My first car was a manual, purchased from a departing recently graduated Turkish Ph.D. I had been taught to drive manual by an Italian dorm-mate of mine (somewhat by force, as he was in charge of procuring a car for us to drive from NY to Chicago, and although I told him that I didn’t drive stick, when we got to the car, I was informed that I would be learning). Our first order of business, once we got into New Jersey, was that he took me out on a back road so I could practice a bit before we continued along the interstate. Luckily he was a patient teacher.
But I didn’t really learn to drive manual until I bought the little Tercel hatchback from Cengiz. I had it for a couple of years, until I broke my leg in a really big way, had surgery, and spent the better part of a year on crutches. Driving a manual with one functional leg would be…problematic at best.
I haven’t driven a manual in more than 20 years now, and although in theory I’d like to keep the skillset, in practice it never seems to be a good time to give it another shot. The last thing I want to deal with while driving a foreign rental car is relearning to drive a manual in an unfamiliar place, possibly in the mountains. I prefer to avoid driving on vacation anyway, and I definitely don’t want to have to drive manual with the opposite hand in the mountains in Cyprus, which is the most frequent place I have to rent a car! It’s hard enough to manage not to turn on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal.
Yes. I drive one now. I learned when I purchased my first ride - a Toyota pickup. I think back then a manual was slightly cheaper than automatic,and supposedly got better mileage, so that played into my choice. It was pretty forgiving to learn on. Drove it for more than 10 years before replacing it with an automatic. Recently got a Mazda 3 with manual, after a long time of only automatics. It is a really fun car to drive, and I do not have a lot of traffic to deal with (altho, I confess that would probably have an impact on my pleasure with it).
My wife can drive a stick shift - her first car was a manual as well. I taught my son to drive stick, and he is perfectly competent, but my daughter (who is three years older than my son) cannot, and refuses to learn. Go figure.
Hey, I have one of those. It is a bit weird, but once you get used to it, it is OK. I built a side car onto one of them for a “crippled” friend of mine. He steers, shifts, & brakes from his wheel chair in the sidecar.
At one time all of my cars, trucks, & jeeps were manuals, but all of my motorcycles were automatics. I had two each CB-400-As & three each CB-750-As.
“The Cripple” got one of the CB-400-As. He liked the color! I sold the other CB-400-A & one of the CB-750-As to folks who wanted to duplicate the Hack job for other disabled riders.
Oh, Before anyone gets all bent out of shape because I call him “The Cripple” just be aware that that is what he told me his name is.
Theft deterrence depends if there’s much chance of theft. I live right near NY not in the City, but car theft in the City has declined 95% from the peak in the 1990’s. It’s not much of a risk anymore, especially for a car nice enough to park indoors, unless it’s super high end enough to attract people with the skills and tech it now takes to steal it.
The slick road thing I think is best rolled into the subjective ‘feels better’, I know of no objective evidence of that in the age of automated traction and stability control on normal cars let alone electronic limited slip differentials, torque vectoring, etc. on higher end cars.
The battery push start thing depends what kind of car you have, might be a real consideration for some cars, wouldn’t be for mine.
I was a big manual guy in the day but no more. I like performance cars and the version of mine with DCT is faster than the manual, paddle shifting is also fun, steering with the throttle etc. is fun and no clutch allows you to pay more attention to those other aspects. It’s a matter of taste and I have no gripe with people who still like manuals on cars like mine in fun driving, but I don’t particularly. And I absolutely don’t want to be working a clutch in NY area traffic.
Also the extent to which non-(traditional three pedal) manual is a North American thing tends to be exaggerated. Traditional manuals are now a minority of new personal vehicle sales worldwide, compared to all other forms (real automatics, DCT’s, CVT’s, direct drive electric, though all those might be in layman’s terms ‘automatics’). And some other large markets are close to North America in the decline of manuals, like Japan (Japanese makers make them obviously, but don’t sell a lot of them in Japan anymore).
It’s just something else to think about. Here in Panama I have to deal with insanely aggressive drivers, maniac buses, inattentive pedestrians, potholes, missing manhole covers, monsoons, and in rural areas wildlife and livestock on the road. When I have to react in a split second I’d rather just worry about steering and braking rather than having to shift as well. Let the robot do part of the work.
My cars since I learned to drive:
'89 VW Fox(manual)
'92 Ford Escort(manual)
'96 Ford Escort(manual)
'98 Jeep Grand Cherokee(auto)
'01 Volvo V70(auto)
'14 Kia Rio(manual)
I can drive a stick, never found stop and go traffic to be particularly taxing. Part of training at work is teaching the new guys how to drive a stick since many of our trucks are manual. As a result I had to learn an additional manual tranny skill, floating gears (shifting without a clutch)
Manual transmissions are going away in the trucking industry as well. Not only because fewer people know how to drive, but because of a continous pressure to pass legislation to ban manual transmissions
It’s not for me. I have to put at least a few brain cells into doing it.
Also, I’m not one of those who regards driving as “fun.” I drive to get from point A to point B. I enjoy the scenery, but I can enjoy it better when I’m a passenger and don’t have to worry about the next curve. So the concept of driving a manual because it’s fun is alien to me.
I was buying a new Jeep back in about 1990, and made it clear that I wanted a stick, but the dealer was trying to dissuade me. “You need an automatic transmission, because then, you can get a whole bunch of other great features that only come with an automatic.”
I replied, “I’m buying a Jeep. A Jeep, by its nature, needs a stick tranny. A Cadillac, by its nature, does not. Seriously, a Jeep with an auto tranny makes as much sense as a Cadillac with a stick.” I got my Jeep with a stick.
I suspect some of them may be like The Bestest Boyfriend. TBB had grown up in his dad’s ranch, therefore TBB claimed to be able to drive a stick. In fact, TBB owned a stick car. TBB got hurt at a concert; we got him to give me the keys (the other friend with us couldn’t drive stick). As we left, TBB asked “what are you doing?”
“Head south? We’re in Fort Lauderdale, we’re heading to Miami, that’s south, so I’m heading south.”
“No, with the car!”
“Drive it? I’m driving the car!”
“No, I mean with the noise of the car!”
“What do you mean, the noise of the car? It’s going vroom, vroom. That’s a fine car noise. Cars go vroom!”
“I mean when you took the ramp! It didn’t go koo-rrnch!”
“That’s called the clutch! It’s what the third pedal is for, it keeps the gears from going koo-rrnch! I swear, if we ever get married and divorce I’m asking for custody of the car!”
I’m reminded of a comedy routine I once heard. Start from the premise that a couple is making out in a small car, and things are thus a little awkward, owing to the size of the car.
She: Oh, it’s so big and hard.
He: That’s the stick shift.
Well, it got big laughs when I was in the audience that night.
I’m an American. I have driven a stick shift before, but only once, and I’m not sure I actually did a good job. I do conceptually know how: put it in 1 or 2, listen to the motor when it revs up (or I see the RPMs go up or the light goes on, depending on the model), press the clutch and shift to the next gear and repeat, and sometimes downshift when going up hills. I’m also very out of practice driving in general, and do not have a current license.
So I’m not sure if I should say I “can” drive one or “can’t” and chose the last option. Mostly because I thought it was novel that I could.
I can fly a plane (PP-ASEL) but never really had the chance to learn to drive with stick.
The only car we had in my household was automatic. Some of my siblings learned but they were out of the house by the time I was learning to drive.
My bicycle has 27 gears (3x9) - does that mean anything?