Profile For Bridget P.

Hi PackRat

Thanks for your comment. Yes, you read that correctly. He started me out by floating gears and driving onto the road without any practice time of moving through gears to get comfortable with their positioning beforehand. I kind if thought there might be some time spent in the empty yard, where there was lots of space, to get a feel for shifting and braking, and playing with the rpm timing before hitting the road. I’m going to a school that is part of the trades and technology centre at our local university. It has a really good reputation but I have to say my lesson left me feeling really discouraged and pretty intimidated.

I had my first driving lesson yesterday. It was a shock realizing I had to unlearn everything I know about driving a manual passenger vehicle! To say I sucked it up would be an understatement. He started me out with floating through the shifts, only using the clutch starting out and to downshift.

When downshifting I really had problems trying to hit and maintain the correct RPM. My instructor told me to position my foot on the accelerator so that the top of my foot was rubbing against the dog house and heel on the floor. It feels wrong to me and totally uncomfortable.

My question is, how do you place your foot on the pedal to most easily control acceleration and hold the rpm?