I posted this in a similar thread in MPSIMS recently…
I heard a story about some artist who won the right, in court, (under some freedom of expression loophole) to paint nudes whilst driving. The model lay across his back seat while he drove, with an easel in the front passenger seat, painting his way whilst dodging traffic.
In the UK you can be fined for – eating a Kit-Katwhen driving, or even taking adrink of water at a stop light. How can you justify live painting…?
(Ok, the Kit-Kat guy got off, eventually)
In fact, how can you justify eating / drinking at the wheel? It is a 3 point, £60 fine in the UK (12 points in 3 years & and your licence is gone.) Remember, driving is a privilege , NOT a right.
I have driven a manual for 20+ years with the exception of a few months in New Jersey where I drove a variety of automatic hire cars. I hated the automatics!
Now my wife wants to learn to drive. We look round and purchase a Renault (French) automatic. It is much easier to drive than a manual, but has loads of lever positions and buttons to control the gears so that you can drive it almost like a manual if you want to. This gets round one of the major problems of an automatic - however good the transmission is, it cannot anticipate.
Looking back, I can see that the US automatics I used to hate were setup for quite different road conditions and driving styles to those of the UK. Automatics are well suited to long straight US roads and the suspension is set for more bumps etc. In the UK, a manual is well suited to bendy roads and the suspensions are harder for faster driving on motorways etc. (We Brits complain about our roads, but that is mainly congestion - otherwise they are pretty good).
Automatics seem to have improved over the years and now give a much better driving experience. With our new car, I am something of a convert to automatics. Fortunatly, my wife and I have a low anual milage; but somewhat contary to the manufacturer’s claims, our fuel consuption has risen significantly compared with the old manual.
I’m not sure the Germans view the automatic as a silly extravagance, as all the automatics I see in Europe are generally on cars of German make. Lemme tell you, Mercedes makes quite a nice automatic transmisttion. That, and the tip-tronic semi-automatic transmission (which you get on the newer Porsches and all those ugly puny Smart Cars.) However, you are right. It is generally difficult to find an automatic transmission at rental car companies on this side of the pond. When I was back in the States last summer, I tried to get a manual tranny car just for kicks. You shoulda seen the blank looks I got. “A stick? Why do you want a stick? None of us here could even bring the car to you if we have one cuz we can’t drive stick.”
I have no source for this, but I remember reading somewhere that in the 50s, when America was going through its automotive explosion, with the huge engines and bigger-is-better philosophy (ya know, back when cars were cars), snobs considered manual transmission to be technologically inferior and, therefore, uncool. I mean, all those huge hotrods from the 60s and 70s had automatic trannies. At least all the ones I’ve seen. So I’m guessing this aspect of American car culture and obsession with technology is why automatics became de facto standard in the US.
In Australia, new ‘family’ cars have automatic as standard. The prices they advertise are for the cheaper manual cars, but if you actually want a manual, it can take longer, because not all yards stock them, since they aren’t as popular.
That said, there are heaps of older cars still alive, and the majority of them are manual, so a lot of kids still learn manual. It seems to divide into those who buy a cheap piece of garbage as their first car, and learn on it, and those who learn on their parent’s cars, and so never learn how to drive manual.
IMNSHO, jump behind the wheel of an automatic car and you can steer. Jump behind the wheel of a manual, and you can DRIVE
Since licensing is different for manuals and automatics in Britain, let my pose a minor hijack: What are the ‘Tiptronic’, ‘Selectronic’, (enter another brand name here) transmissions considered to be for licensing purposes?
Ha! How many times have I had a hamburger in one hand while I adjusted the paper with the other and steered with my knee, and still was in control of my vehicle? (Granted, my hands are very near the wheel and I’ll drop the sandwich before I’ll let the car get out of hand.)
The articles linked by Aro give the impression that a driver must keep both hands on the wheel at all times (which would be a very sill law). If this is so, then how is the manual transmission shifted without “losing control” of the vehicle?
(Damn, I wish I had ordered a manual transmission. Never again will I buy an automatic!)
In New South Wales, Australia, which also makes the distinction between the two transmissions, the various modern “clutchless manuals” and “semi-automatics” are called headaches. the authorities aren’t too sure how to deal with them for driver testing purposes.
The “if you can drive a manual, you can drive anything” crowd will hate me for this, but although I prefer a manual transmission, I think that the first few driving lessons should be done in an automatic, then changing to a manual. It lets the various controls and skills be learned in stages.
I was nearly hit head on this morning by a person who had a cell phone clamped to her head and who crossed the center line while taking a drink of (presumably) coffee. I suppose she was steering with her knees—I wish it were illegal here in Florida to eat, drink, or use a cell phone while driving. I didn’t know that other countries ban these practices. And, as others have said, I had never heard of differing licensing for standard transmissions versus automatics. I have held drivers licenses in eight states.
A few years ago on the way to San Diego I saw a woman in a Cadillac who was talking on a cell phone with one hand, smoking a cigarette with the other, and picking her nose with her pinky as she was driving. (She was lane-keeping well, but the image was amusing.)
[American bias]Well, I think that if it’s done intelligently, the dangers it poses are quite minimal. It’s certainly possible to get carried away, but banning it entirely strikes me as throwing the baby out with the bathwater.[/American bias]
Three-course dashboard dining should probably be right out, but eating a candy bar or swilling a (non-alcoholic, of course) drink? Prohibiting that, to me, seems ridiculous in the extreme.
Are you allowed to adjust the controls on the radio in Britain? Roll down the window while moving?
In Britain, if you take your driving test in an automatic, you then only get a licence to drive automatics.
And as automatics arent that popular, the vast majority of learners choose to take the manual test so they have the flexibility of driving wither type.
In fact the only people who take the automatic test in Britain are people a) with a medical condition who cant use a manual or b) absolutely useless drivers who need all the help they can get.
And of course, the newly qualified driver is used to manual transmission, and so is more likely to choose to drive a manual
Manuals are also cheaper to buy, and theoretically more economical to run (if youre a good driver that is)
Also it must be mentioned that US manual transmissions are rubbish.
The general feeling over here is the police only arrested the kit-kat eater to make people aware that the police are looking out for people who aren’t driving with due care and attention. Or maybe the police needed to boost their arrest figures for that day, either way, nothing else has ever come to light about people being arrested for eating, etc.
I know that I feel a wee bit superior because I regularly drive a manual and I’m a woman - I’ve had other, similarly minded female friends even comment on it before they knew I also drove stick. I don’t know if it’s true, but there’s times I feel like quite a find for being in the minority.
It was interesting, though, when I rented my first car in Australia. I’m an American and was in Australia for a semester while at Uni. My family was coming for a visit and expected me to drive them around, so I rented before they got there to familiarize myself with the system (it’s not hard, BTW). I was a little surprised when the Hyundai Exel I rented was a manual - I wasn’t quite prepared for that level of familiarization - but we did just fine.
I love manuals - just bought one. My husband, while he can drive manuals, prefers stick. And although my brother learned to drive manuals straight off, I was forced to do the automatic --> manual route. All it really takes is practice (living in a rural area is great for this). Sadly, I’ve heard anecdotally that something like only 5% of cars sold in the US are manuals.
Snicks
Gjorp: If you live in a colony how is it you can send in this post or have a car for that matter? I didn’t think they had either kind of transmission back in colonial times or the internet either.
FWIW: I enjoy commuting with a car with an automati transmission but prefer manual transmission for sporting cars. I do regard anyone who dives but can’t authoritatively operate a manual transmission handicapped.
Perhaps it has something to do with commonality of mass transit and overall car use and ownership.
Second, the interesting thing I noted about getting a driver’s license (in NJ at least) was the requirement that the parking brake be accessible to the tester (sitting in the passenger seat) during the road test. Presumably, they’re worried about folks who really shouldn’t be driving taking the driving test. This takes a whole lot of automatics out of the equation.
My lovely girlfriend learnt to drive in the most extraordinary car. Her father owns a '65 AC Cobra with a 427ci V8. She used to go to school in it in her last year. She was VERY popular!
I liked my standard transmission vehicle, but I am surprised nobody has mentioned how awful they are when you a stuck in traffic. I really hated releasing the clutch, moving 5 feet then depressing it again for long periods of time. My knee would literally start to ache. If I could be guaranteed an open road, I would prefer a standard transmission because you can use it to get acceleration where an automatic would have none by using a lower gear. Being stuck in traffic on a freeway several times made me lose interest in this benefit, however.
Every time I entertain a client from Europe, and take them out in my car (Mustang GT), they remark “Oh - you have a standard transmission. I thought all Americans drove automatics.” Sigh.
I’ll chime in too to say that automatics are becoming more common in the UK at least.
