Coasting in Neutral Illegal???

[95metro]

I just found out that coasting in neutral can be illegal in certain states/provinces. Anyone know what gives with this?

There's no mention of it in the vehicle laws for my province, but I find it really stupid...especially for people with manual shift. You disengage the clutch and you are technically in neutral!

[SVOboy]

Yeah, some laws I don't agree with, and other laws I disagree with.

[krousdb]

Originally Posted by SVOboy

Yeah, some laws I don't agree with, and other laws I disagree with.

Lets just agree to not disagree. Some laws are nonsense. And besides, how do you suppose that someone could possibly get caught at that?

[SVOboy]

Why wasn't your engine making any noise when I saw you driving down that hill...

[krousdb]

It was drowned out by the roar of my LRR tires.

[MetroMPG]

it's a funny issue. a real hot-button for some people who i've seen go nearly apoplectic in forums insisting that it's incredibly dangerous: "YOU HAVE NO CONTROL!!" is usually the gist of it.

i've wondered where the law came from, and the only thing i can think of is maybe it was meant to discourage people from coasting down long hills (mountains) riding their brakes too much (drums all around) until they boiled the fluid and crashed.

i searched through the ontario highway traffic act. no mention of coasting.

[SVOboy]

Sorry for the trouble, sir.

[krousdb]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

it's a funny issue. a real hot-button for some people who i've seen go nearly apoplectic in forums insisting that it's incredibly dangerous: "YOU HAVE NO CONTROL!!" is usually the gist of it.

I am in perfect control. I can steer, ans I can apply the brakes 3 to 4 times before losing power brakes. All I have to do is let out the clutch and bam! Full power!

Coasting with engine off is safer than driving while talking on the cell phone, driving while shaving, driving while putting on makeup, driving while reading the paper or a map, driving while drinking coffee, etc...

[Silveredwings]

I had a boss who used to say "you can't make anything fool-proof because fools are too-damned ingenious."

Somewhere, someone is always going to figure out a way to do something stupid, like pour a cup of boiling hot coffee in her crotch. Next thing you know, legislators are being pressured to make something illegal..."to save us all from ourselves." Sometimes they even try to make it illegal to break the law, but common sense often comes to the rescue at the last second.

Look, cars are dangerous things. It doesn't pay to be an idiot. It doesn't pay to drive <strong>near</strong> an idiot either, but what can you do?

As for me, I don't put my car in neutral and coast. I do however, occasionally shift "VERY slowly" and take a long time shifting from one gear to another while my foot is on the clutch.

[JanGeo]

Yeah I heard that a few times in other forums - the idea is if you have no feet on your pedals then the car is running free, if your engine stalls you loose power steering. Believe me in a lot of cars you can not steer it without power steering. A woman I know had an automatic Jag that stalled lost steering and brakes and crashed it. The good thing about what we are doing is that you learn how to handle the car under these conditions and don't panic when the brakes loose vacuum or the power steering cuts out. I remember the first time I started using cruise control seemed weird for the car to accelerate with my foot off the gas. Learning to cut out the cruise control or vary the speed with the coast accel button took some time too. Reflexes that you have learned in your feet don't know what to do when you are not using your feet to control the speed of the car. Normally you would back off the gas then go for the brake to slow down - not you are not on the gas in the first place and the brake doesn't become part of the sequence anymore since the gas isn't being used. How many of you have been surprised how far you can coast in neutral after years of taking your foot off the gas and slowing down a lot sooner.