I don’t know why, but I was scared to learn to drive a stick shift. I can suppose it was the ‘strangeness’ factor, and the fear of being laughed at when I stalled it over and over at a red light.
I’m still not great, and I just got into fifth gear for the first time on Friday, but I can do it, and now Ardred and I can take either car if we’re going somewhere with alcohol and the possibility of one of us not being able to drive home.
Also, my shins hurt in new places. 
It’s the norm in Britain for people to drive “manual” cars.
I’ve never uderstood why the norm in America is to drive automatics.
Laziness?
Congratulations!
Personally, I think people should be required to take their driving test in a manual transmission car. If you can drive a manual, you can drive an automatic. Not so the other way round.
I learned to drive in a manual and I’m really glad. My Land Rover Freelander is the first automatic I’ve owned, and it’s actually a hybrid. No clutching necessary, but I can put it in manual when I need to and change gears as needed.
My friend’s dad wouldn’t allow any of his children to take their drivers’ test until they could drive a stick. I sometimes wish my dad had done the same. Intellectually, I know how to do it. That is, I’m well acquainted with the theory of the whole thing. In a pinch, I think I could do it. With a few stalls and the like at first, of course.
But I think I will always drive an automatic, because it would be difficult to apply makeup, eat a hamburger, smoke a cigarette, change the radio station and have to worry about shifting all at the same time. 
That’s the way it works in Britain. You can opt for a test in an automatic, but then you’re only licensed to drives autos.
I actually forgot how to drive a stick-shift during driver’s ed. No joke. I first learned how to drive with a manual-transmission car on gravel roads before driver’s ed started. During driver’s ed, I drove automatic cars, because that’s all we used in driver’s ed. After I finished with that class, I went back to try to drive the manual car. I didn’t get that figured back out for another year or two later. It wasn’t fun.
Apart from making me feel more like a real man, I dig having a clutch because Dead batteries & starters are mere trivial nuisances and do not necessarily require the assistance of a tow pirate.
When you get bored with your manual tranny, teach yourself to shift without using the clutch pedal. Great circus trick and of relatively little value unless you find yourself behind the wheel of a huge farm truck.
Excellent work on your new found skill. it is always a good thing to reduce the number of limiting factors in one’s life.
Welcome to the club & have fun!
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Driving a stick has its advantages. There is probably a marked reduction in having your vehicle stolen because the thief more often than not can only steal automatics.
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According to my dad, that’s the way it used to be here.
Probably has something to do with our penchant for big-ass cars. Who would want to manually shift a Cadillac?
It’s been waaay too long since I’ve driven stick (except for my tractor, of course) and now I feel the urge to to do so again. Something sporty. A Bugatti maybe?
That’s bound to be more fun than the last stick I drove regularly: AMC Jeep circa 1980 vintage
Yeah, my dad was of the theory that no kid of his was going to go out into the world not knowing how to drive a stick shift. My sister and brother learned on an old 1986 Jeep Cherokee, and I learned on a 1985 Nissan pickup.
He did so well in forcing us to learn stick shift, that now all three of us own manual transmission cars and will never buy otherwise.
Oh, and to the person who said they knew the theory behind driving a stick and could in a pinch…hate to break it to you, but I also knew the theory and my first time in a stick shift was loaded with stalls, overheating engines, grinding gears, etc…It’s just one of those things that you can only learn by doing, and nothing else. I’m not saying that you couldn’t get a car from point A to point B if you had to, I’m just saying it will probably take a lot longer if there are several stops between point A and point B
Nah. Quite the opposite. Just gotta have our hands free to talk on the phone, shave, eat lunch, apply makeup, read a book, play a violin, and so forth.
Of the dozen or so cars I’ve owned, only three were automatics. Doesn’t matter to me either way.
I think it would odd for someone from the UK (or any place where the cars are RHD) to drive a manual in the US (or wherever LHD cars can be found).
I’ve never heard of right-hand drive as a particular complaint from anyone driving a manual abroad. (The difficulties are miniscule compared to remembering to drive on the wrong side…) (And note that most left-hand driving by Brits is done in Europe, on manual transmission.)
That was the worst thing about driving in England. Driving on the left wasn’t so hard, but driving on the left with the clutch on the left was pretty terrible. I’m right-handed, and although I shoot left-handed and bat left-handed, my brain just didn’t want to deal with the clutch on the left.
I spoke to a barkeep in the UK about it, and he agreed that it was harder for him to drive a clutch in America than just to drive on the right. It’s kind of like patting your head and rubbing your tummy. You have to think about it a whole lot more.
I don’t really like driving manual cars. If you are driving in the city or in stop-and-go traffic, the constant shifting from first to second to first to second to third for a breath and then back to second can get very wearying. It’s particularly troubling if you don’t know where you are going and you are trying to read a map, while shifting and trying not to run stop signs. And toll booths are no fun either.
I need to relean to drive manual. When I took driver’s ed, I did both, but due to never having access to my dad’s car, and my mom and my brother having automatics (mom by choice, brother because the car was given to him from our grandmother), I ended up only driving automatic. It’s been 7 years.
I do, however, plan on buying a new car in the next year-year in a half, and I want a manual transmission. I will take my dad’s car when I go visit and hope to relearn how to drive standard over thanksgiving weekend! We’ll see how that goes. The very first time I drove standard, I had a 2 hour lesson and only stalled twice, on a really steep hill. I’m more confident this time, seeing as I already know the rules of the road, and so I only have to concentrate on learning the extra motions 
Congratulations-agreed on stick driving being a necessary skill.
Can I see a show of hands for those familar with and capable of a 10 speed hi-lo, 13 speed Roadranger or the hateful 15 speed twin stick Brockway?
BTW Inigo Montoya, knowing how to flat shift can be helpful. Former girlfriend’s car lost the clutch slave cylinder while we were in Philly. It had a new battery, so I could start it in low, shift from there, and knock it out of gear and shut it off at a red light. Repeated as necessary until we got it back to my place.
:raises hand:
I spent a couple of years driving tractor trailers and heavy wreckers. I got used to many different gear combinations. Favourite was the 10 speed Eaton - Fuller. The one I was never able to master was a twin stick 5 and 4.
I learned to drive these trucks from other drivers rather than going to driving school. These guys had millions of miles behind them collectively and they made it look easy. The problem was that none of them ever mentioned double clutching. I never learned how. This was an art unto itself. I was able to figure out how to do it so that I could take the exam for my commercial license, but that was the last time I ever double clutched. It seemed like an extraordinary waste of energy.
I have only had the opportunity to drive an automatic twice and I was terrible at it. I spent the whole time pushing my foot on the non exisitent pedal and I couldn’t get used to the whole start/stop thing. Manual starting and stopping is gradual, auto seems to far too scary.
I guess I’m stuck with manuals.
:raises hand:
