Thanks will do.

It was to do with left foot braking in an automatic. I have no view either way but I was surprised that after years of promoting and defending left foot braking there was no reference to the sudden U turn.

This was my question:
Dear HJ.
In reply to a question about learning left foot braking you said that you would not recommend it and even questioned the value of it altogether, yet you have been making a point of championing it for many years.
Why the sudden U turn with no explanation as to your change of heart?

This was the answer:
Hi,
I do not recommend this technique for driving and fail to see what benefit it provides in everyday driving.
The recommendation to left foot brake was a personal view of the website founder Peter Lorimer (Honest John) who left the company two years ago.
Regards,
Dan

My reply would be along the lines below:
The website still gives the impression that HJ answers the questions and there is no mention of him not being involved. When you go to the ask a question page, HJ's picture comes up with his trademark hat and the blurb about how long he has been in the motor trade. www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/
My point was you made no reference in your original reply to the fact that the website, on whose behalf you are answering, has suddenly changed its long held and well known view on left foot braking. There are pages of questions where HJ defended this to people posting exactly the same view as you have in your replies to the original question and to me.

Edited by gasengineer on 05/02/2022 at 11:03

I suspect the OP is using an old link. It seems to work but it includes a different set of blurb that my usual access didn’t show. By the way I don’t think HJ’s enormous file of FAQs exists any longer?

However to add to the confusion some of the current Ask HJ entries have reverted to using his picture against the answers instead of the current journalist. No doubt the site techie will resolve it when it’s noticed.

As for left foot braking it’s been done to death on here and few, if any, of us would advocate it. HJ presumably still believes in it but his successors have taken the alternative mainstream view.

Edited by catsdad on 06/02/2022 at 09:06

Thanks for all the replies.
My point though is not about left foot braking per se, or anything else in particular. Its more how you can reply to the "answers" given. It seems then that there is no way to do so.

What particularly irked me about this response was that there was no reference to the U turn of the website's recommendation. The guy should have put something about disagreeing with HJ in his original reply.

Exactly - my point being that that was not in the original reply posted on the website; only in the (unpublished) reply to my question questioning the U turn...

Edited by gasengineer on 13/02/2022 at 10:41

From my memory of some of the heated debates from years ago, I think it was more that some insisted LFB was safer. That was the point where tutus began to get twisted.

If it works for you then why not. I tried it once and found it really hard not over-brake. With practice I might have got the hang of it but didn't really see any point.

But yes, been done to death ;-)

Quite right. What suits one person may not another. Plus trying to learn later in life is often more difficult. Worth at least trying to learn if you're young, at least to give that person the option of using it if the conditions and/or car warrant it.

I suppose this might make more of a difference as more and more cars are autos (especially hybrids) or dual clutch ones.

I kind of developed a technique years ago of being able to hill start using my right foot to operate both brake and accelerator and left foot operating clutch. It's because my Dad had a car with a hopeless handbrake that you could just about get working for the MOT but it soon faded (MKIV Ford Zodiac). Not generally recommended but for someone with wide size 13 feet it was easier to do!

Wouldn't work so well with most modern cars as if you start moving with footbrake slightly operating engine ECU's cut the power!