Resting your hand on the gear stick is a serious matter of debate. Some people have a habit of resting their hand on the gear stick. Especially the manual transmission vehicle drivers do this because they have to shift the gears frequently, so they find it convenient to rest their hand on the gear stick rather than to put them on the steering wheel. As a matter of fact, human beings are lazy to some extent, and this is the reason why people prefer to keep their left hand on the gear because they have to shift it and they do not want to move their hand every time they have to shift the gear. However, the drivers should keep both of their hands on the steering wheel because it is one of the important safety measures while driving because you may not find enough time to react when you have placed one hand on the gear shift knob.
Apart from the safety point of view, now lets us see this in a different scenario where your entire transmission system is suffering due to this habit of yours. You may find it very comforting to place your hand on the gear stick, but it is not comforting for your car’s transmission system. In simple terms, keeping your hand on the gear stick decreases the life of your vehicle’s transmission system.
Now talking about the mechanical mechanism of the manual gear transmission system. Follow the gear stick downwards into the transmission tunnel and you will find that on the other end is a control rod that has selector forks along its length, with each one being shared by two gears. This shift fork is designed to engage with a dog clutch. The fork pushes the dog clutch up against the gear which needs to be selected with the help of a synchromesh to allow for smooth meshing of the toothed components.
Moving onwards, a selector fork apply a force to the rotating collar of the dog clutch, with small contacts at each end of the fork used as contact areas between both. The selector fork, however, is only designed to contact the rotating dog clutch for a short time. If you continuously place your hand on the gear shift knob, this force can even break or at least damage the gearbox components.
The vehicle manufacturers use sturdy material to construct shift forks. These shift forks easily bear the normal forces you apply in changing gears but a large amount of force comes into play when you rest your hand on the gear shift knob and this force makes a great impact on the transmission system.
Now after learning the cons of putting the hand on the gear shift knob, it is advised that you should eliminate this habit as soon as possible because it is decreasing the life of your transmission system day by day. Use the gear shift knob only to shift the gears. You could simply keep your arm relaxed on the armrest, if your car does not have armrest, you can purchase it from PakWheels auto store. Let us know about your thoughts in the comments section below.
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