipping the clutch or somehow manage to bend spacetime to get from the brake to the throttle instantaneously, or using the parking braken I don't see how it's possible to not roll back just a little on steep hills.

When I lived in Pulaski I lived at the top of a very steep hill on a corner lot. I watched cars come to a stop and re-launch for 11 years there. Everybody who came to a stop rolled back a little.... even in the automatics.

Or maybe U.K. drivers are just too cool for the room?.... Not all can be perfect....

We may have lousy drivers, stupid kids, ghettos, a government that favors the 1% and a whole host of other probems....

But we put a man on the moon.... so there...

[Darryl]

Unless you're slipping the clutch or somehow manage to bend spacetime to get from the brake to the throttle instantaneously, or using the parking braken I don't see how it's possible to not roll back just a little on steep hills.

When I lived in Pulaski I lived at the top of a very steep hill on a corner lot. I watched cars come to a stop and re-launch for 11 years there. Everybody who came to a stop rolled back a little.... even in the automatics.

Heel-and-toe. Heel on the brake until the last minute, toe punching the gas and then lifting off the clutch. My friend Brad lived in San Francisco and while we were stationed at NAS Lemoore we'd drive up to visit his folks and practice with the Z car on some of the steepest hills in SF. Don's folks were in LA. Dan's were back in Michigan.

[moonshadow]

Unless you're slipping the clutch or somehow manage to bend spacetime to get from the brake to the throttle instantaneously, or using the parking braken I don't see how it's possible to not roll back just a little on steep hills.

When I lived in Pulaski I lived at the top of a very steep hill on a corner lot. I watched cars come to a stop and re-launch for 11 years there. Everybody who came to a stop rolled back a little.... even in the automatics.

Heel-and-toe. Heel on the brake until the last minute, toe punching the gas and then lifting off the clutch. My friend Brad lived in San Francisco and while we were stationed at NAS Lemoore we'd drive up to visit his folks and practice with the Z car on some of the steepest hills in SF. Don's folks were in LA. Dan's were back in Michigan.

Fair enough. I never much bothered with it... never really had a need to. I seldom found myself in a situation where a little roll back would have harmed, if so I'd have just used the parking brake.

[denimini]

The hand brake is useful when starting on hills .......... the one's that work.
Old Landrovers had very good hand (transmission) brakes but the lever was so close to the floor that you couldn't see the road when releasing it.

[bridkid]

Thanks for your explanations on the gearchange methods. When it's were a lad 'on the tree obviously means column change....

[Darryl]

Heel-and-toe. Heel on the brake until the last minute, toe punching the gas and then lifting off the clutch. My friend Brad lived in San Francisco and while we were stationed at NAS Lemoore we'd drive up to visit his folks and practice with the Z car on some of the steepest hills in SF. Don's folks were in LA. Dan's were back in Michigan.

Fair enough. I never much bothered with it... never really had a need to. I seldom found myself in a situation where a little roll back would have harmed, if so I'd have just used the parking brake.

It was also a racing technique for braking and quick out of the curve. We had some salt flats outside the main gate and some of us got our cars worked on and then played. And some of us took leave to visit the Bondurant raceway for some 'fast-mover' training for us ground-locked folks. That or work on a private pilot's license. We were a good hour's drive south of Fresno, west of Visalia and IIRC about 1.5 hours east of Coalinga. So we did a lot of cruising.

[dillon]

Can someone please explain what 3 on the tree and 4 on the floor means?

Three forward gears, with the shifter attached to the steering column. Four forward gears with the shifter on a linkage from the transmission emerging under a rubber boot between and before the two front seats.

Beachlion, I drive a 4WD Ford pickup with a 5 speed manual when I am doing property maintenance, or working on the farm. When I go back to my minivan, I find myself reaching for the shifter and trying to push in a nonexistent clutch.

[dillon]

The hand brake is useful when starting on hills .......... the one's that work.
Old Landrovers had very good hand (transmission) brakes but the lever was so close to the floor that you couldn't see the road when releasing it.

I learned to drive a standard shift on farm tractors at age seven, then on 2-ton hay trucks, before I was big enough to throw a bale to the top of the stack. I had to stand up to see over the dash. Then at 16, I got my permit to drive a school bus. My first bus was a '69 GMC. We had to be able to hold the bus in place on a hill for a full minute using only the friction point of the clutch, or we didn't pass the test. I eventually earned a "Bus Driver of the Year Award" in my High School. Then, as a reward, they put me in a "transit" type bus with a shorter, closer route...and I crashed it into the back of a brand new Chevrolet. This was a 90 passenger bus with engine in back, driver seated ahead of front wheels. I was attempting to safely pass a classmate on her bicycle when the traffic abruptly stopped in front of me. I failed to react in time, and on a bus with air brakes you could not "lock-up" the brakes. Despite literally standing up on the brake pedal, I rode right up onto the man's trunk ('boot' for the Brits). Thus ended my 1.25 years as a school bus driver.

Today only adults are allowed to drive school buses, but it was a coveted part-time job for a teenager back in my day. I earned $2.07 per hour. Better than the $1.85 I had made at Hardees, scraping chewing gum up in the parking lot with a putty knife. That was 1974. I remember it because the business of the Nation ground to a halt that summer for a few hours one day, as we all watched Nixon on TV, boarding Air Force One for his last flight as President.

If you watched the Democratic debates, you saw Kamala Harris tear into Joe Biden over his lack of support for busing to achieve school desegregation. I drove one of those "integration" routes in Charlotte, NC, where a Federal Court had ordered cross-city busing as a mechanism to fully desegregate schools. It sucked at the time, though now I understand that what I did was important, even historic. If you think race relations are bad now, you weren't around in the early 1970s.

[Sinned]

I can heel-toe brake and accelerator whilst releasing the clutch pedal on a steep hill without the car rolling backwards an inch. And without using the hand(parking) brake. You just have to be quick with the feet as it takes a half-second or so for the car to overcome inertia and start to move.

[denimini]

That was a good story Dillon. The good old days when teenagers could drive big busses .......... and a cricket team would travel far on the tray of an old truck.

[Stevie D]

Unless you're slipping the clutch or somehow manage to bend spacetime to get from the brake to the throttle instantaneously, or using the parking braken I don't see how it's possible to not roll back just a little on steep hills.

Standard technique is to use the hand/parking brake to keep the vehicle stationary, then release the clutch gradually at the same time as giving the accelerator a bit of oomph. Then release the handbrake just as you feel the clutch starting to bite. Robert is your father's brother.

[Stevie D]

I can heel-toe brake and accelerator whilst releasing the clutch pedal on a steep hill without the car rolling backwards an inch. ...

Where are all the steep hills in York, Dennis?

[Sinned]

There aren't many as York is in a valley which makes sledging difficult in winter and not easy for driving testers. There is a short hill near York University which has the advantage of being off the beaten track, used by instructors and examiners. There are many out of York, though, the nearest being Sutton Bank which has a maximum 25% gradient along with a hairpin bend. Low gear is advised!!!! The highest pub in England is called Tan Hill [0] and it was always a "right of passage" around here to go there for a pint. It used to regularly get cut off in winter but not so much now. It was not far from my stomping ground of Darlington and was visited many times in my youth, being close enough for a quick drive out.

[0] It's just about in the North York Moors about an hour and a half drive from here.