Thus far on my visits to my son in USA I always used to be a passenger in his or my daughter-in-law's car, taking in the sights and having a chit-chat with my elder grandson. This time it was different. My son had a car to spare. He had read the manual from Government of California that said that a visitor could drive there if he had a valid license from his own country. So he insisted that I should be a little adventurous and venture out on the roads and into the shops with his mom.
In India I had upgraded myself from a 4-gear drive to 5-gear drive. However here the first step was to familiarize myself with a gearless car, automatic transmission as it is called. Of course a gear shift lever is very much there, what is truly missing is the clutch pedal! The gear lever moves along one dimension only in an arc like manner, with Parking gear at the top. Points that came across as important are like this. You can start the engine only if the car is in the parking gear: You also have to hold the brake pedal down while starting the car. Again, after turning off the ignition, you can remove the key only after putting the car in the parking gear. The next three positions for the lever are for Reverse, Neutral, and Drive. There are two more positions for manually enhancing power levels though I did not find any occasion for using them. Thus once you have started the car and positioned it for driving ahead, you can just forget the gear lever till it is time to park and stop. The best thing is that after you have put the car in Drive and taken your feet off the brake pedal the car starts rolling forward even if you don't push the accelerator. Thus there is little chance of the car slipping backwards even if you are headed up a slope. Another good feature is that in both the legs when you make a complete stop by taking your foot off the accelerator and pressing the brake and then when building up speed again by operating the accelerator the engine never dies down, not even once. You will agree that this does happen once in a while in the manual transmission vehicles.
With the clutch pedal missing, your left foot is rendered idle. If you are wondering why, just remember that there will be no occasion for you to operate the brake and accelerator pedals simultaneously!! So the right foot operates both, one at a time. With the clutch gone and no need to manipulate gears while driving, driving becomes ridiculously easy. The only real difficult part is restraining yourself from using the horn. While in India it is considered your duty to honk liberally and announce your presence to the not-so-sparsely populated world around you, for some strange reason it is considered very rude to do so in USA.
However the left-right reversal between India and USA takes lots of conscious self-training. When you approach the car with the intention to drive it you have to remind yourself that the driver seat is on the "other side." Once inside you have to be careful to use the right lever as the turn indicator and not the one that operates wipers. Then when you are on the road it is fine as long as you are driving straight on the right (in both the senses) side of the road. When it is time to take a turn, remind yourself aloud to move into the right side of the road. People tell me that you do get into the wrong side at least once while learning. I feel very bad to have to endorse that statement. Fortunately it happened in a lane that was almost empty and I could retrieve the situation without any damage.
Having learnt to drive the car, the next step was to navigate the streets. For a driver trained in India and having driven only in India, this was quite an experience. I propose to share this experience with you in the next post.
In India I had upgraded myself from a 4-gear drive to 5-gear drive. However here the first step was to familiarize myself with a gearless car, automatic transmission as it is called. Of course a gear shift lever is very much there, what is truly missing is the clutch pedal! The gear lever moves along one dimension only in an arc like manner, with Parking gear at the top. Points that came across as important are like this. You can start the engine only if the car is in the parking gear: You also have to hold the brake pedal down while starting the car. Again, after turning off the ignition, you can remove the key only after putting the car in the parking gear. The next three positions for the lever are for Reverse, Neutral, and Drive. There are two more positions for manually enhancing power levels though I did not find any occasion for using them. Thus once you have started the car and positioned it for driving ahead, you can just forget the gear lever till it is time to park and stop. The best thing is that after you have put the car in Drive and taken your feet off the brake pedal the car starts rolling forward even if you don't push the accelerator. Thus there is little chance of the car slipping backwards even if you are headed up a slope. Another good feature is that in both the legs when you make a complete stop by taking your foot off the accelerator and pressing the brake and then when building up speed again by operating the accelerator the engine never dies down, not even once. You will agree that this does happen once in a while in the manual transmission vehicles.
With the clutch pedal missing, your left foot is rendered idle. If you are wondering why, just remember that there will be no occasion for you to operate the brake and accelerator pedals simultaneously!! So the right foot operates both, one at a time. With the clutch gone and no need to manipulate gears while driving, driving becomes ridiculously easy. The only real difficult part is restraining yourself from using the horn. While in India it is considered your duty to honk liberally and announce your presence to the not-so-sparsely populated world around you, for some strange reason it is considered very rude to do so in USA.
However the left-right reversal between India and USA takes lots of conscious self-training. When you approach the car with the intention to drive it you have to remind yourself that the driver seat is on the "other side." Once inside you have to be careful to use the right lever as the turn indicator and not the one that operates wipers. Then when you are on the road it is fine as long as you are driving straight on the right (in both the senses) side of the road. When it is time to take a turn, remind yourself aloud to move into the right side of the road. People tell me that you do get into the wrong side at least once while learning. I feel very bad to have to endorse that statement. Fortunately it happened in a lane that was almost empty and I could retrieve the situation without any damage.
Having learnt to drive the car, the next step was to navigate the streets. For a driver trained in India and having driven only in India, this was quite an experience. I propose to share this experience with you in the next post.
But before I wind up I must add that there are a few ancillary learning points too. For one, petrol is not petrol but gas! And when you go to a gas station you must know how to operate the gas pump as also the air pump if you need to inflate your tyres. There is no help around. And in case you are wondering how to pay, the obvious answer is by using a credit card.
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