Clutch and brake...clutch and brake...

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:36 am

I am teaching child #4, the youngest and only boy, to drive.

Up until this point my default method has been to cover the basics in an automatic transmission, then introduce the wondrous learning curve of stick-shifting later.

But with this kid--for a variety of reasons, but mostly because he tends to be differently-abled in the common sense department--I'm taking it as a slow, probably year-long or more, odyssey from introduction to license.

So, I figured why not start out in the manual transmission Soobie from the get go?
Well, I'm sticking with the approach, but now I have clearer notion of how the various psychomotor skills of driving intersect.

When your first driving experiences are in an automatic transmission vehicle, you can put more immediate effort into acquiring a basic feel for how the car moves...what is a good turn radius...when should you slow down relative to a turn.

When your first experience is stick, it seems that the clutch/accelerator play takes so much concentration--at least at first--that some of the gross motor skills (so to speak) may be ignored.
Hence we are more inclined to have close encounters with curbs and stop signs in the Community College parking lot (virtually empty on weekends,) because of our determination to go from stopped to first to second with no lurching or stalling.

I must say though...from that standpoint he's doing remarkably well, and much better than his sisters did on their first several tries with a clutch.
It's just that before we go out again, I'm going to draw a diagram of an ovoid driving track with lampposts around which you must steer at each end, and try to explain how it's advisable to stay in one's lane while approaching the turn, rather than steering toward the lamppost.

chrisoff · Post by **chrisoff** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:42 am

When I learnt to drive the instructor sat me behind the wheel for the first lesson, strapped a pretend steering wheel over the actual on and we just sat there practicing for half an hour how to steer properly and how to change gear. Then we had a very slow, very short drive out a country road and back.

I think if the ultimate goal is to drive a manual transmission car then starting on an automatic can only lead to bad habits. Start them on a manual from the get go and then the whole clutch thing will be second nature in no time.

Joseph E. Smith · Post by **Joseph E. Smith** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:44 am

The best of luck to you and your boy, and maybe you'll be able to find ibuprofin on sale in large quantities to aid in relieving your sore and tortured neck and shoulders.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:47 am

chrisoff wrote: I think if the ultimate goal is to drive a manual transmission car then starting on an automatic can only lead to bad habits. Start them on a manual from the get go and then the whole clutch thing will be second nature in no time.

Well, that was my thinking.
But I did successfully teach the 3 girls post-automatic. Thing is, I pretty much made them learn. The first one was cool with it, the second 2 fussed.
"WHY do I have to drive THIS car? None of my friends have to do this!!"

But I persisted. And they learned. Mostly because that was the car available to them to drive, and that's generally incentive enough.

Now they all prefer manual transmission and are glad they drive one.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:49 am

Joseph E. Smith wrote:The best of luck to you and your boy, and maybe you'll be able to find ibuprofin on sale in large quantities to aid in relieving your sore and tortured neck and shoulders.

That was the case with the girls (and with me when I learned.) But, amazingly, the kid is barely lurching at all, and has stalled about once in 2 lessons.

chrisoff · Post by **chrisoff** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:50 am

emmline wrote: Now they all prefer manual transmission and are glad they drive one.

So they should be! I've only driven one automatic and it was a horrible experience. Just felt wrong.

Good luck with it.

chas · Post by **chas** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:57 am

I learned on an automatic. Then I'd sneak out in the manual Fiat after school before my parents got home. As far as my father was concerned, I made remarkable progress learning the stick.

Now 30 years later I'm in my first automatic car. I love it in the DC traffic, but I hate everything else about an automatic.

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:00 am

I've driven a manual all my life, except for hiring an automatic when I was in Kentucky.
So when I used the "clutch" foot, what I hit was the brake. I'll stick to manual if I can.
My Mother took an immediate right turn when told to "turn right at the end here" on a family driving lesson. It took her through a chain-link fence and into a stream.
After that we used driving instructors. It was more expensive, but cheaper in terms of keeping the family on speaking terms.

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:24 am

<A TARGET="NEW" HREF="http://youtube.com/watch?v=8gFD5W_6GrU">There can be only one driving instructor.</A>

djm

hyldemoer · Post by **hyldemoer** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:40 am

My parents hired someone to teach me how to drive. I was 18 at the time and didn't have much enthusiasm to learn how to drive. It was on an automatic because that's what my folks were driving.

A few years later I got a job and had to learn how to drive my husband's car, a manual, in 3 hours before my shift at work started that night.

It was a red 69 Volkswagen Micro bus. I could reach the gas pedal by stretching one leg out but in order for me to clutch and brake I had to jump up and stand, sometimes jump up and down on the pedals to get them depressed.
(I'm rather short and yeah, no safety belt laws yet.)

Three nights into the job we all decided to go out to "lunch" (2 AM) together. Since I had the hippy bus it was decided I'd drive.

I got them all to the bar, but they all walked back to work afterwards
by their own choice.

Jumper · Post by **Jumper** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:43 am

We only own manual-shift vehicles.

I'm also in the process of teaching both daughters (an 18-year-old with a year of experience, and a 16-year-old with none) how to manage the clutch and stick. Whole lotta lurching goin' on.

One of them is thrilled (she has her sights set on somehow wresting the '67 beetle away from Mom), and the other one says I'm torturing her, and she will never, ever, ever own anything but an automatic.

Sibs can be so different.

MusicalADD · Post by **MusicalADD** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:29 am

I think if I had tried to learn a stick shift when I first learned to drive, it would have been too much to learn all at once. I recall that when I was first driving on the road, with my permit, I found it stressful having to simultaneously roll down the window while driving. A clutch would have been too much.

My son is not yet 10. At the rate things are going, I wonder if he will ever drive a gas vehicle, or if his first vehicle will be electric? He might never experience the clutch. Heh... except in videogames, I suspect.

dwest · Post by **dwest** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:35 am

chrisoff wrote:I think if the ultimate goal is to drive a manual transmission car then starting on an automatic can only lead to bad habits. Start them on a manual from the get go and then the whole clutch thing will be second nature in no time.

I agree. I put my mother through the windshield of our '60 VW microbus, no seat belts. But after that I learned quickly and I taught all my siblings, none of whom did to me what I did to our mother. My youngest sister, a Luddite, didn't learn how to drive until after college and getting a job that required her to drive to work. She failed the drivers' test three times so in desperation I borrowed an automatic from a friend and she passed with flying colors. Now, however, she is the only one in the family that still uses a stick and tries, but always fails, to buy cars without radios

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 11:37 am

I taught both kids on a stick but after they'd learned automatic. I don't know if it would have been better the other way or not.

I had already driven motorcycles by the time I was of age so going to a manual transmission on a car was a simple switch.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 12:56 pm

chas wrote: Now 30 years later I'm in my first automatic car. I love it in the DC traffic, but I hate everything else about an automatic.

I agree, and have one for the same reason you do. I generally prefer the stick, but there are times when my knees (which have put up with the weight of 4 pregnancies) just don't feel like doing the stop and go traffic thing.