On manual cars, Why can’t a car start in a higher gear?

Question

As the title says, I know that different shifts mean different gear sizes bein used, but I don’t understand why it makes you unable to start moving the car. I have been able to start a couple of cars on the 2nd shift as an experiment and I understand that I could damage the car and I do it just once for testing purposes but I don’t understand why I cannot do so on other shifts. To clarify, I mean start as in start moving the car and not just turning the car on. Thanks

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Of course you can. It’s extremely useful on ice or snow. I was driving a car that even recommended way to start was the second gear as the first one was not synced and manual suggested to use the first gear only under extreme load or starting uphill.