There has to be a specific reason why most cars all have similar shapes to their pedals.
In: 4757
The intent is to make the brake pedal easier to hit in a panic situation. Most people are imprecise when under stress, so the brake pedal is large and is more easier to operate.
The gas pedal should be a more conscientious decision, and so it is smaller to make it less of an accident to press the gas.
The brake pedal is slightly lower than the accelerator pedal which prevents a resting foot to depress the accelerator pedal by accident. We need to raise our foot and place it on the accelerator pedal if our foot is coming from brake pedal. Where as it’s easier to move foot the other way around.
It also harkens back to the times of [Heel & Toe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heel-and-toe_shifting) shifting, where the right foot operates two pedals at the same time. Accelerator pedal is elongated, so it can be hit with the heel, while toes (or rather the ball of the foot) is on the brake pedal.
It is still used in competitive driving, and by some car nuts on the road today (me included), but used to be necessary before the advent of transmission gear synchronisation (so like 70 year ago for most cars), if you wanted to brake and change gear at the same time. Still, it is more possible with some brands. More sporty the brand, more the pedal layout allows it.
With pictures (don’t believe the webpage, women can do it too!):
[https://www.artofmanliness.com/skills/manly-know-how/heel-toe-shift/](https://www.artofmanliness.com/skills/manly-know-how/heel-toe-shift/)
Brake pedals used to be very wide, both for ease of finding in a panic and also because power brakes ~~didn’t used to exist~~ weren’t common, some drivers needed both feet on the brake pedal to get the full stopping power. I’ve noticed brake pedals have been shrinking since power brakes became standard.
Edit to alter phrasing
In the olden days when cars were first being built, the accelerator pedal was often a long pedal connected to the floor by a hinge type arrangement and acted like a lever. It was long to give you a lot of control over the throttle in the carb.
The brake pedal was often a lever suspended from above and acted more like a plunger to operate the master cylinder for the brakes. (Possibly as a lever to pull a cable in really early machines)
Most likely they are still designed this way as a throw back to those earlier designs.
Part of the reason that hasn’t been mentioned here is that the brake pedal is (or at least used to be) wide enough to get both feet on it. Before reliable power brakes, the expression “stand on the brakes” was a lot closer to literally true than it is now. The gas pedal just moves a small lever and never needs both feet to operate. Add heel/toe shifting and you end up with a wide brake pedal and a tall gas pedal.
people are saying this is because of historical car pedals, others are saying its so you can easily hit the brakes in a panic-filled situation, others are saying that it just makes sense as a layout considering current mechanical constraints. which is it? its probably some mix of the three, especially across varying car manufacturers, but there’s gotta be one main explanation right?
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Gas pedal is slim, so yo must purposely place your foot on it. Brake pedal is wide and big so you can stomp on it in a panic when you need to stop. You can reach it with either foot, though if you drive stick, you’ll need your left foot for the clutch.
I drive stick for many years and even though I don’t have any standard transmission cars any more, for the longest time when I had to brake hard, my left foot would instinctively stomp where the clutch might have been.
I haven’t seen mentioned but the gas pedals tend to have vertical grooves so that your foot can slip off and release it, whereas the break is horizontal so when your using it you can’t slip off easily (something I noticed a lot when driving barefooted).
There’s a lot of people repeating plausible reasons but it’s far more simple than any of that. Cars used to have mixed layouts of throttle, brake, clutch, gears, retard, mixture, etc. Largely they were placed as practically as they could be while having a simple linkage, but nearly every car was different.
The first car with the layout we’re familiar with now was the Cadillac Type 53, it was a low volume car and had little influence. However the Austin 7, one of the fist truly high volume cars copied the layout and kind of set the standard for everyone who followed because people liked it.
Tl;dr: It’s the fist layout that was well received in a mass production car and it was copied up to modern day.
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