Is reverse gear the hardest gear to find?
At I Love Meet and Greet even with our years of driving experience behind us, we can see how that reverse gear must be the most difficult gear to find. Curious to find out if it’s just us that would vote reverse as the hardest gear to find, we asked some of our customers their views on the matter.
It turns out that we’re not alone. Nearly 90% of our customers agreed with us that finding the reverse gear can sometimes be a bit of a pain. Some put it down to the tricky manoeuvre of having to push the gear stick down before pushing it into gear, whereas others were just convinced that it’s the ‘cursed’ gear and no matter how good the driver, it’s always going to cause difficulties every now and again.
Although most people agreed with us, there were a couple that voted first and fifth gear as the trickiest to find. However, all of our customers were in agreement that no matter which gear proves to be the hardest to find, the panic of not being able to find it makes the situation and the challenge of getting the gear stick in the right place even worse. Because we care so much about our customers and their road safety, we’ve done our research to find out the best ways to handle those situations when gear sticks can misbehave…
Firstly our biggest tip for when this problem occurs is to make sure the driver always stays calm. Most people tend to panic when they can’t find the right gear and therefore start to do dramatic and fast hand movements which results in making the situation even worse. Always remember that you will eventually find the gear so there’s no need to panic.
Secondly, if the driver is going at a fast pace and can’t find the right gear, they should always just put the car into the next closest gear to prevent stalling. By doing this, the driver then has the time to re attempt the move and in most cases they will nearly always get it right on a second attempt if they stick to our first bit of advice and stay calm.
Finally, if it is reverse gear that is causing problems, the driver should always make sure that they put their car into neutral with the handbrake on whilst they search for it. By doing this, the car won’t be in danger of rolling whilst the driver searches for the right gear and if there is any cars around they will be aware that the car is fully stopped and therefore wait.
We hope our gear tips will be of great use and remember if you use I Love Meet and Greet, reverse parking at the airport will be one last thing you have to worry about as we’ll take over right outside the terminal.
By Sarah Anglim at 21 Jul 2014