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Originally Posted by advaitlele Can someone help me here. I have read in multiple online blogs / forums about driving in neutral when approaching known stop / tollbooth etc. Why is it dangerous to be in neutral gear when you know the stop is -- lets say 300 mtrs away; and you can reduce the speed gradually? |
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Originally Posted by veerubhai Can anybody clarify why should we not use neutral gear while driving in highways or city?
According to me when we put to neutral, vehicle in free flow and no gear is obstructing/holding the vehicle. It can pull the car at decent speed till I want to either stop it by applying brake completely or increase the speed by shifting gears and accelerating. |
I find it quite amusing that such misconceptions are not thought out properly. It is possible you guys may know actual reasons but not able to reason with and understand it properly.
Firstly,
Neutral means freely drifting vehicle, whether running or not running
Geared means driven (and not drifting) by engine restricted by the
Brake-Force of the engine running in Gear
Mind well the underlined outlined wording above.
When in a situation requiring sudden control what will be more useful, a freely drifting vehicle or a vehicle in a mode which can give that additional brake-force?
1. When arriving at tolls, it is not at all correct to get into neutral unless you are coming to standstill. In this forum only, you may find references to accidents that have been caused due uncontrollable over-speeding at toll booths as well.
You rather be in the gear without acceleration from decently safe range and let the engine decelerate naturally to lower speeds assisted by the additional Braking, shift to lower gears as the speeds go down and come to standstill as you finally land the toll. What happens here is, economically, due to not wasting your engine's energy and letting engine use up the fuel already pumped in for burning while acceleration and hence saving additional fuel consumption due to unnecessary braking without letting engine's brake-force be used, the FE will be bettered. For this it means that you have to judge a decent distance wherein you have to stop accelerating, that you may have been doing on the highway uptil then.
BUT, more than that, for instance some moron tries to oversmart and gets in the way, you have both the Brake forces, Engine Brake-force and Brake Brake-force to assist you control your vehicle better to avoid any untoward situation and may help land you in a situation with least damage.
2. On slopes you may feel you are achieving greater FE by not letting engine do any work and save fuel that way, by not accelerating and flowing in neutral. However, that may be true to some extent (remember, engine is still running and so is consuming some fuel without any work), it doesn't assist you in controlling vehicle in worst situation by not having at hand that additional Brake-force that engine braking provides. This is more so when you are on a muddy/slushy/terrain sloppy terrain/road.
Consider a sudden cotrol required by the onslaught of vehicle(s) around a turn or even on straight line, what will assist you better on that slope, only additional and natural braking that you may get.
The answer lies in the phrase in the question of "vehicle in free flow and
no gear is obstructing/holding the vehicle".
It is that "
gear is obstructing/holding the vehicle" itself is the key in situations that require it utmost and those situations don't come knowingly.
Hence as a rule of thumb, follow to NOT USE NEUTRAL unless it is required while running.
Do you know that, in neutral and engine is not running, on a slope with decent traffic, there is a high chance you may land in a troubled situation in free-wheeling? Your brake may just not work out. This is also reason when you park your vehicle on a slope/incline, in addition to handbrake, you should leave reverse/first gear engaged so as to aid the brake and hold vehicle at its place.