[LorenPechtel]

I've never pulled that one but I've done a couple of very hard stops coming off the freeway. Long drive, tired, I hear the engine RPMs dropping and my foot comes down on the "clutch" as my hand goes for the gearshift. I learned on a car with a very stiff clutch, I catch the brake pedal and it's going to the floor. (My father had a bad habit of riding the clutch while going through the gears. A mechanic friend deliberately put in a stiffer spring to minimize the damage.)

Smoothly operating a manual has to be muscle memory and whenever you're dealing with muscle memory there's the issue of unintended capture. It doesn't take much to reprogram things like learning the actual working range of *this* clutch but skipping it entirely takes a lot more learning.