Of driving an automatic: my husband says “That’s not driving; that’s steering.”
Here’s one reason.
I bought a stick in 2005. In 2014 I offered the car to all three of my children, but only one of them was willing to make the effort to learn. And that’s how my son got a free car.
My neighbour’s kid turned 16 and obtained a learner’s permit, so now when occasionally I have to pick her up in the wee hours of the morning from her weekend job, she gets to have some fun jeeping about on dirt roads in the dark while learning how to drive my standard. She’s having a blast, and as she gets better at driving and changing gears, I’m getting better at not reaching for the grab bar in panic. So Mr. Mustard, it won’t be long until you can add one more female who can competently drive a standard to your poll results.
Learned on a small tractor, drove first car (Mustang 3spd) home from lot. Have owned six other cars, all manual shift.
Yup. I learned to drive in a 1970 Ford pickup. My first husband and I had a 60-mile motor paper route every day. That is a GREAT way to learn to drive a standard-- plenty of stopping and starting, backing up, turning around in driveways, etc. I have had occasion to drive a standard a few times in recent years–it’s like riding a bicycle, easier, in fact.
Indeed. My 2004 Mazda manual I had I finally sold off at 130K, and it was still going strong on the original clutch. Before that, I had a second-hand 1991 Nissan Stanza, also on original clutch at about the same mileage, though I seem to remember more like 150K. I never did this stall one times out of ten nonsense. If I ever stall it out of first, I feel like a moron. (Maybe once in several hundred to thousand times.)
Yes, and it’s not a difficult task. My God, it shouldn’t take longer than an hour to come up to an 80% competency level.
I have had identical jeeps, one automatic and the other standard. There are good points and bad points about either, but for offroad driving I I prefer the automatic for the reasons set out in Ronny Dahl’s vid. For city driving or driving in traffic, I prefer the automatic because having to shift is an embuggerance.
I figure that one of the reasons more males than females prefer standards has something to do with early male hominins wandering about yanking on their wangs just for something to do while they were waiting to evolve a bigger brain. Millions of years later, we’ve learned to wear pants, so the stick shift was invented as a pacifier to calm modern males.
Car, motorcycle, trucks; basically its all I’ve ever driven. From 3 on the tree to 10 on the floor. I’ve owned a couple automatics (antiques mostly) but always hated driving them. I had a bad scene once back in my teens when I was driving a friends ParkLane and went for the clutch ------ and jamming on the brake as a result -------- and him hitting me in the trunk with his other car he was following me in. :smack: Scarred me for life. Now when I MUST drive an automatic I fold my left leg under me.
My dad tried on a few occasions to teach me in his old beater pick-up. I kinda got it down, but was never really comfortable with it.
Then a couple years later, I got a job at a golf course, where I drove a few old Jacobsen Truckster utility vehicles and a tractor that were all manuals. I was less nervous about screwing up the transmission on those, so I had more confidence and drove them all over the course that summer with little problem. I got chewed out by my boss on one occasion, though, for starting the utility vehicle in 3rd gear. Come on, it’s quicker when you don’t have to deal with those lame first and second gears!
I can still remember his high-pitched screaming from the passenger seat, “The fuck are you doing?” Me: “Uh, driving to the 14th green?” That was the last time I ever got to drive that old Truckster.
Anyway, that was over 22 years ago, so if you put me behind the wheel of a stick, I probably wouldn’t do very well these days. I’m a male, and I voted “No.” Could I figure it out? Sure, but as of right now, I would not be able to competently drive that vehicle.
Some people grew up in a different world than I did, that’s all I can say. Even my parents have driven nothing but automatics all their lives. My dad is 85.
A woman taught me to drive manual, for that matter.
My first vehicle was a motorcycle. The first few starts were dicey, but I got the hang of it.
My first and second cars were manual. I sold the last one about 30 years ago and have had automatics ever since. But I’m sure I could pick up the technique again right away.
I learned to drive with a manual transmission (like 99% of the people who learn to drive here), and although my current car is an automatic, I still drive stick often in other circumstances.
Yes. And I learned how to drive, stick, in Midtown Manhattan.
Yes, I can. Although my current vehicle is an automatic, I drove stick for years, and rather enjoyed it.
Gaak! I drove stick for most of my adult life. Finally my arthritis got the best of me and I gave up driving stick. Driving a stick in S. F. is… um, well, challenging. For some reason, the wise men of the city have deigned to put Stop signs on the uphill and downhill corners instead of the level corners.
The last car I had was a stick, but it had a device they called a “hill-holder”. It prevented the car from rolling back on a hill when you took your foot off the brake — as long as the left foot was still on the clutch, the brake continued to hold. That made it a whole lot more possible to drive in places like San Francisco.
I do know how to drive a stick, and usually own cars with manual transmissions. On at least two occasions it’s come in handy. Once when I was in San Francisco and my choice of rental cars was a great big luxury car or a smaller car with a stick. I had the luxury of picking the smaller one. The car rental guy said, “We have hills here,” but in fact none of the SF hills were scarier than the tunnel to the hotel’s parking garage and I would have really freaked out if I’d had to drive a large car in that tunnel.
This logic must also apply exactly to sporty airplanes with joysticks instead of family-style airplanes with a yoke*.
( * Yoke: For you landlubbers, that’s just the steering wheel. )
I have owned them so, yes. The advantages of manual transmissions are going away but it is still good to know how to drive one. Plus, they are fun as long as you aren’t stuck in traffic. My father has a Corvette Z07 that can go from 0-60 in about 2.9 seconds. The manual version is slower because people simply can’t shift that quickly. Older sports cars driven for fun aren’t the same way however. Manual transmissions are good for teaching you to be an actual driver rather than just a passenger that happens to be riding in the front seat.