Poll: Can you drive a stick?

In My Humble Opinion
121
  1. I can drive a stick and I’m comfortable with one. I think I could do it left handed after a bit of practice.
  2. I live in the US.
  3. 29 years old.
122
  1. Yep. I’ve never owned an automatic.
  2. U.S.
  3. 30s
123
  1. Very comfortable, but I don’t own a stick-shift car right now.
  2. United States.
  3. 54
124

Yup. Had several stick shift vehicles through my years, and I have a manual F150 POS pickup truck now with 4 on the floor.

I love a stick, but with a 100 mile round trip commute, I won’t have it in the commuter car.

FTR, I’m 46 and in the US.

125

I’ll answer this for my whole family:

Me - Yes, I prefer it; USA; 47
Husband - Yes, but he doesn’t like it; USA; 48
Daughter - Yes, she prefers it; USA; 19
Son - No, I tried to teach him and gave up; USA; 18

126

I can drive a stick, but I’m rusty. I live in the US, and I’m 41.75 years old.

127

(1) Yes. All of my cars (but one) have been manuals. My wife doesn’t drive manuals though, so her cars have always been automatics.

(2) USA

(3) 46

128

  1. Yes, I prefer it and all but a few of my cars have been manual. I learned to drive on my dad’s car, who says he likes to drive a car rather than point it in the right direction.

  2. US

  3. 26

129
  1. Yup. Learned on one. I don’t think I’d have a very hard time changing which side I did it with either. Automatics are boring.
  2. America
  3. 26
130

Yes - my college car was a stick. I wish I had kept it just to tool around town. It got great gas mileage.
USA
30

131

I learned how to drive on a manual and prefer to drive that way but I’m in a automatic right now, except for my motorcycle which is a standard.

U.S.

25

132

36/US- yes, burned up a clutch at 17 doing so, but did learn and haven’t had the need to drive one since.

133

(1) Not only comfortable, but I greatly prefer to drive stick.

(2) USA

(3) 38

134
  1. I prefer to drive a manual transmission, even though I learned to do so relatively late in life. We own a manual sedan and an automatic pickup truck now.
  2. USA (Upper Midwest)
  3. Late 40s.

I doubt I could drive a stick on the left, so I’ll just have to make the husband drive if we visit the UK.

135

  1. No. I never was able to learn, although truth be told I never gave it that much of an effort. Both of the cars I owned were automatic. I did try to learn on a roommate’s car back in 1970s Texas, but it was not convenient to keep practicing on it.

  2. Thailand. I rarely drive over here. But automatic is common.

  3. Well into middle age.

136

(1) Are you comfortable driving a manual transmission? Yes, it is all I drive.
(2) What country do you live in? USA
(3) How old are you (roughly)? 46

137

Yes
New Zealander in the USA
50

A few thoughts.

Here in the US, I reckon a stick is less likely to be stolen. Your average car thief probably couldn’t drive it.

A stick gets better fuel economy but … modern automatics are surely getting pretty smart. I wonder if a bad stick driver might get better mileage out of a good lock-up, computer controlled automatic.

My current car was cheap to buy when I bought it new. I think the dealer was having trouble selling it because of the stick.

Here in New Hampshire the stick is just fine but the clutch takes a day or so to cool down if I need to spend a day driving in Boston :slight_smile:

138

  1. Absolutely not. I’ve never driven manual though I have wanted to learn, nobody would teach me, afraid for their cars…

  2. Canada

  3. 43

139

1.0 Yes; I learned to drive stick shifts at about the age of thirteen.

2.0 USA

3.0 68, male.

140

I drive an automatic now, but I’ve had many manual cars. I decided I’m a big girl now and I can have an automatic to deal with the stop-n-go traffic of Houston!

49/female