Left-foot braking is the right way
Using both feet helps drivers make a safe choice in split seconds, expert says
The vast majority of today’s cars have automatic transmissions. Count the pedals, count your feet, do the math. Doesn’t it then make sense to divide the pedal operations equally: right foot to go, left foot to stop?
Of course, you shouldn’t be doing both at once, unless you’re a rally driver. In that sport, drivers will tap the left foot on the brake while full on the gas, to help initiate a turn.
It’s part of a technique known as the “Scandinavian flick,” so named for the Finnish and Swedish drivers who have traditionally done so well in that sport.
Trevor Frith has a different take on left-foot braking. The Saskatchewan-born engineer who now splits his time between Huntsville, Ont., and Florida (you guess the seasons) has witnessed two serious crashes where what he calls “pedal confusion” was largely responsible.
People think they are hitting the brakes but are in fact hitting the accelerator, often with tragic results.
This is especially true in multiple-car families, where the orientation of the brake and accelerator pedals varies from car to car. Sometimes in a stressful situation, you may forget which car you’re in. In other instances, the right foot can slip off the brake onto the accelerator, with an equally bad outcome.
The “unintended acceleration” situation a few years ago was also largely a matter of pedal confusion.
More recently, when the unintended acceleration issue raised its head again, some carmakers took to disabling the throttle if the brake pedal is pressed.
But of course, that doesn’t help in a pedal confusion situation.
Frith has developed a website — leftfootbraking.org — in which he outlines the huge numbers of reported brake-pedal confusion incidents and the hundreds of deaths attributed to this situation in North America.
The site also shows the right (er, “left”) way to brake, and demolishes some of the myths surrounding this technique.
By dedicating one foot to each pedal, it is far less likely that you will become confused.
Frith has been trying to bring this problem to the attention of driving schools and governments, hoping they will begin to teach people the proper and safe way to brake, so far with few positive results.
He’s preaching to the choir with me. I have always left-foot-braked, sometimes even (when appropriate) in a manual transmission car.
Especially in traffic where a quick stop might be required, having the left foot hovering over the brake pedal could shave a few metres off your stopping distance, turning a hit into a miss. It also largely eliminates the potential problem of your right foot getting hung up in the pedals in an emergency stop. How many times have you caught the edge of the sole of your shoe on the edge of the brake pedal as you were trying to move your right foot from the accelerator to the brake?
This is particularly an issue when people stupidly wear sandals or, worse, flip-flops when driving.
Now, my old and good friend Pierre Savoy, one of the best driver trainers I know, argues that your left foot should remain firmly planted on the floor to the left of the brake (hopefully on the “dead pedal” installed by car manufacturers savvy enough to understand what good driving is all about).
This allows you to brace yourself in case you need to do some fancy steering to avoid a crash.
Fair enough; it is at least arguable. So I do. Argue it, I mean.
I figure if you’re in a dicey situation and can get on the brake pedal a split second sooner, you might not have to do that fancy steering.
Also, how often do you encounter emergency braking situations? Once or twice a year? (If more often than that, you have other driving issues that need your attention.) By contrast, pedal confusion happens thousands of times a day across North America, and can cause fatalities at speeds as low as 10 kilometres per hour. You should prioritize the most-likely scenario.
As with any unfamiliar advanced driving technique, before using it in the real world, you should try leftfoot braking out on a deserted parking lot to see if it works for you.
The math, the statistics and the pure logic behind it says it should work — for everybody. Jim Kenzie is chief auto reviewer for Toronto Star Wheels. To reach him, email wheels@thestar.ca and put his name in the subject line.