Elon Musk

After driving only stick since 1990, our cars are now automatic only and I feel the opposite. Not having to think about shifting keeps my hands on the wheel and me focused on the road. It's also much nicer when you do a lot of stop-and-go driving.

Good luck finding a car with manual transmission in the US.

I own one, but we bought it in 1997. We're willing to sell it to any interested ilxor for a fair price!

"okay, time to get on the highway!"

^^^ very vivid memories of this, a nightmarish white-knuckle experience of sweat and absolute terror.

My driver's ed instructor taught me how to whip shitties and do J turns.

Good luck finding a car with manual transmission in the US.

Oh I know, and I'm not rockist enough to buy one just to make my kids learn on it. But it does require a different level of engagement. I think engagement is good when you're learning to drive.

And PBKR, I agree. Mostly thinking about learning to drive, just the mechanics of thinking about when you're accelerating and decelerating, thinking about the machine you're operating.

xxxps, still occasionally get a dissociated feeling sometimes thinking about how millions of us are zipping around at 80mph in two tons of steel. The only comparable feeling I get is sitting still on a runway and watching a jumbo jet take off on a parallel runway. We’re all constantly spitting in God’s eye.

You shouldn’t be driving 80mph probably

You shouldn’t be driving 80mph probably

i tried to learn to drive and got worse as the lessons went on

i love that this turned into manual vs automatic because i read the article upstream yesterday (without seeing the follow up discussion above this post). driving later yesterday i got thinking about 75% of cars in europe are manual-- it sorta freaked me out wrt driving behavior. despite visits there, i had no idea of that difference in man/auto norms.

for me, and to me, it's a huge change in driver behavior and engagement. there is significantly less required attention with automatic imo.

i learned and lived to 30 y/o only on manual. i mostly got automatic because it allows more space for the distractions of kids. and to be sure, i don't think i was consciously thinking "hey i can be more dangerous and pay attention to things off the road." it was just clearly "easier" to me. but in thinking last evening, that ability to engage in distracted driving is the precise effect. and probably i still wouldn't wish to return to manual for most matters, automatic transmissions are geared and shift behavior is adequate for how i drive now.

came to thread hoping to comment suchly and was only a little surprised the thread jumped on it meanwhiles.

I recently test drove a couple of cars with my 22 year old, who was buying his first new-ish car. He saw a VW Golf, very sporty, with a five-speed. He stalled it out about five times in a left hand turn lane lol. To be fair, it had a really sensitive clutch.

My sister and sister-in-law both had to learn to drive stick on the other side of the car/road, I can't even imagine.

the first time I drove stick it was the company truck for this factory I was working at. I had to go to a place 25 miles away and it was terrifying. because I really didn't know how to drive stick. and I told them that repeatedly. but apparently I was the guy who had to do it (because I'd only been working there 3 weeks I guess) so I got a 2 minute tutorial and was sent on my merry way. I think I stalled it out at every single intersection. but then the second stickshift I drove it was mostly fine. this truck's clutch apparently was just really bad. thanks, guys!

That's why they call them clutch players, because if given a two-minute tutorial on how to drive stick they get it done.

having yoru kid drive you for the first time is truly a test of the nerves

having your kid teach you how to drive even more so

esp when the child seat doesn't get high enough

My kid passed his test about three hours ago (UK). He's had a fucker of a time since the pandemic and it's the one thing he can focus on without impediment; I couldn't be happier for him. (And I can genuinely say I've always felt safe with him in the car.)
Now I've got to sell a bollock to afford the extraordinarily expensive insurance.

Fwiw, I'm glad I learned manual. It was never really presented as a choice when I learned (early 90s) - everyone taught in manual and you had to properly search out someone teaching automatic.

I learned manual on an 91 Ford Ranger we called the Deranger in the Humboldt hills, bless those days.

I learned to drive manual on a 1979 VW Rabbit, which was old even then (1990)

I'm terrified of my kid driving. She's 14 so I should probably start letting her practice in parking lots. She's pretty erratic and clumsy as it is, I can't imagine what driving is going to be like. She has driven an old car out at my parents place in the country and that wasn't too bad.

I'm glad we're not in Houston anymore. That would be a shit city for a new learner.

I've driven a tractor at slow chugging pace through a field, and electric go-karts, dodgems, but no fucking chance a car on the roads and motorways with many other vehicles. That's just an insane idea. Once a boss offered me a more than decent payrise and he offered to pay for a few months worth of driving lessons if I showed some genuine interest in getting a driving license. I said thanks, but no thanks.

If I had to learn to drive with a manual, I would never have learned how to drive. I've tried several times to learn how to drive one and failed each time. It's like middle school algebra: something I should be able to do that seems to be forever beyond me.

I passed my driver's test on automatic. Then a year later got a car that was manual so had to learn that. My Dad and I got in a huge shouting match in the car after he had given me the basics, so I yelled at him to get out and I figured out the rest.

I passed my test in an automatic as well. in the UK that means I can't legally drive a manual which is just as well for everyone else on the road. I haven't driven a car since my wife died and not sure if I will again tbh. parking it here would be a total nightmare anyway

One of the things I'm grateful to my father for is teaching me how to drive. His laconic and patient nature served him well as a driving instructor. He drove us out to some dirt roads outside the city and just let me make mistakes on our three-speed 1978 Chevy Malibu until I figured it out.

worst manual transmission experience: one time the last 14-foot u-haul available when i was moving was stick, and first gear got you to like 5mph, second to 15, third to 25, etc. -- merging onto an interstate was deeply unpleasant

Most of the cars I’ve owned have been manual - I grew up on them and I always appreciated how dealers would discount them because most folks couldn’t drive them. My car insurance agent once told me that the best anti-theft device is a manual

Also my fave parts of early The Amazing Race episodes was watching folks completely lose it when confronted with a manual

i have adhd and double vision, which i thought was a normal everyday thing but apparently isn't? i don't think i have strabismus, either. i just see two of everything unless i get these special glasses with "prisms", which means i can't order them online, they have to be ground by hand, probably with a stone mill or something. also, apparently other people can just move their eyes to the left and right to see laterally, like, to check in the rear-view mirror? i can't do that. i have to turn my head to see what's in the rear-view mirror. this is incredibly dangerous and i probably shouldn't be driving! nobody's ever told me i'm not allowed to drive, though, only that i'm a bad driver.

i'm 48 years old and i'm figuring this out now for the first time in my life, lol. apparently it's my left eye. i literally can't move my eyes to look to the left of me. i can look fine to the right of me, but i can't look to the left of me. this might also be related to the way one of my eyes is always squinty. when i get double vision i squint one of my eyes because that way i can see one of things again.

I have no idea how an automatic even works. I don't think I've ever even been in a car with automatic gears. I can only think of one person I've ever met who said she had an automatic.

I have no idea how an automatic even works. I don't think I've ever even been in a car with automatic gears. I can only think of one person I've ever met who said she had an automatic.

Hmmmm. Shall I say it again?

I own one, but we bought it in 1997. We're willing to sell it to any interested ilxor for a fair price!

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Thursday, December 14, 2023 10:32 PM (two days ago)

what kinda car is it?

A Subaru Legacy station wagon (it has a sticker under the Legacy nameplate that says "Brighton" - whatever that means). It was the bare bones model. No extras. We did buy the four little floor carpets for it.

The Amazing Race thing still happens once in a while! Generally the contestants know this is a thing to practice beforehand, but they can still get flummoxed in the heat of the moment.

a traditional automatic works by using one of multiple variations on traditional gearing and automatically shifting between them, with varying results depending on the age and model of the car. some have settings to shift more aggressively or less so to get better fuel economy

newer vehicles, especially electric ones, use a continuously variable transmission. there are a few mechanisms, but imagine the gear that controls the ratio being cone-shaped. so there are not distinct gears, there’s a spectrum of ratios you can move through depending on current speed and desired acceleration, etc

if you’re worried that this is drive-by-wire, I wouldn’t. nearly every vehicle has had some drive-by-wire aspects for many decades

I have no idea how an automatic even works.

I mean that's kind of the point, they just do. you press the accelerator and the car goes forward

I had a much better time when I tried to learn to drive in the 90s, cars only had 4 gears then. now they have 5 or 6, I just can't do it, my left hand is too unco-ordinated. the instructor would tell me to go from 1st to 3rd and I'd put it in 5th and the car would stall. or even worse, go down from 5th to 4th and I'd put in 2nd. then he'd get mad and tell me I'm fucking up his gear box. you told me to do it mate, not my fault you're a shit teacher

anyway most of the stuff I'd been told about automatic cars was absolute bullshit. oh they can't deal with hills? total bollocks. I lived in Hastings at the top of a really steep hill, my car zipped up it like it wasn't even there. my mum's car was manual and shuddered the whole way up there. it's all lies

On steep downhills it is kind of nice to be able to gear down manually as an adjunct to braking. Other than that the continuously variable automatics I've driven are as good or better.

I always found changing gears incredibly stressful whereas breaking is really easy so I don't really know why it would be better. this is something the US has got right

I don't really know why it would be better.

Chances are you've never descended a road that starts at 9500 ft above sea level and ends at 1000 ft. Brakes can overheat and fail in those circumstances.

everything i know about car transmissions (which is very little) comes from having built lego kits. they're really good! although mine did not feature a synchromesh

xp true and that's a thing that people do all the time

Maybe not all the time, but in the western USA it certainly has its applications, especially if you predictably spend time driving in the mountains because you enjoy spending time in the mountains and they are accessible nearby.

Chances are you've never descended a road that starts at 9500 ft above sea level and ends at 1000 ft. Brakes can overheat and fail in those circumstances.

nearly every automatic transmission vehicle has an equivalent to engine braking or downshifting, at least everything I’ve driven has?