It sounds like the driver was not the owner.
I drove one of these types once and I recall the pedals being kinda crowded and 'different'.
My brother did some restoring on ‘60s and ‘70s British sports cars (TR4s, TR6s, Austins, etc.) and he mentioned more than once that the pedal arrangements took some getting used to. But it doesn’t seem like the kind of mistake you’d make more than, oh, I don’t know, ONCE?
}:-)4