IMO, what makes a car more safe is the person behind the wheel.
I would say a manual, but I am basing that off of driving on bad roads due to snow/ice/mud, particularly if said roads are also hilly. An automatic kind of sends itself down the road if your brakes aren’t on. A manual doesn’t.
I turned in my manual this year for an automatic, only because the car I wanted did not come in a manual. I miss that level of control on dicey roads and we didn’t even have a real winter this year. If next winter is a more ‘normal’ winter, I am sure I will be sobbing into my super comfortable seats (the main reason this car won) about the subpar handling compared to a manual.
sigh this shit again? look, the type of transmission/transaxle your car is equipped with has no bearing on how good of a driver you are. Period.
This site references forum topics exactly like this and makes an excellent point… If there was a statistical difference, insurance companies would reflect it in their premiums. http://www.safermotoring.co.uk/automatic-manual-cars-which-safer.html
I recently bought a stick after driving automatics for years due to a spouse who can’t shift. Personally, I think a stick driver is safer, because they have to consciously pay more attention to the task of driving. I’m gonna have to attempt to teach her at some point…wish me luck. I’m sad to see sticks dissappearing…they’re a boatload of fun to drive. As a side note, I had to get a bluetooth headset to talk on the phone, so it should be safer in a way for me personally.
No, but if you learn on a manual car, you can drive either.
Neither is inherently safer than the other; it’s all up to the driver.
I have found (in general) that (for me) a manual is better in snow; I have also found (in particular) that an auto (for me) is better for my bad back in city driving. As with everything else, it’s a trade-off.
This discussion reminds me of a story in Chuck Yeager’s autobiography.
USAF had a captured MIG-15 (this was during the Korean War)
Another pilot tells Yeager that the -15 is unbeatable in a dog fight.
Yeager calls bullshit.
Other guy takes the -15, Yeager takes an F-86.
Yeager waxes his tail. Kicks the shit out of him.
They switch aircraft and Yeager waxes him again
Bottom line, it isn’t the car, it’s the driver.
I drive a manual because I prefer the fact that it gives me more control over the car. I can use the gears to help me speed up or slow down instead of just relying on the gas and brake pedals.
That said, I do believe there are situations where automatics are the preferable way to go. For instance, being responsible for bringing half the Little League team and their mascot schnauzer to the game might cause enough driver distraction or, umm, accidentily pushing the car out of gear due to roughhousing kids. Another example might be my aunt’s rheumatoid arthritis. She drives an automatic to avoid the pain caused by shifting. She mourned having to give up a manual.
I drive a manual, I don’t think either is more or less safe. I would advise a new driver to learn on a manual so they’re equipped to drive any car if they need to.
Can’t happen. Moving from the accelerator to the clutch with your right foot? Nope. Hitting the accelerator with your left foot? The likelihood of that happening is even less.
The only way it could happen would be deliberate — and difficult. Even if it was accidental — for the sake of argument — the wrong pedal would be the brake.
Manuals are inherently safer because you have a hard linkage between the transmission and the engine. That means that you can use the engine to control the drive train in ways you simply can’t with an automatic.
For example, going into a curve, even if you don’t downshift, just taking your foot off the gas will create more drag than with an auto. In fact, with an auto, some power is ALWAYS going to the transmission - unless you’re in park. With manual, engine friction drains power away from the transmission.
This is also the big advantage of downshifting. If you lose your brakes, and you have enough room to work with, you can gradually downshift and use engine drag to slow you down - just don’t downshift into the wrong gear and blow up your engine. Of course the first option is your parking brake, but that’s a separate issue.
There are any number of situations where the combination of high revs and a low gear are extremely advantageous. I suspect the reason that you don’t see a benefit in insurance premiums is that people who get manuals tend to buy them with sportier cars so there are a lot of confounding factors going into that equation.
edit: as to making mistakes. Yeah, I guess it happens, but honestly if you’ve been driving a manual for several years, it almost never rises to the level of consciousness.
I think I’m a better driver using a manual. I use both, but I feel more involved in the driving processw when I’m making the shifts. I catch myself starting to space out in automatics.
Yes, that strongly suggests there is very little difference.
I doubt that is true. Here in the UK, manuals greatly outnumber automatics in run-of-the-mill cars. I’m not aware of that having any impact on insurance premiums here. There is a lot of research into road safety, but I’ve never come across a study or news item that suggests one is significantly safer than the other.
There may be specific situations where one type is inherently safer than the other, people are giving sensible examples in favour of both in this thread, but the impact on safety is probably trivial compared to other factors.
Personally I think manuals are safer because there’s more of a connection between the driver’s consciousness and the engine. You have to think (just that little bit) more. There’s also a lot more control when decelerating because you can step down the gears, something that an automatic does in a sluggish manner, which diminishes control of the vehicle. You can also do emergency engine-braking far more effectively if required.
Finally the inevitable anecdote: despite being a Brit, my grandmother never liked manuals, so she had an automatic most of her life. One day leaving a lunch party she put the car into drive then stomped hard on what she thought was the brake pedal. The car leaped across her host’s lawn and crashed into a stone bollard, and granny went to hospital with a head injury. The accident was either caused by, or triggered, her Alzheimer’s, because she went steadily more gaga after that incident. That wouldn’t have happened in a manual: she would either have stalled the engine or it wouldn’t have been in gear, and even if it had, she would likely have had better proprioception due to having to locate the clutch with her left foot.
However, and this is a big consideration: it also depends on what you’re used to. If you grew up with an automatic, you’re going to be more comfortable with one of those, and therefore IMO less likely to make an error.
A manual’s not safer for me, because I am horrifically bad at it. I am a definitely traffic hazard at all times behind a manual. I lurch, I stall, I clutch in when I shouldn’t, I slide backwards on hills, I throw from 2nd into 5th…sometimes I just sit unmoving in traffic and cry.
This is why manuals are not “inherently” safer. They are safer if the driver is safer.
I’ll second Hello Again’s post, especially the last sentence. I started driving lessons this past fall at an advanced age and have been driving for the winter now. I learned on a stick shift and got a free loan car with a manual transmission to practice on my own, so 90 % of my driving has been with one. And I feel manuals are more dangerous than automatics, when the (in-)experience of the driver is factored in. My driving instructor agrees on this.
Having to be mindful about the clutch and the gears distracts from attention put into the traffic, where it should be. Failing to change gear at the right times in the right way increases gas consumption drastically (at 9 USD per gallon, this matters), but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. So it’s constantly on my mind when I drive, as a distraction.
Going around a corner with a bit too high a gear will make your car spin at worst, tried and true. Thinking you are on gear one when you’re in fact on gear three (an invisible, inaudible difference) when the green light lits results in a dangerous stall inside a four-way. Failing to manipulate the clutch and the gas pedal just correctly at said situation will result in the car shooting forward at high speed in heavy traffic, or alternatively, way too slowly when crossing a high-speed road on a left turn. Sitting at the lights, the clutch floored for an extended period, my left foot and leg get tired when high precision needs to be maintained, which adds to the risk of losing clutch control.
Learning to drive, I was quite amazed that in the year 2012 one needs to dance ballet on several pedals simultaneously for a car to move safely and effectively, or at all. I’d much rather keep my focus fully on my surroundings, on other road users, the road conditions etc. A manual transmission is not a liability only when the driver is very comfortable with it - I can believe it becomes an asset at that point. Sadly, practically all affordable rides are manuals where I live, and my line of work demands the skill of driving a stick shift. I’ll see if I ever get it or not. Maybe I’m too old and clumsy to learn such delicate motor (heh) skills.
I put ‘other’ in the poll, but I hadn’t been thinking about this because I just don’t drive an automatic much anymore. They do tend to kinda fly away on you at times, continuing to send more power to the wheels after you’ve taken your foot off the gas. That can be a real problem if you’re daydreaming and don’t slow down before you get to that tight curve in the road, and all of a sudden you’re finding yourself having to fight the car with the brake. You just don’t have this problem with a standard.
Also, it’s been a dozen years or more since I’ve done much mountain driving, but it’s more automatic to remember to downshift going down steep hills while driving a standard. Not to mention, again, that with an automatic, the car is still trying to power its way down the hill after you’ve taken your foot off the gas, and you’ve got to brake that much harder to bring it under control.
So even though I’m in the ‘other’ column in my poll response, I’d change my answer to “I drive a manual, and I think manuals are safer” if I could.
Manuals are safer from being stolen, or borrowed by your girlfriend. Those are two reasons I always get them.
On the insurance issue, I think there are a lot of confounding factors. Both transmissions can be driven safely but it is harder to do with a manual. I’ll grant that much. Driver experience is a huge, huge factor - see anon.
But this goes to the second point of mindfulness. Once you have adapted to driving a manual, you simply don’t think about shifting. On a para-conscious level (yes, I just made that up), you always know what gear you’re in and what you need to do to get into the gear you want. It’s as automatic (pardon the pun) as breathing. Sure, you can think about it if you want to, but you don’t need to.
The problem is that it takes at least several years of regular driving to get to this point. I was raised on automatics. My first car was an old 66 Chevy Belair with a 2 speed powerglide auto. I then moved on to an 87 CRX and I never did learn to shift properly. I had the car for 5 years. It was only once I got to the 92 Civic Si that I really started to get the hang of it. Now, it really is as natural for me as breathing and I rarely have to think about shifting. Even for downshifting, I know what rpms in which gear will allow me to downshift by 2 gears rather than one, when only only one gear is safe to do and when not to downshift at all. But this ability came only after many years of practice.