Second question:
Does a drivers licence in US cover for any car type?
In the UK (I think, it sure used to be this way) there are two distinct licences you can get - if you pass your test in a manual car you can drive anything (inc. automatic), but if you pass in an automatic you can ONLY ever legally drive an automatic. You are not licenced to drive a manual.
Is there any such distinction in the US?
Aro:
The distinctions between licenses here tend to be more by weight and purpose…a heavy equipment license is different from a car/light truck license is different from a commercial license.
I’ll admit that I’ve never understood the whole “driving as an enjoyable experience” thing. To me, driving is just a way to get from Point A to Point B more quickly and with less effort expended on my part than by walking. My focus is the destination, not the journey. And I’m seriously uncoordinated enough that it’s better for all concerned if I just continue driving my automatics…
jayjay
There was one when I was 16, which was one reason I had to learn a manual shift. This restriction seems to have been dropped at some point in the past 18 years, at least Virginia doesn’t make any distinction. Other states could be different.
In the states (most, I think), you can drive any passenger vehicle after you’ve passed the driving test with an automatic, regardless of its transmission. You can take the test with either, but most of my friends opted to take it with an automatic because there’s less to screw up. If you stall during your driver’s test you might look like you don’t know what you’re doing (ya think?) so remove one element of potential err and borrow someone’s automatic.
I’m in the US. My first car was automatic, and all I’ve driven since have been manuals. My wife brought an automatic into our marriage, which we still have in addition to my stickshift pickup.
I used to be something of a “stick snob” but I feel I’ve outgrown that (for lack of a better term). When I drive my wife’s car, I don’t find myself wishing it were a stick - it drives just fine as is. Well, sort of - accelerating smoothly through the sometimes-strange gearshifts requires a lot of throttle modulation, but that’s become second-nature now. It’ll do what I want - I just had to learn the tricks to make that happen.
My personal opinion is that if an unexpected shift can cause you to lose control, you are driving far closer to the limit than is appropriate for public roads.
In heavy traffic (seen often in Los Angeles), I prefer my wife’s car. The joys of shifting one’s own gears become less joyful in stop-and-go traffic, and I’m happy to let the damn car handle it.
My wife’s car is also quite a bit “zippier” than my truck, even with the automatic transmission. That’s not so much because hers is a beast (it’s a 4-cylinder Civic), but that my truck is dreadfully underpowered and has awfully … truck-like handling. I have no doubt that in a race, me driving the Civic would beat me driving the pickup quite handily.
So, automatic be damned, I prefer my wife’s car on the twisty roads for fun. Now, I’d love to try the same car with at stick just to see what the difference is…
Like Pessor, I’m not aware of any US state that draws a distinction between automatic and manual in licensing drivers. I know for sure that California and Texas do not.
New driver perspective here… we have two cars in my family: an automatic minivan (small minivan) and a standard Civic hatchback. I’m still learning our standard, and my perspective is that they’re both useful in their own way. I like standards. Changing gears yourself is pretty darn cool, if you ask me. However, since I’m still learning to drive it, the process is not nearly so natural. I find it rather intimidating to be making a turn, AND braking AND downshifting, then accelerating and upshifting again. I also think that, as has been mentioned, there’s no way driving a standard in rush hour traffic could be fun. Constant shifting from first, to second, back to first, traveling in first gear, all that stuff doesn’t seem very entertaining. It’s not the clutch that I’m worried about - we’ve never had any need to replace ours after nine years of owning this car - but the tedium and work of all that shifting.
No distinction in licenses. I didn’t know they even allowed you to take the test in a standard anymore… no one that I know of ever has.
I drive a 5-speed Jetta now and it’s …I don’t know it’s driving. I can’t say that I get more of a thrill driving now then when I was driving my auto Honda Accord.
As far as taking your drivers test, you can use a manual, auto, Tiptronic, whatever the fuck you want. But if you use a manual and you stall it, then you fail right there.
You fail for stalling…? Its a natural occurance in driving, certainly not a failing issue here. Its what you do when you stall that matteres ie. handbrake on, out of gear, check mirrors, clutch in, restart engine, into gear, check mirrors again, handbrake off and drive away. The procedure is what is looked for in UK tests - they give a little lea-way on clutch control in certain circumstances.
Do you all feel if you pass a test in an automatic it is fine for you to go out on the roads the next day in a manual you have never been tested to drive?
You fail for stalling…? Its a natural occurance in driving, certainly not a failing issue here. Its what you do when you stall that matters ie. handbrake on, out of gear, check mirrors, clutch in, restart engine, into gear, check mirrors again, handbrake off and drive away. The procedure is what is looked for in UK tests - they give a little lea-way on clutch control in certain circumstances.
Do you all feel if you pass a test in an automatic it is fine for you to go out on the roads the next day in a manual you have never been tested to drive?
Aro, no. I think most people realize that if they’ve never driven stick before, they would need to get some practice (not unlike when first learning to drive), before going on the road in a manual transmission.
If you’re smart (IMO), you’ll get some practice in on parking lots and side streets before hitting busy city traffic. However, if you’ve got more guts than brains my feeling is that you’re more likely to cause misery for yourself than any real danger to others - an important distinction to make in terms of licensing. So, yeah, I think it’s OK to allow the foolhardy to try what you describe.
I’ll admit that permitting it may sound like a recipe for disaster, but experience here would seem to indicate that whatever problems it causes (if any) are so minor as to not be noticeable. Maybe it’s because there are relatively few sticks here. Maybe American roads are so chaotic that the occasional stall-out barely even registers (although having seen mainland European roads, which to my eyes embodied “chaos”, I kind of doubt this).
I don’t have any cites or data to back this up - and would be interested in seeing some. Whatever this American system of licensing may look like on paper, its supposed ills don’t seem to actually manifest themselves. In the face of the empirical evidence, there’s simply no motivation to contemplate changing the system - it works just fine (theoretical considerations notwithstanding).
I had not heard that stalling a stick was an instant failure here, either - but I couldn’t tell you for sure either way. I don’t think it should be, but the DMV rarely consults me on matters such as this.
But that’s my point. And to me it is a major part of the testing procedure. The test is to ensure you can actually DRIVE the car you are in.
It’s not just for your own practice reasons, other peoples lives are at stake on the open road. The ability to drive ANY vehicle you are licenced to drive is tantamount to basic road safety. IMHO.
My previous reply was to ** easy e **, BTW.
I have driven both manual and automatic transmissioned vehicles pretty much interchangeably over the 25+ years that I’ve been driving and have come to the following conclusions:
If driving a sporty car for pleasure on winding country roads - a stickshift is a blast!
If driving in big-city-rush-hour-eight-lane-parking-lot traffic - an automatic is definitely the way to go.
Other reasons for driving an automatic include recovery from knee surgery (or other leg related injuries); San Francisco; and pulling a loaded horse trailer. As for that last bit with the horse trailer, I’ve done it with both an automatic and a manual tranny and have come to the conclusion that my horses much prefer the smoother ride of the automatic as opposed to the jerkiness of shifting a manual. There just isn’t any way to shift smoothly through the gears when you are pulling 10,000 lbs of livestock. Every time you engage the clutch to shift, momenturm makes everything move forward, then when you let the clutch out again they all rock backward. With an automatic the transition between gears is much smoother.