"how to drive a stick" question

[Frodo]

While coasting downhill is something I don't do very often, in my mind it's not necessarily a cardinal sin per se. When you're in gear, you have a little better feel for what the car's gonna do: push the accelerator, it's going to speed up; let off the accelerator, you're going to get a little engine braking, slowing you a bit (or at least decreasing your gravity-driven acceleration, depending on what gear you are in and how steep the hill is).

I guess you could make the argument that you might "lose valuable seconds" getting back in gear if something unexpected occurs but, in my experience, that's almost never a factor when evading a problem. When such a 'surprise' happens, my first impulse is to either steer around it or utilize the brakes, often a combo of the two. Occasionally I'll accelerate to remedy such a condition, but that's pretty unusual. And when it does occur, it tends be in situations where you have those few seconds in which to get the car back in gear and then react. In my experience, it's rarely (if ever) a split-second emergency where instant ability to accelerate is required.

If I am coasting and then need to get the car back into gear, I'll do the rev-match thing when going from neutral to whatever gear I'm going into, and then again as I release the clutch so I don't get that 'chirp' at the wheels and overly jolt the drivetrain. That does take some practice.

The problem with coasting downhill, especially steep hills, is that you're in kind of a "freefall" mode, and you may well end up traveling faster than you want to be going for conditions. Unless, of course, you're riding the brakes, which is also not ideal. Like I said, I don't do it very often. But I will occasionally, normally in those situations where I see that I'm going to need to stop not too far down the road and that it's extremely unlikely I'll need to get it back into any gear other than first once I've come to a stop. An example is if I'm at a fairly slow speed and I'm coming to a red light on a gentle downhill slope. No big deal.