Having the brake and accelerator as seperate pedals seems like a needless waste of space, so they should be incorporated into one uber pedal. The uber pedal will look just like the accelerator does now, but slightly longer. The pivot remains in the same place and you accelerate as normal, but when you brake, rather than switch pedals, you tilt your foot back and the lengthened pedal tilts backwards into a depression in the floor. This could reduce reaction times in drunken driving accidents, as rather than moving their feet, they simply tilt their foot back, thus reducing time taken to apply the brake.-- fridge duck, Mar 03 2005 More or less baked http://www.newscien...otoring-tech/dn1770Proven to be a good idea [squigbobble, Aug 28 2005] Drunk drivers don't have poor reaction time because it takes them a long time to find the right pedal after recognising a hazard; they have poor reaction time because it takes them a long time to recognise something as a hazard.-- JKew, Mar 03 2005 Would probably only work for an automatic transmission.-- 5th Earth, Mar 03 2005 My dad half-baked this once or twice. The first was on a garden tractor with a hydraulic transmission. There was a hand throttle for the engine/pump and only a single pedal. Toe was forward, heel was backward, middle was slow and stop. I thought it was great. He also made a car with no pedals at all. The steering wheel pivoted back and forth on a hinged arm so that he pulled for acceleration and pushed for brakes. I loved it, and thought it very logical (although I got confused once while trying to back up). The folks who have it now went ahead and rigged a foot pedal and a cable to the arm, apparently so they'd have something to stomp on when they wanted brakes. I like your idea, but think many folks will prefer what they are used to--especially drunks. So, some advantages, but the world will never accept it--a perfect half-baked idea.-- baconbrain, Mar 03 2005 Your Dad sounds like a man after my own heart, [baconbrain].
Race drivers often use a single foot "heel and toe" method across both the throttle and brake pedals with the advantage that braking and acceleration can be combined depending on circumstances. It takes a lot of practice, especially in cars with very tight, and often offset, pedal wells (like certain Italian sports cars).
Many aircraft have either heel or toe brakes combined with the rudder pedals. The brakes actuate on pivoting the pedal while the rudders actuate upon pushing them along a mostly linear path.-- bristolz, Mar 03 2005 I was all ready to bun this, thinking it was playground equipment. I envisioned a seesaw equipped with hydraulics, going faster and faster, the children starting to rise up on their seats, arms flailing, mothers crying, "Seatbelts! Seatbelts!"-- ldischler, Mar 03 2005 I imagined a huge annular tunnel filled with electromagnets, with LPECs (Large Playground Equipment Colliders) in vast instrumented caverns.-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Mar 03 2005 I saw teh same sort of suggestion a few years ago in New Scientist.
It has a pivot for the accelerator (gas), so that you had fine control of throttle position without extending your leg at all, and the brake was activated through direct pressure to the whole of the pedal ie. extending your leg.-- scubadooper, Mar 03 2005 I did a search after getting an idea from this. It seems about a quarter of all lawn and garden tractors have hydrostatic transmissions. On some of those "A single pedal controls traveling speed and direction." As a kid, I had the vague idea that my dad had invented that, as I said above. This idea is partly baked, then, at least for lawn use.-- baconbrain, Mar 05 2005 This doesn't seem reasonable to me. Fine for slow moving implements, but in a panic situation, it would just be too easy to do exactly the wrong thing.
I've driven garden tractors with this sort of control, but as I recall, it was a forward/reverse thing, not a forward/brake thing.
Maybe everything in the footwell except for the small accelerator should be brake pedal.-- half, Mar 05 2005 I'll put my clutch pedal on the dashboard then, should I?-- angel, Mar 05 2005 If you like.
Yeah, I have manual transmission cars, too. I was talking about automatics and the extreme case of making it easier to hit the brake pedal in a panic situation. I also presume that even drivers of automatics would like to be able to extend their left leg and need a place for their left foot to go. The dashboard for that too I say.-- half, Mar 05 2005 Some hand controls for disabled drivers work by pulling back to accelerate and pushing away to brake.-- oneoffdave, Mar 05 2005 Baked in testing, albeit in a slightly different format. (see link) As predicted by [fridge duck], it reduces drivers' reaction times, though I see no reason let drunks out on the road anyway.-- squigbobble, Aug 28 2005 random, halfbakery