Thanks guys! Yes, I can improve my driving but still want to check if I can comfortably do that Anyway, I wonder how people remember gears while driving? I'm a novice driver - 30 days old and hopefully will get better with time. I'm looking at small segment cars - i10, beat, santro, wagon R, swift as it's gonna be my FIRST CAR
csa2, in my opinion, till you build some confidence on the road (which, believe me, will come in no time at all), I feel you will be better off keeping your eyes on the road and not look inside trying to look for the readout in the Dash! Even today when I drive, I don't like taking my eyes off the road, especially within the city, and have to make a special effort to notice my RPM on the tacho when I want that. But the flip side is that I couldn't even convince my wife on this theory. Much to my dislike, she used to look at the speedo and shift!! Actually, in most conditions, you dont need to know which gear you are in...what is required is which gear
you need to be in - either downshift or upshift!!
When I learned to drive (way back in 1986 on an Amby) I used to rely on engine noise for upshifts. Downshifts were more difficult. So, my mantra was when decelerating for speed breakers and turns, I used to shift down to second in advance. Many a times that did not work out since the speed was a little more but mostly it did. It was difficult to make out which gear you were in because the gear shift lever was behind the steering and not the floor. The only saving grace was that Delhi was much less congested back then!
i10 is a fine first car, no two thoughts about that! But to buy an i10
ONLY because it has this feature, which you may not even look at after perhaps another month, may not the wisest thing to do.
Think about it! Sorry to be the Devil's Advocate
!!