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Bob Watt · June 21st 04, 10:48 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On 19/06/2004 10:36, in article ,
"Martin Rich" wrote:

I've occasionally wondered, in retrospect, and maybe somebody reading
this knows: did reverse work the same way on preselective gearboxes?
The thought of travelling forward, forgetting that you'd preselected
reverse, and accidentally touching the operating pedal, is fairly
frightening.

Thinking back to the days when I owned cars with preselectors - highly
unlikely; reverse was invariably at the opposite end of the quadrant to the
forward gears, beyond neutral, so preselection of reverse would be a major
movement of the lever, not something you'd be likely to do unwittingly. The
gate selector as on RMs might make it a bit less unlikely, but not much.

Presumably part of the idea was to ensure that, before power steering,
and also in days when hand signals were important, the driver could
arrange to have both hands free at tricky moments.

More a question of making gearchanging easier, I think. A lot of people
never really got the hang of crash boxes, and would crawl up hills in top
rather than try to change down.