If you are at speed on a fast expressway, about to run into a tight right-hander, you rapidly downshift and match revs while hitting the brakes and all that racer stuff.  You are downshifting and you are already in first gear, but you do not know that and keep downshifting. Imagine if you downshift to a nice and juicy neutral, at high speed, no engine braking... that would not be fun at all.

Therefore, Neutral is in between 1st and 2nd gears - placing 1st gear at the bottom of the gearing pattern prevents you being in Neutral when you do not want to be.

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