I’m suddenly reminded of some ai-death clock site I saw recently. It predicted my death on May 13st.
You’ll die of 3st
Daddy needs his coffee.
Seriously, the automatic is so much better for using a truck as a tool. I still drive a stick right now and I’m lucky I miss rush hour most days because we start and end early, one job site.
I’d never choose a manual for dealing with taking tools and materials around the Metro while the assholes I’m trying to service cut me off in stop and go traffic.
And IMO we need to start racing EVs, leave combustion for the 20th century old timer events
oshit I have been bamboozled by a shitpost
Bought a new car last fall and looked everywhere for a manual, they are indeed getting rare in the US. Ended up with a Jeep Gladiator sport because it’s a convertible 4x4 with a stick shift and so far the driving experience has been nice. You can tell Stellantis cheaps out on some of the plastic trim stuff and we’ll see just how reliable it is after a few years. Would be sweet if Toyota would make a convertible or T-top 4runner with a stick shift in the US.
Manuals are definitely niche now and mainly in sporty cars (Civic SI, Type R, BRZ, Supra, etc).
I’ve always had a manual car. I love them. That is until I ended up dating a younger woman and we moved in together. Several years later the manual turned into the second car only I drove. That got sold and we now have two cars she can drive.
One day I might teach her how to drive manual. We live in a really flat area with no major hills, so it shouldn’t be a problem. One day maybe,
I always drive manual but my husband likes automatic. My kids learned on his car but my penultimate daughter drives mine to school now. I dunno, shifting seems easy to learn once you know how to drive in general - I learned it because everyone else was drunk one night so I had to drive home, when I was a teenager, and the drunk kid’s car was manual.
ETA: I let the school kids use the car and got myself an e-bike because their commute loop is much longer than mine. I have an enjoyable ride in to work. But tell them to baby the car because it may be my last gas-powered car and I will miss the stick shift. Have not had an automatic transmission car for 30 years now.
I “joke” I am gonna teach my son how to drive a manual just in time for electric cars to render them entirely obsolete…
but at least he’ll be prepared if the zombie apocalypse happens in the next 10-15 years…
It’s been difficult to find manual transmisssions for a couple of decades here in the US. That ship has sailed.
While most of my life I vowed my kids would learn manual, I gave up on that idea because
- manual transmission cars are rare and disappearing
- automatics now are more fuel efficient
- CVT are reliable and even more efficient
- EVs don’t shift
My kids started driving in a world of automatics and will soon be in a world with no transmissions
cvts are reliable
Now THAT’S a statement made by the utterly deranged
EVs don’t shift
I know there’s no reason for them to, but a small part of me wishes there was. Something so satisfying about being good at managing gears
Had a manual 2016 Mazda 3. Took a bit to find it with all the options I wanted but it was available at the time.
Isn’t the civic si series all manual?
I bought a civic in 2006 and it took 6 weeks to get one. A manual would have taken much longer
I still hate to this day one of my parents cars. The gear shift is on the side of the radio and the radio controls(what isn’t touch screen) are underneath.
What the hell is this design.
My Volkswagen flashes a message when I put the key in the ignition; “Depress clutch to start”
So I tell it that the majority of Yanks don’t know how to use it and it starts every time.
• Wanted to Start on a Steep Hill? We had a Tool for that: it was Called “Flooring the Gas while letting go off the Clutch”
IT AIN’T NO GOOD MORNIN’ WITHOUT THE SMELL OF NICELY BURNED CLUTCH
I was going to say, I always had my e-brake on when I parked my car and so I always started the car with it on.
Does he mean slowly let off the clutch while releasing the e-brake? Does he put on his e-brake if he stops on a hill, in traffic too!
I’ve had to use the ebrake method before for a hill that was wayyyy too steep and a fence gate closed behind me.
You basically just let off the clutch and press on the gas until the car wants to move forward, then you let off the e brake and go without going backwards.
That’s when you are supposed to use Mr_Mofu’s technique!
that’s mr mr.mofu to you, kind sir.
If you’re on a steep hill, yes sometimes you need to use the handbrake to get moving. This had to be demonstrated when I got my licence, but to be fair some manual vehicles now have automatic hill start. Still a good technique to learn because it doesn’t always activate.
I drive manual every day, except when I ride my bike instead of driving.
Your bike has automatic transmission?
All hail the Unimog!
Biblically accurate transmission
you aren’t supposed to show people what the control panel to the mcflurry machine looks like
“How many hydraulic levers you need?”
“All of them”
“How many hydraulic-driven pieces of equipment does your rig have?”
“Mind your own business”
I own a 2020 Subaru WRXSTI manual and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.
US: predominantly automatic transmission, low speed limits
Germany: predominantly manual transmission, higher speed limits and no limits on around half of autobahns (motorways)
US road deaths per capita twice of Germany.
Draw your own conclusions.
Quick Google
In 2024 36% of Germans reported using the car daily.
In 2023 95.3% of Americans older than 16 drive on occasions.
83 million Germans, 63% above 16
340 million Americans, 65% above 16
52 million potential drivers in Germany, 17 million actually drive
221 million potential drivers in America, 210 million drive daily
17 million vs 210 million daily drivers
~12x more drivers, only 2x more death
Per capita isn’t really a way to look at it
Besides automatic cars or lack of a manual transmission is not causing accidents.
Chance of death goes up significantly with speed
No one has ever crashed because they couldn’t go over the speed limit
I would, but I ran out of crayons
What if we’re too American to draw an appropriate conclusion from that?
How many football field sized conclusions would it be?
Probably more related to the god-awful infrastructure design in the US, like stroads and an unfathomable tendency to use stop signs for a lot of things they are just not fit for, like to replace speed bumps, chicanes, and roundabouts.
Also the better comparable statistic should be deaths per distance traveled in cars.
Here is the list 6.9 vs 4.2 deaths per 1 billion km. 12.8 vs. 3.35 per 100’000 inhabitants.
But you need both for a fuller puncture, not everyone involved/dieing is in a vehicle.
Not to mention the DUI rates in the US are astronomical. Over 1/3 of motor fatalities are alcohol related in the US.
Chicanes are the best part about riding a sport bike! I get to drag knees on public roads!
No thanks. I switched to automatic shortly after I moved to Reading where I found in all the stop start traffic I was constantly dancing the clutch fandango and heading for having a left leg like a tree trunk.
Lol that handbrake start is utterly useless if you live anywhere that’s actually hilly all over.
You’ve got to learn the proper clutchwork from the very start or you’ll be taking years on every hill.
Unless you’re starting from a cold start on a hill without ABS, I guess it could a safety precaution.
that handbrake start is utterly useles
In my native country that was a requirement for the driving test.
I live in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and regularly drove my standard transmission in San Francisco (one of the hilliest cities in North America), and used my hand brake all the time to maintain my position while I engaged the transmission. I’m not really sure what you’re on about…
Yeah, I’ve heard tons of tricks over the years.
Just be fast. That’s the trick, practice and you’ll get fast at applying just the right amount of clutch in an instant.
I’m curious, how do u do it? I mean you need a foot on gas and one on the clutch to start, how do you keep your car still without handbrake (other than just being quick after moving away from the brake)?
It’s a quick motion, but the essence is that while moving from the brake to the gas, you’re also starting to apply the clutch to grab even at the still idle speed of the engine. It’s not several steps but a fluid motion, and as weird as it sounds, it’s something you pick up by feeling what the car needs to maintain the right engine speed while also not engaging the clutch too much and causing lugging or a stall. It’s why most new manual drives start in a empty level place like a parking lot and practice just going from stop to moving slowly, over and over. I also told both my boys the first time they got behind the wheel the same thing my dad did - you WILL stall out the first time. And they did. :D But they both have and love driving stick now, and hate if they have to drive someone’s automatic.
I see thanks, tbh my car is pretty crappy but if the uphill is too steep I will back up a little without handbrake and the guy behind me wont be happy :D
Oh yes, it’s absolutely dependent on the car’s abilities. But honestly there’s nothing wrong with using the handbrake if you need to in a bad situation. I’d say it’s a sign of a good driver to know the option is there and to use all of them together to get going safely.
I had to use the handbrake once on a 73 Beetle to prevent disaster. I was coming to a stop sign near home, pressed the brake, and it went to the floor. The sensor on the brake cylinder had shorted out and melted a hole, and the brake fluid went right out. Terrible design. But my awareness of what was left made me go straight to the handbrake and slowly come to a stop just in time, then I limped back home and figured out what had happened. So it’s not there just for a parking backup.
As a classically trained driver I’ve found automatics make people drive worse because they have to think less. And they already barely think.
Manual occupies their phone hand. How is someone supposed to heart content so the algorithm gives them more of it!
Using the PRiNDle opens one up for so many activities.
using the PRiNDle
What the fuck is a “classically trained driver”?
He was taught by the same institute that taught Beethoven to drift.
Grand staff drifting
Didn’t go to one of those lousy postmodern driving schools I think
Mom took him to a big office building parking lot on a Sunday when it was quiet. At least that’s how this classically trained driver learned.
Like Robert Wells or Bill Nye.
I’ve actually observed the opposite. Automatics leave more brain cells to focus on traffic.
“Self driving” cars on the other hand…
They use them to focus on their phones, not the road
That’s just a type of driver though. They come in all transmissions.
Do you sing an aria by Mozart or something when you drive? But anyway, in my experience driving manual makes people more distracted because they have to think about gears and the clutch and stuff. Sure, a competent driver will not have any difficulty with that, but there’s an awful lot of them out there that don’t quite fall into that category.
You must not know how to drive a manual. When you know how to drive one, you don’t think about it. You just do it. You feel connected to the car and connected to the act of driving. Automatics absolutely allow people to go on autopilot and they focus on anything but driving: stuffing their face with food, browsing lemmy, texting, talking on their phone on speaker while holding it up to their mouth for some fucking reason even though it would be easier and better sound quality to just hold it up to their ear like phones were designed to be used, or you know, just use the fucking hands free phone calling that’s built into every fucking car that was made in the last decade and a half and included in every cheap ass aftermarket stereo system available on the planet
No I let my exhaust do the singing. It’s like playing a really simple pipe organ.
Now think about how much worse they would drive if they had to switch their concentration from the road to the transmission.
I mean, I’ve driven only automatics my whole life, with the odd exception of a friend’s ATV or whatnot, but I know when and how to use an e brake (and/or dual foot the brake pedal and gas pedal) to start a car on an incline, when said car has an automatic transmission…
EDIT: Also, most automatics will let you attempt a rolling start in neutral… I’ve done this many times, either rolling downhill or having people push.
You’re not gonna uninvent automatic transmissions.
Assuming you’re American (I doubt a non American would name themselves ‘Boomer Humor’), what you could do is mandate people completely retest, written and driving tests, for their liscenses every 5 years, then every 2 years after some age cutoff (60? 65?) then every single year after another age cutoff (70? 75?)… instead of just assuming that because they passed the test once in their life, all their skills and knowledge are perfect and up to date for the rest of their lives.
Most people think they are much better drivers than they actually are, so lets actually reality check them on that.
I would be so happy if we had stringent driving tests like in Europe. Hell, I’d gladly be re-tested every year if it meant people knew which lane to use and what turn signals were for.
Honestly, thats great to hear.
American car-centric culture is literally directly killing people, killing the environment, killing our ability to design cities and public transit…
You’d think the least we could do is be competent at driving.
But fucking nope, not a chance.
I used to live in Seattle.
Almost no one understands that in significant rain, you need to double your following distance.
Still fucking baffles me to this day. Rain City people don’t know how to drive… in the rain.
Yeah, and all the morons from the Midwest stick their thumbs in their belt loops and insist that they really know how to drive in the snow, don’cha know, not like you coastal people.
And yet there isn’t a single guardrail anywhere in Minnesota that hasn’t got a Chevy Suburban shoved halfway through it.
That would be especially funny coming from a Minnesotan aimed at … at least myself, as a Seattleite.
For starters: It almost never seriously snows in Seattle, so we don’t have anywhere near as good an infrastructure for clearing snow.
Not saying the average Seattleite is adept at snow driving… but… Seattle has A LOT of steep hills.
I’m reasonably confident Minnesota is as flat as a pancake in comparison.
(Checked. MN’s tallest ‘mountain’ is 2300 feet. WA’s is 14,000. Their ‘mountain’ is unironically what I would call a big hill. WA has almost 150 mountains taller than 2000 feet, by relative geographical prominence, not absolute height)
A fairly small amount of snow, especially if it can be cold long enough to freeze into ice, and you’re looking at something like 30 to 40% of Seattle’s roads being either insanely dangerous, or roads that are cutoff by said chokepoints.
I’m talking 18% to 22% grade.
Apparently the steepest road in Minneapolis is ‘nearly’ 15%.
-.-
That is why a foot of snow basically shuts down Seattle.
Now… going further…
If you live in the PNW and actually try to see all the sights… aka, leave Seattle…
Well you hit the fucking Cascade mountains, where it often snows considerably, the foothills have tons of smaller cities and rural communities with garbage tier snaking roads of extreme grade, and on the east side of the state, they get massive snow dumps all the time, though it is much more flat.
So if you’ve actually driven or lived around a good deal of WA… you’ve probably had to encounter a lot more difficult snow conditions than an average MidWest driver.
A big reason why I’m all for public transport is to get people off the road who shouldn’t be there in the first place so they’re out of my way when I’m driving.
Kind of like how I support new urbanism because it means less wilderness plowed under for suburbs, so I have more native habitat. I don’t want to live in a city, I just want most people to live in them so I can ve alone with my woodland friends.
“… get people off the road who shouldn’t be there in the first place…”
i get the sentiment but i think this is problematic.
who deserves the right to drive then?
i hear you, “people who are capable”. but real life isn’t so cut and dry. the way it works in america now is awful fs, you can back this up with death statistics fairly easily; however, i think this tribalistic “us vs them” attitude drivers get is emblematic of deeper problems in our culture.
everyone is all for the animal farm until they’re the other. cliche, i know, but it’s true.
Driving isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. And we determine who can drive by testing them to see if they know and will follow the rules.
Plus the old dude I saw today with shaking hands and an oxygen tube in his nose deserves to have an alternative where he won’t kill himself or others.
oh yeah, it’s surely a privilege to be allowed to participate in society.
the argument “driving isn’t a right, it’s a privilege” falls entirely flat on its face when there exist no alternatives for a large majority of people and their lives. hardcore boomer energy that blatantly ignores the reality on the ground.
i agree, there are people who shouldn’t drive. i wish i didn’t have to drive.
that simply isn’t feasible in the current reality, tho.
driving can once again be a privilege only after it returns to no longer being a necessity. it is the natural right of all peoples to participate in their society. i agree with the sentiment, driving is a privilege that should be earned. but we should do ground work to make that true, we can’t just ignore the real world and indignantly say whatever we feel like; real life isn’t harry potter and the symbols and words we create bare no direct power over reality. driving is not a privilege in todays america, you don’t get to be the arbiter of decision here. in a practical sense, driving is necessary. the right to transportation and movement evolves with the age, man; it doesn’t get narrower as time goes on in the way a lot of western law seems to want to imply nowadays.
Death statistics?
https://everytownresearch.org/graph/gun-death-vs-motor-vehicle-accident-deaths-since-1999/
This source doesn’t go up to 2024, but only fairly recently have guns killed more Americans than cars, each year, and the overall numbers aren’t too far off.
Cars certainly cause far more property damage than guns.
Anyone in a car is easily capable of killing another human being or doing them massive injury.
I agree with you that there are many more pervasive and complex issues … driving (sorry) Americans to be dangerous irresponsible drivers…
But cars are deadly weapons, whether driven as such intentionally or unintentionally.
Maybe people should be more stringently screened and qualified before they are allowed and trusted to regularly use them.
For the record, I think you shouldn’t be able to own a firearm without having gone through a certification course, but as it stands right now, only 10 US states require that.
https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/law/training-required-to-purchase-guns/
All states require you complete a certification for concealed carry… but you don’t need that to legally buy and possess a gun.
Only just noticed Your username. For a moment I thought You were serious.
If I was serious I’d say no human is sane enough to drive.
