Drag & Drop Website BuilderCoasting is one of those words many learner drivers will have encountered, but often don't fully understand. So in this article we'll look at exactly what coasting is, and what the benefits are of avoiding it.
The definition I like to use for coasting is that it is when you are driving with the engine disconnected from the driving wheels unnecessarily. That explanation may not make a lot of sense as it is pretty terse, so let's break it down a little bit further.
What connects the engine to the driving wheels of the car? Or perhaps it is better to ask, how do we disconnect the engine from the driving wheels of the car? There are two ways of doing this; fully depressing the clutch, or putting the car into neutral. Doing either of these means that pressing the gas pedal speeds the engine up, but has no effect on the road speed of the car as there is no link between engine and road.
So what do we gain from having the engine connected to the driving wheels while we are slowing down? There are three advantages to having that connection from engine to wheels.
Firstly, while slowing down the engine is helping to bring your speed down. Lifting off the gas means that the engine is receiving no fuel and wants to slow right down, but the motion of the car is turning the engine much faster. There is mechanical resistance to this that effectively acts as a brake helping to slow you down, and this is sometimes referred to as engine braking. This increases your control over the car as you slow.
Secondly, you are receiving information about whether the car is happy in the selected gear. If you slow down with the clutch up, you will hear when you are close to stalling, telling you that the your gear is no longer suitable for your road speed. To understand why this can be important, imagine you are slowing down to allow an oncoming vehicle through a narrow space. As you start to slow you put the clutch down, and once the car passes you bring the clutch back up to pick up speed again. How do you know if the selected gear is correct? You could work it out by checking your speed, but it is easier to monitor the sound of the engine to understand what is needed, which requires leaving the clutch up as long as possible.
Thirdly, with the clutch up, you can more easily and smoothly switch from slowing to going if the road situation changes. Going back to the example above, if the oncoming car passes you before you need to change gear, you just get back onto the gas to move through the narrow space.
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