Perhaps the more modern solutions is the one that is in my new car, a six speed manual gearbox. We are seeing this on more and more new cars these days.
It gives wonderfully relaxed cruising, about 2000 RPM at 70mph in my Peugeot 407, but it takes a bit of getting used to.
For one thing you have almost no engine braking. The car is very slippery too, and is a big heavy car with a lot of momentum once up to speed. This means if I want to slow down I actually need to brake. Since I have an aversion to unnecessary braking, which wears out pads and wastes fuel, it is doing wonderful things for my anticipation. For example, lifting off half a mile before a roundabout. I will initially fall back from the car I am following, only to catch up again when they start to slow for the roundabout.
On the motorway I always try to anticipate what the vehicle I am following will do, so that I can avoid having to brake. This is much more difficult in sixth gear, since if the car I am following has a five speed box and lifts off, I will have to brake before too long or risk getting dangerously close. All this encourages me to leave an even larger gap ahead of me than I normally would.
-- Created on the Iyonix PC - the world's fastest RISC OS computer.
