Manual Trannies and Reverse for Dummies

Gear shift lever. Note position of "R"

We don't know about anyone else, but if you were to ask the staff of the Antisocial Network which website is responsible for proliferating more bullshit on the internet than any other, a year ago we'd have said "eHow." That, however, may no longer be true because of something called "niche sites." Yep, the people at Demand Media Studios (DMS, as in "You can't spell 'dumbass' without 'DMS'!") have begun spinning off niche sites (e.g., Techwalla) and in some cases selling content outright. Today's DotD candidate was one of a bunch shipped off to subsidiary Leaf.tv, but it's still the same bull with the same structure and other inane rules. Ladies and Gentlemen, we give you Hunkar Ozyasar and "How to Drive a Stick Shift on Reverse." Do note that the bizarre preposition "on" was in the original question, and DMS rules generally prohibit changing wording of questions, stupid or not.

Ozyasar, who may well be a moderately authoritative author when it comes to business topics, must've been desperate for cash the day he penned this one. Even if he can't drive a manual transmission himself (many drivers can't), Ozyasar managed to find a website with instructions: look over your right shoulder (left in a right-hand drive car), etc. Of course, being stuck with the DMS command to "begin each step with an action verb" forced Hunkar to write stupid stuff like

"Master the launch in first gear..."

...which, we suppose, means, "If you can't drive a stick shift forward, you probably can't drive it in reverse, either!" Whatever the case, Ozyasar then exhorts his readers to "Depress the clutch pedal with your left foot. With the clutch fully depressed, place the gear lever into reverse.... Take your left foot off the clutch slowly... Take your left foot off the clutch slowly..." ...all of which is pretty much correct (good references, we suppose). We just have one problem, and it's a problem we suspect results from Hunkar's unfamiliarity with manual transmission: How the hell do you "place the gear lever into reverse"? Never mind the weird preposition, just where is reverse gear?

Well, folks, the position of reverse depends on a lot of things. It depends on where the shifter is: yes, there used to be cars with "three on the tree." It depends on the number of forward gears: three, four, five or six (and more in big trucks). It also depends on the car maker and the manufacturer of the transmission. There are two Toyota pickups at ANHQ, with the 5-speed transmission reverse is opposite 5th gear in the rear right position; with the 6-speed reverse is to the left of first gear in the forward left position.

Getting the tranny into reverse (almost) always requires that you perform an extra step such as pushing down on the shifter before entering reverse. That prevents someone from accidentally shifting into reverse instead of sixth gear at 70MPH. Since Ozyasar either didn't know this or didn't think the information was important (his references both did), he didn't mention it. And that's why we named him the Dumbass of the Day.

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