[Christ]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

The laws against coasting originated in the 1930S when Plymouth came out with freewheeling, which disengaged the transmission from the rest of the drive train with a one way clutch.

You had to manually select the freewheeling mode when the vehicle was stopped.

The problem was in mountainous terrain, if you forgot to disconnect the freewheeling, you would loose the brakes on the downhill and kill yourself.

Brakes at the time were pitiful compared to modern vehicles, and the danger was real and resulted in some fatalities.

The laws still exist about coasting in neutral. Not so sure about engine off, but you would normally be in neutral if the engine was off anyway.

In fact some modern hybrids do exactly what was made illegal so long ago. You can argue that its a design characteristic of the Prius, but the legal definition in Virginia is coasting in neutral, without exception.

I know some policemen and asked one of them if they thought you would be charged with coasting in neutral. I was doing some testing on the road and wanted to know if he thought I could get a ticket for coasting in neutral. He told me if I was going a lot slower than the other traffic I should use my flashers. He did not even know about the law.

regards
Mech

I'm sure many don't, but it's still a chargeable offense, and ignorance excuses no one from litigation.