I’m a Nobhead

Not ridden the Forza for more than three months, so the last decent weather day I took it out for a ride. All went well till I decided to pull in the “clutch” to change gear. Now as everyone knows and I’d absentmindedly forgotten is the Forza is automatic. This is not recommended and can (and did) cause unwanted and undesirable braking action. Nothing untoward happened thankfully but the old ticker sped up quite a bit.
I blame the VStrom as I’d taken that out for a long ride prior to riding the Forza.
Please go ahead and take the piss if you want, but at least let us know what stupid trick you’ve done, when your mind and attention were far away.

My wife has an automatic car, it took me quite a while to learn that I can’t down-shift coming into a roundabout or similar… not having a clutch or standard gear shifter… my foot feeling for a pedal that isn’t there etc. but you learn and give it a while, you’ll be jumping from one to the other without noticing…!!! :smirk:

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During one of my earliest forays in an automatic car I forgot for a moment and attempted to push the clutch to the floor to change down. The available pedal was actually the brake. We lost speed quite quickly…

Our Mazda bongo is standard right hand drive automatic but the sticks are reversed on the column, first few months we had it i was indicating with the wipers and indicating when it rained.

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Yep done the same thing years ago on a Rover 3500 SD1 which was the MDs car. Can’t remember why we were in it. But Nobhead was driving and slammed the anchors on by mistake. It’s so easily done.

After that unexpected change in velocity I started pulling my left foot back from the pedals, which seemed to work. I dread to think how much damage I’d do on an old British bike with the gears on the right.

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Or down for up gearshift, Lordy lordy.
I had an new automatic car some years ago. Pulled up outside the bank to get cash out then when I got back into the car it wouldnt start. Didnt see anything wrong, got out and lifted the bonnet, all looked fine. By now I’m panicking coz I’m gonna be late for work. Called the AA, told they would be half an hour so turned the radio on and waited. Just as the AA van pulled up I looked at the gear lever, it was in drive. Put it in neutral and bingo, it started. I just told the AA guy it had suddenly started up, couldnt admit it was my fault.

Once picked up a car at Denver airport and had a 200 mile drive to our hotel (big mistake, never booked one so far away since). We had been delayed and we were knackered by now. As soon as we got in the car my wife got in the back and was asleep in seconds. I drove the 200 miles and pulled off the interstate.
There was a long downhill stretch to the junction. I lifted my left leg and pushed down on the clutch. But of course it wasn’t a clutch, it was a foot operated handbrake ! We stopped on a sixpence. Or should I say a dime. It even woke my wife up.

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Another hire car story… got ours at the airport in Florida in the early 90’s having never driven one before. Thing has 28 miles on the clock so was brand new, but could I get it into reverse to get it out of it’s parking space, coujd I fook. In the end I had to ask 2 wimmin what to do and in a 'merican accent I was told I had to press on the footbrake before it’d go into reverse. Ooops… like others some unplanned emergency braking also occurred…

Florida again. Back in the nineties in Florida with a hire car. Went to the Disney park for the day. My son left a can of coke on the back seat. When we got back to the car late afternoon the inside of the car was covered in coke a cola. The can had cracked with the heat and sprayed the inside of the car. Lesson learnt, don’t leave a fizzy drinks can in the car when the temperature reaches the high nineties. Took me hours to clean it before handing it back lol