Been to Europe? Most rental cars are manual. Same is true in Africa, South America, the Middle East and Asia. As to why: A manual transmission car is typically cheaper, may actually have a lower insurance cost and in some places, a drivers license specifies whether you can drive manual and automatic, or just automatic. It’s not pointless at all if you plan to travel or work internationally.
Regards,
-Bouncer-
Well now I’m just sulking 'cause you dissed my Google-fu 
It is far from OK which will be addressed in the other thread.
Not in the U.S.
Is there a 3rd thread? The only other one I’m aware of has already been locked down.
Yes to Europe and Asia, several times.
Which is all irrelevant. Automobile transmissions are a solved technological problem. There is no excuse for Europeans to continue defaulting to manual transmissions other than cultural inertia. Like us with the metric system.
ETA: And although I rarely drive overseas, I’ve never had trouble renting an automatic in Europe.
So? Bouncer’s point was that in much of the rest of the world, knowing how to drive a stick shift is a definite advantage, and maybe even a necessity.
There’s an ATMB one at Is There A Board Policy About Approving Donation Request Threads? - About This Message Board - Straight Dope Message Board
I have the keys.
But can you drive a manual? That’s the important part.
[Moderating]
No, we’re not going to go there, not even in the Pit. Stalking the children of other posters and bringing in their off-board activities is not allowed on the SDMB. This discussion is over now, and anyone trying to skirt this ruling is going to get a warning.
[/Moderating]
Well, she used up her biannual quota of SDMB posts.
Perhaps MissTee would have more luck if she distinguished between living expenses and travel/touring expenses.
Or perhaps not. 
Good call.
Agreed; that was totally not cool. It’s all pretty moot anyway, since I doubt she’s returning; I think that thread was the equivalent of a flier on a telegraph pole.
I agree as well. In what universe should someone be punished because of their brother’s nasty tweets?
So a coworker just mailed our whole staff to let us know that his brother has a brain tumor and had surgery that resulted in brain damage, and his wife is having trouble finding the funds to pay for his high medical bills; they also have two young children to raise. Coworker has set up a GoFundMe page to solicit donations to help with the cost.
This is the kind of charity solicitation I get behind. I happily donated $100 and am sorry I can’t afford to donate more. On the webpage there are links to other people asking for donations to help pay for a loved one’s cancer treatments, and I wish I could give money to all of them. Fuck cancer, and fuck the high cost of medical care.
Now I’m appalled all over again at the thought of someone asking strangers to pay for a luxury vacation.
To my recollection, when we traveled to Ireland in 2008 we found it impossible to rent an automatic.
A single-payer system sure would help out with such things.
We traveled to Ireland in 2014 and found it easy. The company we wound up going with was Enterprise (which does not pick you up in Ireland, BTW), but there were others. This was Dublin; it may be that out in the sticks things are different.
I know how to drive manual–my first two cars were manual–but did not think it would be wise to mix driving a manual with learning how to drive on the wrong side of the road.