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For me the only reason to drive manual was becase automats used to be less effective. With current generation, the computer with its 12 gears is much more ecological then my macho hand lovingly stroking my cars stick can ever be…
I do, too, and drove one for many years. I’ll be the one to splash cold water on the conversation, though.
Driving a stick arguably requires the use of both hands and legs, which is great and partly the reason why so many enjoy it - that sense of engagement. It’s far less boring.
But here’s the deal. Injure any one of those appendages and driving a manual becomes a whole lot less fun. In some cases, you can get by, but it’s less than ideal. Having your arm closest to the shift in a sling, for example, makes your vehicle undrivable.
It won’t matter to most people… right up until the moment it does.
I was a manual purist, until I move to a large city and had to drive in it often.
I still miss my manual cars, but god damn it was a pain in the city.
Handbrake start is for noobs. Learn to use your clutch.
I’ll only drive automatic. No desire to work harder at driving in the city.
What, you don’t want to shift gears endlessly while stuck moving between 10 mph and a dead stop on the freeway for three hours?
Hear me out for a second…
Maybe, just maybe, it’s spending 3 hours in stop and go traffic that’s the problem, not the transmission.
Agreed, but having lived it myself with a manual transmission, it’s rough with a manual. It’s one of the few scenarios where I don’t prefer it.
I’m one of the weirdos who wouldn’t mind this. I’ve been dailying my '97 Prelude for most of the summer since I bought it. I didn’t think I’d want to drive it in traffic, but honestly, it’s not the stop and go that ruins the experience for me. It’s the fact that if I get hit by just about any of the trucks on the road, I’m getting a faceful of bumper and best I can hope for is to retain the use of my arms. It’s basically a motorcycle that I can’t lowside.
But I totally get that I’m a fringe case. I completely understand why this would just be too much for someone to want to keep up with in stop and go traffic. Besides, all that starting is bad for clutches. Autos with torque converters handle it a million times better.
Most people aren’t car enthusiasts and enthusiasts need to come to terms with it. Manuals are dying. It’s just the way the world is moving. Let’s enjoy what we have now and appreciate we get to be a part of something we love.
I daily a manual. More people complain about manuals in freeway traffic than there are manual drivers left. Lol
It’s funny because this is the exact same argument anti-cyclists make. Lol
“Tell someone they should ride a bike and suddenly everyone has to move a fridge”
The the car I drive for work has a volume knob and I hate it with a passion.
Those piss me off for reasons beyond manual supremacy - they’re bad UI design too. A knob is for controlling something (like volume) which varies continuously over a range. It is not for selecting from a short list of discrete options!
I rented an electric car over the summer and the acceleration damn near pushed my eyeballs back in my head. No gear shifting at all, just continuous acceleration. An electric grocery getter will blow the doors off nearly everything you can throw at it from the previous 50 years. Will not be looking back fondly on my manual transmissions.
It’s funny manual is the standard here so there’s no ego boost to driving one, people always tell me it’s because we have more corners which has never made any sense (I e. You need to go into second or third at roundabout which I think older autos would have a little lag with or something, certainly not a problem in cars from this century)
I would love an automatic, i think it would make my driving safer in several ways, for a start not having to focus on gears at key moments like navigating road changes and corners or pulling away in a busy carpark. When I drove in the US it was so nice not having to constantly be doing stuff in traffic that I wasn’t anywhere near as tired which again is a big safety issue
