Parking is easy these days

Great opportunity to go for a pointless hoon on some empty, twisty roads though.

Used to go and drive randomly just for fun when I was young, even in the old FIAT Regata 1.3 it was something I passionately enjoyed. Could maybe relive those jaunts (take water and snacks, no getting out of the car for a Maccy D's, obviously) just once for the hell of it. The Civic in S mode and flappy paddles is actually a super little car on the twisties.

Gitorfahtofit. 'Tis just a figure of speech. Of course my paddles are as weighty and satisfyingly clicky as anyone's.

Did paddles ever flap?

Anyway despite Netanya being much quieter, parking is still an issue in town as people have simply stayed at home and they live, like a lot of Mediterranean towns, in the centre.

Are they paddles in cars these days ?
I though paddles worked in both directions allowing either hand to shift up or down the gears independently.
The 'paddles' in my wife's car are buttons, left hand for down a gear right hand for up a gear.

Mine too. Both are pulls, not pushes.

I come from a railway family, and have always been interested in them. My first long employment was with them. 

Approaching sixth form, I was heading towards a Mechanical Engineering degree course, and headed off on a week's railway organised course aimed at corralling students.

Better than a week's school, and visits to all kinds of railway establishments around the UK, one of which was Tinsley Marshalling Yard.

Tinsley was a "hump" yard, where a shunter would push an incoming train's wagons, cut into portions relevant for a given destination outgoing train, slowly over a hump, and let them run by gravity to the appropriate siding, where they would be coupled up into the outgoing train. Different cuts went to different sidings, and Tinsley was highly mechanised so the whole process was reasonably fast, with points switched quite quickly between wagons.

It's customary in marshalling yards to have the receiving sidings equipped with "retarders" that squeeze the wheels when the wagons are going too fast, and gently bring them to the back of the forming outgoing train, where they can be coupled up. Unfortunately, this dumb retardation sometimes results in over-braking (train-length, wagon weight, etc varying) with gaps left between cuts, and more work required.

Tinsley (and I think one other UK yard) was equipped with special "Dowty" retarders, which were interlinked hydraulically fed "mushroom heads" just on the inside of the rail, over which the wagon wheel flanges ran. The flanges pushed down on the mushroom head, and the inlet and outlet valving on the hydraulics either retarded the wheel as they were pushed down, or accelerated the wheel as they returned up behind it, depending on the speed set for the particular run of hydraulic units.

The staff at the yard reckoned that, once the wagon was within the system, they could virtually move the stuff through the whole yard without the assistance of an engine.

However, at commissioning they had been told not to exceed a maximum length of "cut" when they were marshalling. If a large section of an incoming train was going to the same destination, this could be inefficient (more coupling and uncoupling) and there wasn't such a restriction at traditional retarder yards.

So, in the interests of "efficiency", they pushed the envelope of length a bit, and then a bit more, with no problems. Then, they made a quite oversized cut with several very long wheelbase wagons in. Off it went, hit the "Dowty" units at the start of the receiving siding, which decided they were going a bit slow, and proceeded to give them a push on the up-stroke, BUT, before the last wagon in the cut had reached the end of this set of units, the front one hit the next stretch - yep, these decided the wagons were going too fast and retarded them on the down-stroke. With little give in couplings due the the long-wheelbase wagons, the whole lot went up in the air.

They went back to the prescribed length after that 

I'm not sure if something similar would happen with the use of two flappy paddles together.  

As you were.