If you conduct a poll by asking a question to a randomly selected subset of a population, then you can be confident to a certain degree that the actual answer if you were to ask every single member of the population is within a certain number of points of the answers you received. Now, SDMB polls are obviously not random. Some people seem to take that to mean that SDMB polls should still represent some wider population, just with a wider margin of error.
But it doesn’t work that way. Either a poll selects from a population randomly (in which case you can be confident within degrees of the answer if you asked everyone in that population) or it doesn’t (in which case you can’t). There is no middle ground.
SDMB polls are for entertainment purposes only and shouldn’t be expected to conform to the actal results of any population (and such nonconformance isn’t really surprising or interesting).
That’s a phrase that shows what a different mindset we have. I don’t want to “add a lot of nuance to the driving experience”. I just want to get my butt to work and back.
I was taught on autos and drove them for most of my life. Earlier this year, my husband and dad convinced me to purchase a manual. My husband was taught how to drive a stick in San Fran and loves the control. Even though I’d been wanting to learn stick for a while (very helpful for traveling), I was afraid I’d break the car or be stuck with a car I couldn’t drive. In the end, my husband convinced me with the frugality of it (I couldn’t let him out-frugal me ), and I purchased a 2001 Honda Accord that was $1000 less expensive than an auto.
Although I’m glad to have learned it, being stopped on hills always made me nervous, and I bought an auto when it came time to get my car. Plus, I love zoning when I drive, and I can’t do that as well with a stick.
2006 honda civic automatic, if anyone’s still counting. never learned to drive stick, never wanted to. never occured to me to care about other’s preference, though.
I think that people who drive manuals are going to be drawn into a poll phrased as this one is in measurably larger numbers than those who drive an automatic, because I think that people who drive an automatic drive it because it’s a car, and it does what it does, and they don’t think about it. A lot (most?) of people who drive manuals have a strong opinion about it and make it a point–even going far out of their way–to buy a manual transmission car to drive. Thus, it’s a bigger deal to them and if they see a thread about it–especially a poll, I think–they are much more likely to open it than the “don’t really care” automatic drivers.
I think that if you were to actually poll the active users on the SDMB, all of them, you’d find a majority drives automatics. I can’t prove it, but I think I’m right, with a fairly high degree of certainty.
(Not saying that anyone is acting wrongly or badly or anything like that–just saying I think that’s how the psychology plays out IRL)
ETA, rather than make a new post: My son is currently 16 and learning to drive. He’s so far only driven my (automatic) car, but we WILL be teaching him how to drive my husband’s manual transmission car as well, because I think it’s important to know how to drive stick, in case you ever have to. It’s just one of those basic skills I think every adult should have. (Not to bash those adults here who never learned–I just think that it’s a good skill to have. There are plenty of such skills that I myself do not have, but wish I did.)
The first three cars that I owned had manual transmission. My next four did not. I’ve driven several high-end sports cars with manual transmission and I appreciate the advantages when driving aggressively.
I get the nuance thing, but it has little to do with advantages in everyday driving. It’s a preference, just like other preferences that people have in various activities. Some people might justify those preferences by appealing to some specific benefit, and, when it comes to manual transmission, there are, of course, some benefits. But, I think some people are overstating those benefits.
Until four years ago, I drove a manual. What changed my mind were two things. I hit 70 and was feeling lazy. Driving here is driving through a forest of stop signs and the constant shifting was bugging me. If I were in Europe, I would doubtless still be shifting.
I’ll concede the point to you with a caveat that it depends a lot on the car. A 430hp Corvette, it doesn’t matter so much. But in my early years I drove, nearly back to back, early 90s Tercels with manuals and automatics. The manual was fun, the automatic made me think I was going to die on the highway. The torque converter robbed too much performance from the wheezy 70hp engine, and the lack of direct control made the thing scary.
I have a preference for tiny cars with tiny engines, so I like my manuals a lot. If I’m helping someone pick a car and they want an automatic, I almost instantly bump up a car size.
That’s a good point; when I was looking for a car, I tried an automatic Hyundai Sonata, and I felt like I was driving a brick. I tried the manual Elantra, and it was about a thousand times more fun. I ended up with a manual Toyota Corolla, and I have lots of fun zipping around in it; I don’t think it would be nearly as zippy with an automatic engine.
The benefit is my joy of driving where I control the gas, the brake, the clutch and the gear I’m in (and that is a huge joy, as someone who drives 30K a year).
I like being a part of how my car gets down the road. I really love dropping a gear and accelerating when the need arises. I also love keeping in a high gear on a planned route and only adding gas as needed.
Automatics bore me to death. There are times when I feel it best to be in a lower gear, but the transmission requires me to mash the pedal to make it happen. Then there are times when I want to stay in a high gear and feather the gas, but the transmission will keep dropping down.
My intent for this poll was just to see how many here drive either an auto or manual. My curiosity was due to seeing how many manufacturers are only offering automatics. It makes sense, since current automatics do have increased MPG over manuals. It frustrates me, seeing as Europe is mostly all manual with smaller engines (which I’d take).
Currently, it is looking like either a new Mustang V6, or a BMW. My first car was a 1968 Mustang coupe (in 1993 :D). Whatever I get, it will be a manual.
I drive either, own neither. Generally prefer a manual transmission but not in a region plagued with traffic jams. The one place I really do NOT want a manny tranny is in bumper-to-bumper 0-3 mph stop-and-go traffic.
It’s hard to find a full-sized luxurious car with a manual transmission and has been that way for a long long time.
In defense of automatics, meanwhile, although I don’t care for them, they can be improved with aftermarket tweaking kits such as B&M’s TransPack. An auto trans doesn’t have to behave with those mushy shifts.
I only learned to drive about 6 months ago. I wanted to try to simplify things as much as possible and not have to learn how to drive a manual on top of everything else you need to learn.
ETA: Oh and I drive a Mini Cooper. Fun to drive, easy to maneuver and park. And of course, cute as a button.
), and I purchased a 2001 Honda Accord that was $1000 less expensive than an auto.