Having just returned from Las Vegas late this morning with our rental car, I found myself a little bit happy to hop in our own car to grab a bite to eat before settling in at home. I was glad to be driving a stick again after several hours of having to concentrate to avoid stepping on the phantom clutch in the automatic (on the last road trip I took driving an automatic, I had twice gotten off the freeway after a long stretch and mashed down on the “clutch” only to inadvertently slam on the brake).
Anyway, this got me to thinking about the lack of manual vehicles available for rent in this country, knowing full well that other countries still commonly rent them. If I had a choice, I’d almost certainly choose a stick every time for long road trips. My questions to you are these:
Was it ever common to rent stick-shifts in the US?
If so, when did sticks disappear from the American rental market?
Why did companies stop renting them (or never rent them, if the answer to #1 is no)?
As for “when” I cannot answer, but if you go back to, say, 1945, there were few automatics on the road and I imagine the rentals were stick shifts. By (I am guessing) 1960, a lrge majority of American cars were automatic and more and more drivers had never driven a stick shift. In PA, where I got my first license in 1954, if you took your test on an automatic you got a restricted license and had to retake the test with a stick shift car if you wanted the restriction lifted. By 1960 or so they gave up. At some point, the rental companies must have decided it was not worth the effort to have two fleets, especially as the overwhelming majority of the renters wanted automatic.
A year and a half ago, I finally broke down and bought an automatic. The stop sign forests I drive through here make driving a stick shift rather unpleasant. You don’t see that in Europe and there are few automatics there. Incidentally, those stop sign forests cause a lot of pollution and make a lot of unnecessary CO2.
In any case, standards were . . . standard until the late 50s-early 60s. Automatics became popular very quickly, though, and if you were Hertz trying to buy a fleet it made more sense to buy all automatics than have a mix. People who preferred standards could cope and you didn’t have issues with someone taking the last automatic on the lot and the next person unable to drive a stick.
I let my drivers’ license lapse for years and when I decided to reacquire one the state of New York required that I take the test all over again from scratch.
No restrictions were put on the license if I tested with an automatic but I had the option of testing on a car with a manual trans, and did so.
Asimovian, I drove a stick shift for a long time before I found out that it’s better not to step on the clutch first to slow the car down. It shortens the life of your clutch to use it like that. As you probably know, replacing the clutch is expensive. If you break that habit, the problem you cite above will also diminish.
Instead of stepping on the clutch before the brake when you’re slowing down, step on the brake first. Frequently you can avoid using the clutch at all, especially if you’re going to speed up again.
I think what Asimovian is describing is hitting the brake with the left foot as well as the right, as the car comes to a stop, something which I’ve done plenty of times when switching over to an automatic.
I moved to the US in 2000, but the year before that i made an 8-week trip here to do research for a book that was being written by my undergrad professor.
One weekend, i was going to take a few days off from the research (in Washington, DC) to visit western Virginia. Obviously, i needed a car.
I ordered a compact, and when i arrived at the rental office to pick it up, the guy behind the desk asked me if a knew how to drive a stick. I said that i did, but that i’d prefer an auto because i didn’t have too much experience driving on the right hand side of the road, and i figured changing gears with my right hand might complicate things.
He said, “Well, i’ll have to give you a minivan then, because we’re out of compacts. If you would take a stick, i could give you that Mustang over there.”
I immediately blurted out “I’ll take it,” and ended up with a Mustang for the price of a Ford Focus. Driving a stick on the wrong side took no time to get used to. I felt very American, cruising down Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park in my Mustang.
Bingo, although I was definitely guilty of what Rusalka described as well, and have worked hard to break that habit. I’ve only been driving stick for a little over five years.
But yes, the problem I’m talking about happens regardless of when I actually step on the clutch.
I rented a manual Miata in California a few years back from a small company in SF. I have vague memories of similar mom and pop rental outlets having economy cars with manual transmissions.
For the most part, though, all the major chains have strong ties with specific automakers (Hertz=Ford, Thrifty/Dollar=Chrysler, etc) and often don’t get much say in what they get. The automakers use the rental agencies as outlets for overproduction and to help cook the books in terms of total sales numbers. Thrifty might not want to buy 50,000 Dodge Calibers with automatic transmissions, cloth seats and crank windows, because they’ll be forced to rent them out for dirt cheap just to get people to put up with them, but that’s what Chrysler is overstocked on by the thousands and that’s what they’re gonna get.
So, since manuals are a dying breed, not only are rental agencies not particularly interested in stocking cars that only some dwindling percentage of the population can drive, but the arrangement means that automakers can err on the side of underproducing manuals and just offload excess automatics to the rental agencies at the end of the year.
Hee-hee, not only do I also occaisonally mash the phantom clutch, I still instinctively grab the “shifter” (on an auto basically used only for going from P to D or R) when I launch from a stop and would need to shift in my manual.
I learned on an auto transmission, too. Drove one for 9 years. Then got a manual, and you can never go back.
