Desperately important information, I know. My husband and I have a long-running discussion about this.
He believes that 80-90% of adults in the U.S. (I believe other countries are quite different) know how to drive a stick shift. He is a farmer and talks to a lot of other farmers. Farmers and their families know how to drive stick shift vehicles out of necessity, what with tractors and similar vehicles littering the place.
I believe that only 40-50% of adults in the U.S know how to drive a stick shift. Before marrying and moving to the farm, I worked in a large city, and a significant number of the adults I knew couldn’t drive my stick shift Civic in a pinch. I think I’ve seen a more representative sample of the population.
So … put us out of our misery. Of the adults that you know, what percentage know how to drive a stick shift? Do you, indeed, know how to drive a stick shift?
Desperately important information, I know. My husband and I have a long-running discussion about this.
He believes that 80-90% of adults in the U.S. (I believe other countries are quite different) know how to drive a stick shift. He is a farmer and talks to a lot of other farmers. Farmers and their families know how to drive stick shift vehicles out of necessity, what with tractors and similar vehicles littering the place.
I believe that only 40-50% of adults in the U.S know how to drive a stick shift. Before marrying and moving to the farm, I worked in a large city, and a significant number of the adults I knew couldn’t drive my stick shift Civic in a pinch. I think I’ve seen a more representative sample of the population.
So … put us out of our misery. Of the adults that you know, what percentage know how to drive a stick shift? Do you, indeed, know how to drive a stick shift?
I can drive a stick, so can my boyfriend. Out of other people I know, I guess I don’t really pay attention. I think that a lot of people can drive a stick, but don’t, for whatever reason.
I’m guessing 75%. I think most guys can, and maybe 60?% of women. I probably don’t have a representative sample, as I work in a field where we have to drive manual 4x4 vehicles, and I’m also around horse people a lot.
Until fairly recently Mrs. danalan was unable to drive an automatic! She’d hit the brake (thinking it was the clutch) and reach for the shifter when she heard the engine rev up.
Other than that, I’d say 80% of my friends can drive a stick, but probably less than 50% of the general public.
I live in a big city, and I can’t think of anyone I know, amongst my elders, my friends, their kids and my nieces and nephews, who can’t drive a stick.
I cannot drive stick. I’m not at all sure percentage-wise… but I’m certainly not an oddity [for that reason, anyway]. I know several people who can, too.
Except for my mother I don’t know of any including my 16 year old daughter
who received no instructions who can’t drive a stick shift.
She just went out one day and got into my pu truck and said I gotta learn to do this.
I can drive a stick. Learned on one, as a matter of fact. It’s been a while since actually using one, but the skill get hard-wired, kinda like riding a bicycle or swimming. (Of course those assume a certain tolerance for landing face-down in the dirt or nearly drowning.)
Driving a stick is a much more involved process. Ya gotta know the sound, feel and “wherez’at” of the car: The feel of the clutch, the grade of the road, the sound and FEEL of the engine, what’s up ahead and how you and the car are gonna get there.
I’m middle-aged–and female–and quite a few of my contemporaries can handle manual drives.
I’m afraid it’s a dying art, and that’s too bad.
True, not necessary, but nothing to be sniffed at either. It’s a skill, and it has it’s uses. I’m not ready to debate whether it gives overall, optimal better control over a car but it’s certainly a subtely different experience.
And, as with any skill, after a while it takes no concentration at all. It becomes instinctive. Do you have to think about reading? That’s much more complex but you probably do it without conscious thought. Same goes for anybody who learns things so well and thoroughly they just DO them without thinking about them.
Necessary? Almost certainly not. “Better”? Hmmmm.
My husband and I have a long-running discussion about this.