I know when one is driving, they normally put the sitck on the big D. What is the 3, 2, and 1 for?
I’ll go out on a limb here and guess you are talking about the gearstick on an automatic transmission vehicle (?). You might see D for Drive, O for Overdrive (if your vehicle is equipped with this), then 2 for second gear and 1 for first gear. The 1 and 2 are for times when you need to put your engine’s power into use for torque/power more than for speed, e.g. when driving in deep snow or on steep hills.
Does that help?
djm
Yes it does, thanks.
And here I thought this would be about raid configurations for multiple drive servers.
Hmm, lets see…you’ve moved from the flat lands up into the mountains, right??? 
When it’s snowy and slick as all get out and you are heading down a hill, 2 if it’s pretty slick and you just need to slow down a bit, 1 if it’s really really slick–this is so you don’t have to step on the breaks 
and go sliding on over the edge
and ya have rear wheel drive… 
Remember, when you really need passing power, slam it into Race!
It doesn’t even have to be slick. When driving
downhill on the Blue Ridge Pkwy, if you notice
you’re riding your brakes a lot, you can
“downshift” (by putting the shifter on one of
those numbers). This keeps it in the gear
specified by that number instead of letting the
automatic transmission change gears as it
usually would. This can keep you from speeding
up as much due to gravity (I think this is similar
to engine braking). Just remember to put it back
in D for regular driving.
I use to do that on a really long steep downgradeon my old mail route, I’m talkin’ really steep, with a switchback curve half way down, I would put it into “1”, . Did it everyday…until it ocurred to me that while I was saving brake wear, I was increasing transmission wear on a vehicle that has to put up with more than normal gear changes. I quit it and went back to the brakes.
If you rent a car in Maui, they make you
sign a notice that you should use lower
gear if you drive down Mt Haleakala (the
steepest grade in the US). I guess they
got tired of replacing the brakes every
year (or scraping up tourists whose brakes
finally gave up).
Ooh, now someone needs to teach him how to hold a car on a hill using the gas and the clutch (no brakes)!
Thanks for the advice on the Drive gauges.
I bet there is a large group of people that never use anything but Drive and even if you explained what 3, 2, & 1 were for, probably wouldn’t understand what you were talking about, and probably aren’t the driver in their family who drives in those conditions, and if they do drive in those conditions, they’re not going to use them to their advantage anyway, so using 3, 2, & 1 wouldn’t matter.
What fun!!! 
What makes it even more funner is the car or truck that pulls up just, almost, touching your rear bumper- no roll back room a-tall.
Here’s another time you might choose to use “2” instead of “D” in slick conditions: if you are starting from a stop at an ice-covered intersection, putting it in “2” gives you LESS power than the “1” that the automatic transmission would choose, which makes it less likely for your wheels to spin.
(I don’t really know much about cars, but I know a lot about living and driving in a place where there’s ice on the roads at intersections a lot of the time. 
)
you’ve never driven a stick, have you…
Or ridden with a teen guy who wishes he had a stick…
Or driven my car, which has “shiftronic” transmission, where you can use it as a automatic, or as a “shift on your own but with no clutch”.
I have 5 speeds on my automatic (Hyundai). First is so low that it’s pretty much unusable.
I drove an automatic once, never again.
A friend tried to show me once how to drive stick, back when I was underage. Never had an opportunity since. Stick is so rare here, and a special order. I have never had a reason to bother.
djm
I love sticks but the fact is you really can’t use your binocs and drive at the same time with a stick. One of my brother-in-laws lets me drive his Corvette when we’re home if the road temperature is warm enough. Hard to beat going from 0-120mph in 8 seconds using a stick. Still if I had learned on an automatic I likely wouldn’t have put my mother through the wind shield when I screwed up the clutch.
Sorry, but thinking of this reminded me of a scene from Pineapple Express. This is a really poor movie (like any Seth Rogen movie is), but the scene where he tries to kick out the windshield struck me as hilarious for some reason.
djm