> wrote in message
ps.com...
> Sometimes I see a car in front of me stopped at the light. When the
> light turns green, the car in front of me will move backwards a few
> inches before going forward. I've never seen an automatic car do
> that, so those cars must be manual. Why do they do that? They could
> collide with you if you stopped less than a few inches from them.
>

Bad drivers. In a manual tranny vehicle, there is NO connection between the
engine and drive wheels until the clutch is at least partially engaged. To
prevent a manual tranny vehicle from rolling backward, you need to do one of
two things:
1) Let out clutch pedal -fast- until clutch starts to engage, in order to
put forward pressure on the drive wheels before the car starts rolling
backward. Doing this, the car might still roll back an inch or so, but
that's not a problem.
2) (method used by inexperienced drivers). Use hand brake/parking brake to
hold car until you feel clutch start to engage

If a manual tranny vehicle rolls backward more than an inch or so, that is a
poorly trained or careless driver. (probably both)

By the way, automatic vehicles will roll backward also. But that's less
common. -Dave