Is that forwards first or backwards first? (Re: unintuitive for-loop behavior)

[sohcahtoa82 at gmail.com]

On Monday, October 3, 2016 at 2:11:12 AM UTC-7, Gregory Ewing wrote:
> Rustom Mody wrote:
> > My new car goes in reverse when I put it in first gear but only on full-moon 
> > nights with the tank on reserve when the left light is blinking
> 
> OT aside: When I went to take my current car (a manual)
> for a test drive, I had to stop and ask the dealer how
> to put it into reverse.
> 
> Turns out the only difference between first and reverse
> on that model is whether you lift up a little ring on the
> shaft of the gear lever prior to engagement.
> 
> Who came up with *that* brilliant piece of user interface
> design I don't know. It seems specifically designed to
> encourage velocity sign errors when starting off...
> 
> -- 
> Greg

My car is similar, but the R is actually to the left of 1.  It looks like this:

R 1 3 5
+-+-+-+
  2 4 6

However, you can't get to R unless you lift the ring around the stick upwards.  once you go to the far left, the ring stays up until you slide it out of the far left notch.  My previous car was the traditional:

1 3 5
+-+-+
2 4 R

Surprisingly, despite driving that previous car for 13 years, the switch was incredibly easy.  I've never accidentally gone to sixth gear instead of reverse, or forgotten to shift into sixth on the highway.  Also, accidentally going into first when I want to reverse has never happened.  I was actually pretty surprised.  I thought I'd mess it up constantly for the first couple months.