Why do so few Americans know how to drive a stick shift?

In My Humble Opinion
121

I gave some of them in post #25. Here are a few more.

  • The engine braking effect is stronger in general. In fact, for some kinds of dense traffic (the usual claimed weak point for manuals), this leads to an easier driving experience. When traffic is slow, but not complete stop-and-go, I can often stay in 2nd gear, vary my speed between around 8 and 30 mph, and never have to touch the brake. If I leave a decent gap ahead of me, I can handle a little bit of stop-and-go.

  • Manuals allow you to accelerate more quickly without (necessarily) increasing fuel consumption. Engines are most efficient at wide-open-throttle, but are less efficient at high RPMs. With an automatic, if I floor it, the transmission will decide to increase my shift points, leading to a decrease in efficiency. With a manual, I can floor it but still shift at the normal RPM, which means that I am achieving peak acceleration for a given level of efficiency.

  • Driving up hills in an automatic is often a recipe for constant shifting. This is not only hard on the transmission, but gives unpredictable throttle response.

  • Manuals force people to learn how to drive with one hand. The two-handed 10-and-2 monkey grip that everyone was taught to use is, IMHO, terrible–you lose the fine precision that your fingers have. Its only place is parking-lot driving where you need fast hand-over-hand turning.

  • I can push-start my manual in a pinch :).

When shopping for a car, did you pay any attention at all to the horsepower? If so, why? I’m sure the lower-powered car “works” when it comes to acceleration. Of course, you recognize that there are many situations where high acceleration is important, and even utterly critical to safety, such as merging into traffic or passing a car. Maybe you got the low-powered car anyway for other reasons, but surely you recognized that high power is an advantage on its own.

The same goes for manuals. You have every right to dismiss their advantages as being unimportant compared to their subjective difficulty disadvantage. But to essentially say that their advantages are zero is a statement of ignorance–the advantages are there even if you don’t know about them.

It’s likely that you’ve been on hairy the edge of control more often than you know about. Maybe you didn’t spot that patch of black ice or oil, or maybe you were hydroplaning and didn’t notice. Extra control is always useful even if falls below your awareness.

122

Not caught up, but jumping in before going home.

I learned to drive in an auto, but also in a '65 Chevy pickup: 3 on the column. Plus, this particular truck had a less than stellar repair where the steering wheel had about 160 deg of free float without affecting steering. And manual non-power steering to boot. My first personal car was an auto, but the car I bought after college was a manual, in part due to cost. I drove it for ~8 years. Then I switched to an automatic.

Primary drivers to going to an automatic transmission was the hassle of gear shifting and clutchwork in traffic, especially stop and go - like the times I’d get caught on a freeway in creep mode. That kind of workout for the legs was unpleasant.

I also wanted a cruise control.

The observed disadvantage of the manual is the car doesn’t anticipate my needs. When I want to accelerate quickly to, say, merge traffic onto the interstate around all the crazy drivers who don’t give much space, I have to hit the accelerator and wait for it to spool up. That requires some timing to get right. It’s not particularly more complicated than manual shifting, though, or otherwise timing your intercept. Just sometimes it would be nice to have a little more finesse on the gear.

But hey, it’s a trade off, and one well worth avoiding the hassles of shifting/clutchwork.

As far as why Americans prefer autos over manuals while Europeans prefer manuals over autos, I think the big pressures have been addressed. Differences in car styles and fuel costs, differences in attitude about what the cars meant, and licensing differences. The US does not distinguish on licenses between the two. Perhaps they should, but they don’t.

I think motivationally, yes it is a challenge to learn a manual. Sure, it becomes more second nature with practice, but it takes a fair amount of practice to become proficient, and all that practice time gives lots of negative feedback. Once Americans were learning primarily in automatics, there’s little incentive for most to take on the burden of manuals. So it is a self-feeding practice. More people learn first on autos, autos are more prevalent, fewer people take the time/effort to learn manuals, manuals become rarer, leads to fewer people learning manuals.

It’s work to pump a clutch, to switch between brake and accelerator in combo with clutch, to wiggle the shifter in synch with the pedals. In a trip down the street with a handful of stoplights, it’s not that bad, but if you find yourself stopping frequently or creeping in a line, it gets to be murder quickly.

And has been mentioned, anyone with physical ailments has discovered just how much work it is. Have a bum left knee and you’ll have a real chore getting anywhere.

Your WAG is incorrect, at least for me. I learned simultaneously on both types. As I said, I have driven as my primary vehicle a manual. An auto is easier. Takes less coordination, less contemplation of what gear you are in vs need to be in, less use of arms and legs. It is much easier to, for instance, drink coffee or a soda in an automatic than a manual.

Oh yeah, those mentioning using a handbrake - the first truck I learned in didn’t have a hand brake - the parking brake was a foot pedal as well. With the release by your left knee, requiring a pull and twist. Yeah, that’s easier than using the regular brake pedal. (Also, the brights switch was a foot button on the floorboard.)

123

Thank you, Dr. Strangelove. I’m starting to understand what you’re talking about.

I don’t recall saying that. What I’ve tried to say is that to a person such as myself, who uses the car only to get from Point A to Point B, the advantages are not worth the investment of time that is needed to learn how to use the manual transmission in the ways that you’ve described.

Again, so I’m not misunderstood: You’ve raised some very interesting examples of where a manual transmission is clearly a good thing. But in my opinion, those examples don’t happen often enough, or make a big enough difference. to justify the time and practice that are required to reach a level of proficiency where it would make a big enough difference.

124

To amplify a couple of Dr Strangelove’s points:

Brakes. When driving an automatic, you use the brakes more heavily, and go through brakes more frequently.

Mountain driving: I used to live at over 10,000 feet and commuted daily to much lower elevations. I am sure that today’s slushboxes are infinitely better, but in 1985 I purchased a Chevy Blazer manual…l.except there was this STUPID little light that told you when to shift. My thought at the time and still is: if you need a nanny-light to tell you when to shift, drive a freaking automatic.

Mountain driving part deux: I loathed that Blazer for many reasons - but one notable reason was because the stupid thing would lug up hills unless you ignored the nanny. Which I always did.

True story: my ex-husband got a speeding ticket going up highway 24 and successfully fought it by telling the judge there was no way he could have been going the speed claimed because the car “woudln’t let him” go that fast.

That said - although I am mildly alarmed at the number of people who view their vehicles as “A to B machines” or “appliances” because your possibly crappy driving habits influence my safety, the safety of people I care about as well as my insurance rates, I accept that living in the real world means living with people I’d rather not live with.

125

Why? I don’t think anybody here is trying to sell you one. It appears that admitting a preference for a manual gets people angry at you round here. Explaining why we like it gets people accusing us of all sorts of things.

Not worth it. Just drive the car you like, so will I, so will everybody else.

126

I was paraphrasing–perhaps poorly. What you said was this:

Normally, when we do a cost/benefit analysis, we subtract the cost of a thing from the benefit and if the answer is negative, we conclude that the thing is not worth it. What you’re saying is that even an arbitrarily small cost makes manuals not worth it, and the only conclusion I can take from that is that you see the benefit as zero.

That may well be true, and everybody is going to have different weighting factors on their cost/benefit analysis. But that’s a somewhat different statement than the one you made earlier. If you think those situations aren’t too common for your mode of driving and you think manuals are therefore too much work in comparison, I wouldn’t question it (though I still think everyone should try).

One more thing, but somewhat tangential:
Like chiroptera, I am somewhat distressed at the number of people who view their cars as mere A-to-B machines. I think this is a self-fulfilling prophecy to a large extent: you hate driving, therefore you do everything in your power to turn driving into a task that you pay as little attention as possible to, therefore you hate driving even more due to it being so unstimulating. Rinse and repeat.

I think these people wouldn’t be so unhappy if they bought a car that didn’t maximize practicality at the expense of all else, maybe used a manual to keep things more interesting, didn’t always take the exact same (shortest) route to work every day, occasionally just went for a drive to someplace new, and so on. If you start off by viewing driving as a chore, then it will always feel like one, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

127

Yah this.

In most (not all) vehicles, gas mileage will be better with a stick.
Operating costs -brakes, clutch v transmission, etc: typically much cheaper with a stick.
Some people prefer the “control” they get with a manual trans; apparently this is not important to the majority. And that is OK.

So, get what you like, enjoy it and don’t feel you need to justify a darned thing.

128

I don’t hate driving because it’s boring I hate driving because it’s stressful. You know what you REALLY don’t want sharing the road with you? Me, stalled out in 4 lanes of fast-moving traffic, weeping.

129

Well, that is unfortunate. Driving doesn’t stress me out at all, though admittedly I’ve never had to deal with a stalled car in heavy traffic.

Are you stressed in less extreme situations? If so, I wonder if training would help. I know a couple of drivers that become stressed in traffic, but it’s because their skill level is simply not very high. They aren’t dumb, but for whatever reason they just never got a good handle on common maneuvers like merging into traffic. So they end up always being stressed because they are always a step or two behind where they should be.

Automatics simplify the process of driving but they also have the effect of isolating the driver from the road. This may be a net negative in the long run if it means the driver never perceives the car as a natural extension of the body.

130

Firstly, this is a bug, not a feature. Your brakes are what are SUPPOSED to stop the car. Driving around in a too-low gear to stop your car just around town is dreadfully hard on your drivetrain. Furthermore, this exact same effect could be achieved on an automatic by shifting down into a lower gear.

This is utter nonsense. This short shifting technique you describe is worse both for acceleration AND fuel economy.

Again, simply downshifting an automatic will solve this problem. In doing so, you’re doing the exact same thing you’d do with a manual-- namely you’re just leaving it in the lower gear.

I think this is a sort of bizarre point. What exactly is wrong with this so-called “monkey grip”? Two hands on the wheel are almost always better than one in an emergency situation and really I’d argue forcing you to drive with one hand is a major disadvantage of the stick (assuming you wouldn’t otherwise just have a cup of coffee or a cell phone in the other hand).

Not necessarily. Most modern cars say roll starts are a no-no because they can damage the catalyst.

Manuals once had many clear advantages, but this is simply no longer the case. I drive nothing but manuals, but I admit it’s simply because I think they’re fun to drive. When not trying to justify manual transmissions to spouses and employers, we must be honest with ourselves and eschew pseudo-rational justifications and embrace the stick for the irrational joy it is!

131

I have, more than once.

Still trying to figure out why stalling out in traffic = weeping, though. Wouldn’t a more effective strategy be: figure out problem , then contact someone who can help?

Weeping as an automatic, go-to response to something as mundane as stalling in traffic seems to me a pretty helpless and weak response.

132

The drivetrain is designed to handle these stresses, and engine braking is a perfectly legitimate way to slow the car. Now, I don’t advocate intentionally downshifting to slow down, the way some teach–it does add to the clutch wear–but sticking to a single gear is no problem.

You may have misunderstood what I’m claiming. Or I wasn’t clear. Let’s go through some possibilities:

  1. Normal, casual driving in a manual: easy on the accelerator, shift at 3k (or whatever)
  2. More aggressive driving in a manual: hard on the accelerator, still shift at 3k. Better acceleration than 1 without significantly increased consumption.
  3. Very aggressive driving in a manual: Hard on the accelerator, shift at redline. Better acceleration than 2, at the expense of consumption and engine wear.
  4. Normal driving in an automatic: Easy on the accelerator. Roughly the same as 1.
  5. More aggressive in an auto: Harder on the accelerator. Better acceleration, but the transmission alters shift points, increasing wear and consumption (including losses from the torque converter).
  6. Very aggressive in an auto: Similar results to 3, though with slightly more losses from the torque converter.

I’m claiming just that option 2 is better than 5.

Most autos don’t have enough flexibility. In particular, virtually none allow you to force the transmission to stay at the highest gear.

I’ll grant that his is purely an IMHO point, and to be honest, it’s something that came out of my flying lessons. My instructor showed me that the lightest touch is almost always the best touch, and that for most situations, you should be able to fly “with two fingers”. I feel that this translates to cars as well.

Perhaps I am mixing causation with correlation, but it sure seems like the worst drivers I know keep an iron grip on the wheel, as if that somehow helped their technique. The wheel doesn’t require much strength–it’s precision that counts. Fingers have high precision, but arms don’t.

It depends on the emergency, but sure, I’ll grant that there are some cases. I’ll just say that I can (and will) move my hand back to the wheel in less time than it takes to consciously process a given event.

Like I said–in a pinch. Last time I had to do that, the integrity of the cat was the last thing on my mind.

Well, I can’t agree. But they are definitely fun. And I think having fun has a definite positive effect on overall skill (and probably safety).

133

Technology is changing all of this. Almost all car manufacturers are moving towards a hybrid system. To operate most efficiently and get best fuel economy a hybrid has to have an automatic transmission, sometimes an infinitely variable transmission. A hybrid system saves on brake wear because the system uses the braking to regenerate the batteries.

People can hang on to their manual transmissions but the the fact is that there are a whole lot of situations where an automatic is better than a manual. You can always cite those few circumstance as an excuse but in the real world it doesn’t hold up. Like seat belts, there is always the situation where a seat belt caused a problem. (I had the horror of witnessing such a case but that didn’t make me quit wearing a seat belt.) Is that a reason to ignore the thousands of lives that have been saved?

Generally, people tend to think they are better drivers and better lovers than they really are. Sometimes a reality check is in order.

134

This is a very odd comparison. The analogy works far better in reverse: “seat belts are inconvenient and I almost never encounter situations where they are helpful; therefore I’ll stick to not wearing one.”

That said, you are correct that hybrid and other advanced systems will make the current style of manual style of transmission obsolete. But they also make the current style of automatics obsolete. There are a variety of types on the market today that don’t resemble either standard type.

135

You’re wrong about the effects of option 2, though. The reason why stomping on the gas increases fuel economy isn’t because the engine revs higher, it’s because you’re running more air and fuel through the engine. Shifting before you hit the optimum shift point only makes the car accelerate slower.

Baloney. The reason why automatics “hunt” is because the next gear up is just barely too high. There is never a situation where you would solve a hunting problem by upshifting. The solution is always to leave it in the lower gear. That’s why they usually recommend leaving overdrive off while towing.

Hey, and speaking of towing, automatics are vastly superior at that because they give much more and much smoother low-end torque. Shop around for pickups-- the automatics have at least double the towing capacity in most cases. It’s the same reason why they’re superior off-road and on-snow (despite the utterly irrational claims to the contrary by manual apologists). And yet having an automatic off-road rig simply never occurs to me, because off-roaders are fun and fun cars have manuals gosh darnit!

136

Do you do most of your driving on clouds?

I have to chuckle, because all your posts create the impression in my mind that you do most of your driving in car commercials. The experiences you allude to seems to have nothing in common with the roads and streets I drive on

Nor does it seem you drive for the reasons I do. There are really too many things to do in my life, both mandatory and pleasurable. Driving is merely what facilitates those things. I also have to do the laundry and clean the toilet. Day-to-day driving is among those tasks.

137

I don’t think there is any problem in the analogy. I’m saying that there are unusual situations where the overall inferior system can be show to be superior to the overall superior system. That’s not adequate reason to become wedded to the inferior system.

And yes, auto technology is rapidly advancing. The old 2-speed automatics that were in the old luxary cars is laughable to the transmissions that are in the econobox’s of today. (Aside: Ever drive a manual without synchromesh? What a mess.)

138

I think the straight 6’s and maybe even the old flat head V-8’s did have better torque at low RPM. It was the OHV V-8’s that sucked with the 3 speed transmissions. Besides, the example I used was a '68. One of the worse things I ever drove was a Volare six with a 4 speed. Pure Trash. The first decent American drive train I remember was the 81 Phoenix with the V-6 and 4 speed I had.

139

There are two ways to increase air/fuel through the engine: remove restrictions in the airflow (throttle plate), or increase RPM. Opening the throttle decreases pumping losses, while increasing RPM increases frictional losses. Therefore, doing the former is preferable (from an efficiency perspective) if maximum acceleration is not required.

I can cruise at the same speed in 4th gear @ 6k RPM or 2nd gear @ 3k RPM. Which do you think is more efficient, and why?

I never said upshifting–I’m talking about not downshifting. Suppose I’m climbing a small hill, and it’s perfectly acceptable to me to slow down by a few miles per hour (which I’ll make up on the more gentle slope ahead) for the benefit of not kicking down to a lower gear. Sure, I could have stayed in the lower gear the whole time, but that’s more wear on the engine.

That’s true. Torque converters actually multiply torque at stall–manuals don’t. So, one gold star for autos.

140

No, but I do drive mostly on smooth streets. Except in parking lots, almost zero steering force is required.

I commute like anyone else, and I’m not in the Himalayas. But I like cars with decent acceleration so I can merge into traffic properly, and can take off-ramps at a decent speed, and so on.

I had a 45-minute straight-line commute once and I hated it, so I did everything I could to make it more interesting. I’ll spend an extra 5 minutes just to have some variety. And while the car was a POS, its 4-speed manual certainly helped.

When I do mandatory things that are boring, I try to make them less boring. If I could get a vacuum cleaner with a zillion knobs and buttons to fiddle with while vacuuming, I would, just to make the experience less mind-numbing. A vacuum which was fully automatic but somehow occupied my time anyway would be of zero interest to me.

I may be in a minority on this point.