Perfecting the art of the gear shift can be challenging but the following Jeepney driver in the Philippines appears to think that changing gears with his hands isn’t a little inconvenient. He prefers to do it with his right foot.
The guys over at Jalopnik stumbled across this video of a local man called Giancarlo Dones who lives in the Indang region of the Philippines and he has perfected the art of no-hand shifting.
A video of Dones shared on Facebook shows the Flipino using his right foot to change gears as opposed to reaching down and doing it with his right hand. Even thinking about changing gears with your foot is tiresome and we can’t actually imagine doing this in real life. It cannot be easy but Dones seems to have mastered it and can probably perform smoother shifts with his foot that many people can with their hand.
It remains unclear why Dones does what he does but his gear lever does appear to be very short and perhaps shifts with his foot as it is simply more convenient. Who knows. Frankly, it looks like an unnecessary hassle to us, but we have to commend the Jeepney driver’s creativity in coming up with this intriguing way of driving.
Evidently, this style of changing gears would only ever work in a vehicle with an upright seating position where the lever is closer to your foot than it is to our hand. Consequently, shifting like this in most cars would be virtually impossible.
https://www.facebook.com/gigs.dones/videos/10213792660558631/