I'm sure I watched an article about the developement of a single pedal for driving so one movement accelerates and the opposite movement applies the brakes, all on the same pedal.
As someone who recently miss judged the distance between accelerator and brake, with near dire consequences, on a rarely used vehicle, why has this design not been developed and bought in as a standard design, it seems too obvious not to be a great idea
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If you're going to get radical then a better idea is the one which SAAB have demonstrated - a joy stick; push forward to go faster, pull back to brake. And steer with it.
How do you pull on a pedal?
But after 110 years, I reckon we're stuck with pedals, 2 minimum.
JH
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Goodness Gracious Me (complying with the no swearing rules)............ is this a deliberate wind up?..........
old folk have enough troubles with 2 pedals every now and again, can you imagine the carnage with one
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One pedal would be rediculous! and cause severe RSI in the foot.
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Quite common for small garden tractors to have hydrostatic drive, and these have a rocking pedal: forward for go, back for stop. Takes a bit of getting used to at first....
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RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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Really? My John Deere has 2. Forward & reverse.
JH
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My Westwood used it have a single pedal let it up engages the drive pressing it down disengaged drive and applied brake. & all by tensioning belts, nothing posh like hydrostatic drive!
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I had a Westwood before the JD. I became expert at getting the belt back on, replacing the blade and all sorts of other repairs. C**p design. No wonder they got taken over. Err, meanwhile, back at single pedals...
JH
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One pedal would be rediculous! and cause severe RSI in the foot.
Not if you follow HJ's advice to learn to brake and accelerate with both feet ;-}
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Old Fordson Model 'F' tractors from 1920-47 were fitted with just one pedal for simplicity.
The first part of the 'travel' of this single pedal operated the clutch. Pressing on further down operated the cable brakes.
The throttle was operated by hand.
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I remember a TV demonstration years ago of a Triumph Herald that had been modified with hydraulic drive. Each wheel was individually driven and the control consisted of one pedal, pivotting in the middle. Pressing the top progressively increased speed, pressing the bottom progressively reversed the hydraulic action and also applied the brakes. Combined with the 25' turning circle the car was incredibly manoeuvreable, being able to change from forward to backwards almost instantaneously. A three point turn took seconds. I imagine tyre wear could be pretty amazing too.
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I seem to remember commercials with exhaust brakes (retarders?) had brake pedals that rocked backwards to operate the device when full mechanical braking wasn't necessary.
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"Not if you follow HJ's advice to learn to brake and accelerate with both feet ;-}"
Mine cuts the power if you brake while pressing the throttle, it seems to be happening more and more on new cars, probably thanks to dumb Americans stomping on them.
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Mine cuts the power if you brake while pressing the throttle, it seems to be happening more and more on new cars, probably thanks to dumb Americans stomping on them.
Mine does this too - as I discovered when I left-foot-braked to dry the brakes out. Funny thing is, it will still let you heel and toe - i.e. if you go on the throttle when the brake is being pressed, you can have both, but vice versa will cut the throttle.
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Yes, I remember the Fordson tractor, it was the first thing I ever drove, in fields (I was not strong enough to be much good with a fork, but lanky enough to manage the tractor); as I remember "my" one, you had to stop to change gear.
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Yes, the design was quite clever so that a young person (13 yearsr + ) could handle one of these on the farm. As you pressed down on the clutch with your body weight, the brakes were automatically deployed. Learning to drive one of these tractors was simple and much easier than controlling a horse.
PS. not much 'health or safety' issues in those days.
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simple and much easier than controlling ahorse. PS. not much 'health or safety' issues in those days.
You can say that again. In fact you can't control a horse, you have to form a relationship with the damn animal, and it has incomprehensible ideas of its own. Absolutely terrifying. You may be holding the reins but you know, and so does the horse, that you are a mere passenger there on sufferance.
Give me an 1898 Benz or Stanley steamer any day. Or a tuned Chevy V8 with bog standard tyres, chassis and steering. Anything that does what it's told, more or less.
As for health and safety, horses are probably soon going to be illegal (no airbags). But at the moment my 10-year-old granddaughter has riding lessons in Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens run by very cool girls in their teens and twenties. They take these nippers on ponies across Bayswater Road in rush hour, and roam the nearby streets collecting poo in plastic bags with shovels.
Down with goddam health and safety!
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Hear, hear!
Bye the way I was ploughing with one of these one pedal Fordsons when I was only 12 years old. It ran on TVO (tractor vaporising oil/kerosene) fuel.
However the tractor wouldn't start from cold on this TVO fuel. It had to be started on petrol and when the engine warmed up, the fuel supply was switched over. This was because TVO was much cheaper than petrol (taxation again).
Nevertheless it didn't use fuel when it wasn't working unlike the horse.
Herewith photo of a Fordson; tinyurl.com/pzxzx
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We never bothered picking the poo off the road when I were a lad.
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I used to get 3d a bucket. Didn't like doing it though and soon learnt the art of negotiation, getting the price up to 6d.
JH
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