# Can you competently drive a manual transmission car? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 24, 2017, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774 "2017-10-24T23:45:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/141 "2017-10-26T17:18:20Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > \ > Second time,\*\* a client had eloped\*\*, and I got into another supervisor’s car with her to go search\. Huh? ---
**Author:** ![ReticulatingSplines](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@ReticulatingSplines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReticulatingSplines)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/142 "2017-10-26T17:36:09Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > Are you saying A) downshifting in general is bad, or that B) these folks are doing it wrong? > > If A, I’d have to disagree. If B, well, wrongliness is in full supply these days. Downshifting in general is not bad. I mean, you CAN damage your engine (e.g., you mean to shift up but accidentally go down instead, like 2nd when you’re trying for 4th) but proper downshifting is not bad. That said, you can damage your engine upshifting too, if you shift too soon and lug it. Anyway, going down through all the gears is dumb if you’re approaching a stop, because all that downshifting wears out your clutch, and a clutch is more expensive to replace than brakes. > [@jz78817](#): > > if downshifting ruins your transmission, you’re doing something seriously wrong. it might (might!) make the synchros wear out faster, but we’re likely talking 175,000 miles instead of 200,000 miles. See above; I don’t think anyone thinks it’ll ruin your transmission (though I didn’t watch the video), but your clutch wear accelerates. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/143 "2017-10-26T17:42:24Z")
I’ve driven semi tractors, other tractors (the farm kind), lawn tractors, motorcycles, I had a pickup truck with “3 on the tree” (manual transmission lever was on the column behind the steering wheel). I’ve driven a dump truck (or in my case a wheat truck), and I’ve driven a bobtail fuel truck to deliver fuel to farms, and a manual transmission pickup truck to deliver barrels of oil to drilling rigs. All manual transmissions. > **[Features - When Three was on the Tree...](https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/when-three-was-on-the-tree.929381/)** > > Jive-Bomber submitted a new blog post: > > When Three was on the Tree... > > \[IMG\] > > In 1940, Ford made a few significant changes to their cars including... ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/144 "2017-10-26T17:51:20Z")
I marked yes, but I’ve only driven a stick once in 16 years. I imagine I would be competent after about a half hour practice, but if somebody handed me the keys and said “Drive across town in 15 minutes right now,” we might have ourselves an issue. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/145 "2017-10-26T17:54:30Z")
> [@ReticulatingSplines](#): > > Everyone who drives stick claims to be really good at it, but few actually are. Do you blip the throttle on downshifts? Can you heel-toe shift? I admit even I haven’t mastered the latter. See my post above; I’ve driven about every type of vehicle with a manual transmission, both professionally and personally; and I’ve never heard of these terms. What the heck blipping the throttle? Are you talking about slightly revving the engine when downshifting to make for a smoother transition? What the heck is a heel-toe shift? ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/146 "2017-10-26T18:26:19Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > What the heck blipping the throttle? Are you talking about slightly revving the engine when downshifting to make for a smoother transition? Yes. > [@Enright3](#): > > What the heck is a heel-toe shift? Using the right foot to simultaneously operate the brake pedal and accelerator so as to rev-match during downshifts. See [Senna in an NSX on the Nurburgring.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzLjZWrpzmQ) ---
**Author:** ![ReticulatingSplines](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@ReticulatingSplines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReticulatingSplines)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/147 "2017-10-26T18:27:27Z")
ninja’d ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/148 "2017-10-26T18:40:37Z")
I can, my wife can, but my sons cannot. We no longer own a stick shift vehicle, and that limits the ability to teach. I consider this a failure of mine as a parent I admit. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/149 "2017-10-26T18:42:13Z")
The way I learned heel-toe, it was called a “heel-toe double (de)clutch.” I can’t, for the life of me, remember what the practical difference was instead of blipping with the clutch in, so perhaps someone can help me out here. Instead of revving with the clutch depressed, you would rev in neutral. So, the sequence was, going, say, from 5 to 3: Brake, clutch-in, shift to neutral, clutch out, blip, clutch-in, shift to 3, clutch-out. I was also taught that double cluctching was the proper method for rev-matching, although I don’t bother and just blip while on the clutch. ETA: Ah, this seems to be the proper way to do it with vehicles without a synchromesh. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/150 "2017-10-26T18:45:39Z")
I can’t believe this is so lopsided. I became driving age in the 80s and even then Sticks were rare. The only people I knew who drove them were gear heads who were really into cars. Nowadays it is even more rare. My one friend who prefers them had to pay extra for it ten years ago because it needed to be special ordered. I would venture it is even rarer now. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/151 "2017-10-26T19:23:26Z")
These polls are always self-selecting. Besides the SDMB having an older user base, etc people who can drive stick are more likely to open a thread asking if you can drive stick since they have something to contribute and it’s more likely to interest them. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_Hey_Paula)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/152 "2017-10-26T19:31:02Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > I learned on an automatic (my mo had a stick, but she was a disaster as a driver’s ed teacher; too nervous). But I didn’t own a car until I was almost 26, when I bought a used Tercel with a manual from a graduating Turkish Ph.D. student. I had first driven stick many years before, when I was given no choice in the matter by an Italian friend in my dorm, who got us a Driveaway car (remember those?) over Christmas break my freshman year to get us from NYC to Chicago. To his credit, he was a much better teacher than Mom was. > > But I didn’t drive stick again until almost 8 years later. I had to get rid of the Tercel when I broke my leg and had a lot of surgery and rehab. Driving stick with one functional leg? Yeah, not a good idea. I ended up spending most of a 3-year period on crutches. I don’ t drive much where I live now (I’m a public transit commuter - **Tom Scud** and I own one car between the two of us, and it’s 6 years old and has about 21K miles on it), and haven’t owned a stick since then, but I bet I’d figure it out again if I had to. But my opportunities generally involve rental cars in countries where they drive on he opposite side of the road, and I don’t want to spend my vacation trying to figure that out with the opposite hand in an unfamiliar place. My first car was a used Tercel as well! It had 98,000 miles on it when I bought it, and lasted another 100,000. My then boyfriend had to accompany me for the purchase, test drive it for me, and drive it home for me, then I had to wait until the weekend so he could teach me to drive stick. Every car I’ve owned since then has been stick; I currently have a 2014 Civic. ---
**Author:** ![somepumpkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@somepumpkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/somepumpkin)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/153 "2017-10-26T20:20:06Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > \ > What the heck blipping the throttle? Are you talking about slightly revving the engine when downshifting to make for a smoother transition? Technically (and pedantically), that’s a rev-match. A blip is just a quick pounce on the pedal to get the Rs to spike up to some _arbitrarily high number_\*. \*oversimplification, slightly. ---
**Author:** ![SmellMyWort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/154 "2017-10-26T20:22:57Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > I learned on an automatic (my mo had a stick, but she was a disaster as a driver’s ed teacher; too nervous). But I didn’t own a car until I was almost 26, when I bought a used Tercel with a manual from a graduating Turkish Ph.D. student. I had first driven stick many years before, when I was given no choice in the matter by an Italian friend in my dorm, who got us a Driveaway car (remember those?) over Christmas break my freshman year to get us from NYC to Chicago. To his credit, he was a much better teacher than Mom was. > [@Hey\_Hey\_Paula](#): > > My first car was a used Tercel as well! It had 98,000 miles on it when I bought it, and lasted another 100,000. My then boyfriend had to accompany me for the purchase, test drive it for me, and drive it home for me, then I had to wait until the weekend so he could teach me to drive stick. Every car I’ve owned since then has been stick; I currently have a 2014 Civic. Count me in the Tercel crowd as well. And I sold it to a Turkish PhD student, so maybe he passed it on to **Eva Luna** a few years later 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/155 "2017-10-26T20:27:19Z")
It’s what I drive every day and have for decades. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2017, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/156 "2017-10-26T20:45:33Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > These polls are always self-selecting. Besides the SDMB having an older user base, etc people who can drive stick are more likely to open a thread asking if you can drive stick since they have something to contribute and it’s more likely to interest them. I would agree, and also it’s very regional, so the non-US participants in this poll may also be skewing it for those comparing it with their US experience. I’m in the US, and live in an urban area, and I’d be surprised if 10% of the people I know can drive stick. Even people who should know how to do it competently, like valet parkers, sometimes return the car to me smelling of nothing but burning clutch. ---
**Author:** ![BobBitchin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7ea924/32.png) [@BobBitchin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobBitchin)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/157 "2017-10-27T05:24:15Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > The pedal arrangement is the same. I’ve driven a handful of RHD cars with manuals, and didn’t have much trouble. In fact, the hardest thing was remembering where to look for the rear view mirror. Damn, I never even thought about the mirror thing. > [@racer72](#): > > I can shift with both hands too. One of the rental cars I had in New Zealand was a stick. My biggest issue wasn’t the mirrors, it was the turn signal and wiper control levers. All 3 cars had the turn signal lever on the right and wiper control on the left. The turn signal lever is always on the left in the US, not the right like New Zealand. . I signaled many a turn and lane change with the windshield wipers, not the turn signals. Double damn, I never wondered about the stalks/signals/wipers:D > [@Czarcasm](#): > > Anyone ever get to drive a [push-button automatic?](https://www.google.ca/search?q=push+button+automatic&sa=X&dcr=0&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ved=0ahUKEwizoePYyY7XAhVCllQKHYA0BtoQ7AkIMQ&biw=1680&bih=980) I’ve driven one, for like 2 miles. The thing that got me was the sliding lever for park > [@pulykamell](#): > > I don’t have big feet, and in all the cars I’ve been in, it’s been toe-side-of-foot rather than heel-toe for me. I would say that’s about right for me too. I always wear steel toe work boots (13EE), so I rock my foot side to side (big toe brake, little toe side gas) as opposed to twisting it with toes on brake, heel on gas. The boots are too stiff in the ankle and insole for that( for me anyway). > [@Quimby](#): > > I can’t believe this is so lopsided. I became driving age in the 80s and even then Sticks were rare. The only people I knew who drove them were gear heads who were really into cars. > > Nowadays it is even more rare. My one friend who prefers them had to pay extra for it ten years ago because it needed to be special ordered. I would venture it is even rarer now. Born in 68, learned to drive around 14yoa (1982) dedicated gearhead:D I believe you’re correct, IIRC in the 80’s lots of cars came with auto trans standard, previously it was mostly an up charge, and many models dropped the stick shift altogether. As tech got better, auto transmissions got more efficient. This was big for customers( many bought what was most efficient) and big for car companies because they had to meet federal MPG standards or face financial penalties. Brag alert:smack: I can also drive hand shift foot clutch bikes…even the dreaded suicide shift. OH and old sportsters too( right foot shift). Never rode an old Indian though, all opposite of Harleys. Right Hand shift, foot clutch (operates opposite direction) left hand throttle. And keep in mind I was riding home from bars alot back then :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/158 "2017-10-27T06:09:27Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > I can’t believe this is so lopsided. These threads always are. Almost all of the people who care enough about it to open the thread are on one side. ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/159 "2017-10-27T16:34:38Z")
I’ve only owned manual cars and bikes, but only rented automatic cars and bikes. I find driving a manual improves your coordination and on-the-spot decision making, as when changing gears while texting or swigging a drink can improve your driving acumen. Do you release the steering wheel completely or text/steer\* with one hand and change gear with the other, or over/under rev the engine until the text message has been sent, your thirst is satiated, or your cigarette is finished and flung out of your slightly open window? On that thought, I wonder if auto gearboxes last longer because it’s a computer doing the decision making and not the idiot behind the wheel? I haven’t worked out how to text, drink or smoke when wearing a crash helmet and proper gloves, although when on holiday in some countries they’re easy to do as you’re not burdened with any of the awkward safety gear. \*the last/only time I sent a text when driving was over ten years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2017, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774/160 "2017-10-27T17:24:23Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > I can’t believe this is so lopsided. … > [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > These threads always are. Almost all of the people who care enough about it to open the thread are on one side. Well, the thread has 2,400 views at this point and fewer than 300 votes. No too many people want to vote in a poll saying “No, I can’t do that.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-competently-drive-a-manual-transmission-car/799774.md?page=9)