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and the brake pedal in an automatic is the width of both pedals in a manual

Yeah… no.

The clutch would be to the left of both pedals in an automatic. Your foot rests in the empty space left of the brake pedal, usually there’s some kind of footrest roughly where the clutch would be. If anything you’d slam on that rest. Lifting your left foot off that rest (where the clutch you intend to slam would be) to hit the center pedal (which is where the brake is in any car) makes zero sense as a potential mixup. Not to mention it would feel extremely unnatural to operate a pedal so far right with your left foot if you tried.

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froh42@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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The footrest is still there in a manual car. The brake pedal is smaller, the clutch in between.

When you brake you hit the clutch with the left foot and brake with the right one on the brake pedal. Unintentionally smashing the wider brake pedal can happen if you switch from a smaller car to one with a wide brake pedal.

It also happened a few times to me over my. life until I got used to put my left foot very close to the seat when driving automatic, so I don’t subconsciously use it.

It typically happens if you need to do emergency braking anyways and just all the reflexes kick in. In normal situations it never happened to me.

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waz@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If you are used to driving a manual, you don’t rest your foot on the foot rest area, you keep it just about to push the clutch. Also, saying the brake pedal is the full width of two pedals is wrong, but it is certainly wider. I have gone for the clutch in an automatic once and just barely caught the edge of the brake pedal. The results were very confusing, and without exaggerating it took me 5-10 seconds to figure out what I had done. It was while driving my mom’s car with her in it and she looked at me with the most “what the fuck are you doing?” look she has ever made.

This was all over twenty years ago but yes, it is definitely possible.

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bitwaba@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The brake pedal in automatics is twice as wide as a brake pedal in manual cars.

No one is intentionally hitting the brake pedal. They’re moving their foot to push in a clutch pedal that doesn’t exist, and accidentally hitting the left hand side of the wide ass brake pedal.

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chuckleslord@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Okay. Well, it’s happened to me… twice. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a real thing that happens.

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RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Exactly. For over ten years I regularly switched between manual and automatic and this meme happened zero times.

I quite often did stall the engine of the manual at red lights though.

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- Crashumbc@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  So you literally had the opposite problem but can’t imagine someone having this one.
  
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  - RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yes, because while muscle memory may make your foot move (or not as in my case), I’ve never seen a car where the break pedal is broad enough to be anywhere close to where the clutch would be.
    
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- Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I used to drive cars for a living for over a decade and even I can admit that must have happened to me once or twice
  
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Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The foot rest is much further left and exists in both configuration so muscle memory goes to the same place to rest your left foot when you’re not using it.

The brake pedal in a manual is narrower and in an automatic it usually is the width of the manual pedal + the space between the brake and clutch pedal from a manual. If out of habit you reach for the clutch in an automatic chances are you’ll hit the brake ball just enough to scare you.

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