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Comment by S_A_P | Hacker News Reader

"During the 911 call, the operator urged Mr. Sikes to shift the car into neutral. He later said he was afraid doing so might cause the car to "flip" or shift into reverse."

Maybe a driving test should be re-instituted every few years, or at the very least make sure that drivers have a basic grasp of physics...

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I will say that I took my Subaru out yesterday intending to try and switch to neutral, this after hearing about this controversy, and it took a monumental act of will to actually do it. I was really scared that I would shift into reverse and harm my car. Finally decided to pay heed to my fears and didn't do it until after I had tested just how much pressure it takes to do the switch while standing still with my feet on the brakes.

I don't mean this to say that I defend Mr. Sikes, but the fact that reverse is just one up from neutral is kind of scary. Just how careful would you have to be to avoid doing the shift? Is there a check in the system that prohibits shifting to reverse if the car is moving forwards?

Modern automatic transmissions will not switch from forward gears to reverse abruptly. They even won't engage a lower gear until your speed is low enough so the engine doesn't over-rev. Even virtually all manual transmissions have interlocks preventing an accidental shift into reverse (though this is a very difficult mistake on a 6-speed).

I can't speak for the Prius, but my Grand Prix has a shifter with a button that I have to depress to go into any gear _except_ neutral. I can just slap at the shifter and pop it into neutral without any fear that I'd over-shift into reverse.

I'm pretty sure that this feature is standard on every modern car that doesn't suck (i.e. everything we have here in the States). I've yet to drive a car that didn't have it.

You weren't in any danger though. If your car were stuck at full throttle you might feel differently.

A few years ago my car's throttle did get stuck (not a Toyota, due to my own stupidity) and after a few seconds of shock the thing that seemed most rational to me was to pop into neutral and apply the brakes. It worked just fine.

I remember hearing somewhere that cars won't let you go into reverse above a certain speed [citation needed].

People tend to not want to try new things when their car is not working properly. Maybe there should be driving simulators so that drivers can practice recovering from unexpected events without risking injury. It works for airplane pilots.

Basically, why guess about what to do in a crisis when you can try recovering from the crisis as many times as you want beforehand?

In Denmark, as a requirement to get a drivers license, you have to go to a closed driving circuit and do brake and avoidance maneuvers at different speeds and go on a skid pad. Feel how the car reacts on the limits.

A standard drivers license test is done in a manual transmission car (which is what most people there drive anyway). I also think that using a manual transmission helps to understand how a car works.

But isn't shifting into neutral common taught and common knowledge I know my driving instructor, videos, and both my mother and father told me this when I was learning to drive.

Trying it and seeing that you don't die is stronger than "heard it from my dad".

Well most people don't know enough physics to understand that.

I love the mythbusters episode that debunked the Nazi soldier on the bike flipping over in the Indiana Jones movie.

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