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

[Doug_Tipple]

I started out driving with a 1951 Nash with an 87 horsepower engine and a standard transmission. The gear shift lever was on the steering column. I got a 1965 VW beetle when I graduated from college and bought one of the first Honda Civics (1973) with the "larger bodies", driving several hundred thousand miles with a manual transmission.

However, for the last 20 years I have been a happy convert to an automatic transmission. I think that automatic transmissions make a lot of sense, especially in stop and go traffic. I think that cars with automatic transmissions are safer cars because you have two pedals to manage instead of three. You might get better mileage with a manual transmission car, but you really need to watch the tach and shift correctly. I see a lot of people diving a car with a manual transmission that shouldn't be doing so because they don't understand what they are doing. You can hear the engine connecting rods pounding away because the gear is too high for the slow speed. My mother would drive up to a stop in high gear every time. Another extreme is when they rev the engine too high in a low gear. These people would be much better off driving a car with an automatic transmission. And, for me, there is no way that you could entice me to go back to a manual transmission. All of that clutch work is too hard on my back, for one thing. I wonder how many people are still using the old rotary dial telephones? Not many, I bet, because the touch tone phones are so much easier and faster. Now I don't have to dial at all; I just tell the computer voice inside my cell phone to "call Rita".

[MTGuru]

Don't know if it's still the case ... But a few years back it seemed most rental cars in western Europe used to be manual transmission unless otherwise specified. I'll bet many a US tourist ended up flummoxed and having to scramble for a different car. On a few visits I ended up as the designated driver because I was the only one who could operate the available vehicle.

Once, a friend of mine was injured on a day outing and needed an emergency ride to hospital in his Sunbeam Alpine. If I hadn't been able to drive it, the story would have had a much less happy ending.

Apart from the joys of heel-and-toe power-drifting around corners just to freak out other annoying drivers , I can think of many reasons that knowing how to drive a manual shift is a good thing.

[chas]

Don't know if it's still the case ... But a few years back it seemed most rental cars in western Europe used to be manual transmission unless otherwise specified. I'll bet many a US tourist ended up flummoxed and having to scramble for a different car. On a few visits I ended up as the designated driver because I was the only one who could operate the available vehicle.

LOL! I was the designated driver in Ireland because I am ambidextrous. My wife couldn't in a million years drive a stick shifting with her left hand.

I had no problem sticking lefty, but twice pulling out in busy intersections, I pulled into the right lane, right into the oncoming traffic. Both times were from car parks, so I just pulled back in again.

[cowtime]

I learned to drive an automatic first, then straight shift. Like Doug's, this was on the steering column of my dad's truck.

I taught both my girls to drive a straight shift but not before they could drive an automatic. In fact daughter #2's first vehicle was a stick shift pick up because we needed a new farm truck. This was nerve-wracking because we have a LOT of hills to pull out from and lots idiots who insist on pulling up on the rear bumper of the vehicle stopped in front of them. There's rarely much room left for rolling back around here.

For many years we only bought straight shifts because that way we could afford air conditioning- the price of each was about the same.

There's no way I'd ever go back to driving a straight shift unless I just had to. I can do it, but I don't want to.

Em, you have my sympathy. You know, in thinking about teaching driving, my worst student was my dh. I taught him to drive when he was 50. Now that was an experience!

[Snuh]

Once, a friend of mine was injured on a day outing and needed an emergency ride to hospital in his Sunbeam Alpine. If I hadn't been able to drive it, the story would have had a much less happy ending.

This kind of situation is exactly why I want to learn manual when I get the chance. Some friends from university and I went out for mini-golf a few years back. One of my friends, who happened to be the driver of the manual jeep that got us there, suffered some back spasms bad enough that he couldn't drive. None of the rest of us new how to drive a stick. We had to call one of our moms in to drive the jeep back.

Even if you never plan on owning a manual transmission car I think it's a useful skill to have.

[tansy]

I was taught as a young teen by two older friends. One had a VW and the other a MGB, 4 or 5 on the floor. I only have an automatic because I had no choice, I always buy what ever has the lowest mileage and the smallest engine, and that doesn't include choices in colour or trannies.
I would take a manual first choice, I like the pop the clutch on the hill starting factor especially.
I want a prepaid rotary cell phone and a mimeograph machine also

[Martin Milner]

Don't know if it's still the case ... But a few years back it seemed most rental cars in western Europe used to be manual transmission unless otherwise specified.

Still very much the case, while in the US it's nearly impossible to hire a manual transmission car. Also it's almost impossible to get auto transmission on smaller cars in the UK or Ireland, so if you must have auto, you're going to be paying for a bigger car, and then extra for an auto.

e.g. From Budget's UK site -

Fiat Punto 1.2 Group A - £39.89 for one day (if booked in advance)
VW Passat Group D - £65.54 for one day (if booked in advance)
VW Passat Group E (auto) - £87.41 for one day (if booked in advance)

So that's nearly $44 extra a day just to have auto. Of course there are savings for booking longer periods, but it gives you an idea of how much we like to screw the poor Americans who can't handle a manual transmission.



Driving skill dvelopment should be broken down into car handling & traffic handling, and the former should be developed out in a field or other big open area with road cones as hazards, and new drivers should only graduate to actual road driving when they're fully competent to handle the vehicle. Emmline's got the right idea, but even parking areas are quite limiting.

Learning to handle a vehicle is actually fun, if there's no danger of damaging it, yourself or someone else while you do it.

[mutepointe]

I learned the mechanics of manual transmission and my footwork is good enough to pull out going up a hill and I understand the concept of upshifting. What I haven't bothered figuring out was downshifting. I've become the designated driver on a few occasions unexpectedly and as long as someone could prompt me to downshift, I was fine.

I really have no love of cars whatsoever and if I could have the choice, I'd wish for a chaffeur every time.

[emmline]

...but even parking areas are quite limiting.

Learning to handle a vehicle is actually fun, if there's no danger of damaging it, yourself or someone else while you do it.

The nice thing about our local Community College is its many many parking segments, connected by narrow roads. So once you have the absolute basics, you have a rather vast network of wide open spaces to move among.
The other required feature, at the new end of campus is a lot on a roughly 25° grade where you can begin the fun of stopping and starting on an uphill incline. Then we graduate to the marina hill...which is nearer home and about 40° on a curve. If you can do that, you're ready for the clod who stops on your rear bumper at the uphill stoplight.

[fruladog]

Interesting timing for this thread. My 18yo daughter is FINALLY interested in getting her driver's license. We were chatting with a driving instructor who also teaches high performance driving. He said 95% of drivers who think they get better performance from a stick really don't know how to drive one. He only teaches driving with a stick to people who really need to use one for work. I learned to drive many years ago with a stick, and he proceeded to shred my technique - a really humbling experience. I think my daughter will be learning on an automatic, at least for now.

[BigDavy]

It makes more sense here to learn on a manual gearbox - if you pass your test using an automatic geared car, you are not allowed to drive a manual geared car, but you can drive both if you pass your test in a manual geared car.

David

[dwest]

I have to admit that if you are chasing a bird flying down a fireroad, and you have both hands on your binocs and you are leaning out the window trying to get a good look, an automatic can be very convenient. Now if I could just get that moon roof with a camera mount I could drive on regular roads.....

[SteveShaw]

My dad taught me to drive in seven weeks when I was 17 and I passed first time. You can't do that any more! He sat me behind the wheel and made me drive up and down a busy urban main road for my first lesson. No messing about with fake steering wheels or practising on disused airfields for me. In at the deep end, and it worked. I hired an automatic in Australia by accident and I just sat in the car park outside Avis and read the manual for 10 minutes then I was off. Had I gone back in to complain I would have ended up paying the same money for a much worse car, so I stuck with it in spite of my complete lack of experience. I accidentally nearly threw everyone throught the windscreen twice, but after that it was quite relaxing. But it's far more manly to chuck the manual stick around with blatant panache in insouciant fashion, lets face it. Automatics are for wimps and anyone of delicate disposition.

[Sandy McLeod]

Those my age had to learn on stick shifts. There was no other kind. The first car of my own was a 40 Ford coupe which my parents bought me for a high school graduation present. It cost $50 in 1952.

The car I had before my current four wheel passion was a Lexus IS300 stick shift. When I took it in for its first maintenance the young Vietnamese lady who wrote up the bill slipped in (rather seductively, I must admit) and in a minute or so climbed back out. Sorry," she said, "I'll have to wait for a mechanic to move your car. I don't know how to drive a stick shift."

Actually, I felt pretty good about it.

Sandy

[Ronbo]

My dad taught me to drive in seven weeks when I was 17 and I passed first time. You can't do that any more! He sat me behind the wheel and made me drive up and down a busy urban main road for my first lesson. No messing about with fake steering wheels or practising on disused airfields for me. In at the deep end, and it worked. I hired an automatic in Australia by accident and I just sat in the car park outside Avis and read the manual for 10 minutes then I was off. Had I gone back in to complain I would have ended up paying the same money for a much worse car, so I stuck with it in spite of my complete lack of experience. I accidentally nearly threw everyone throught the windscreen twice, but after that it was quite relaxing. But it's far more manly to chuck the manual stick around with blatant panache in insouciant fashion, lets face it. Automatics are for wimps and anyone of delicate disposition.

The only thing about automatics is that you have to remember NOT to throw it in park while you are still moving. It is very bad on the transmission.