all that was around when I learned to drive was a manual
I have given this a fair amount of thought.
I learned to drive on a manual. My dad replaced our old 352-Cleveland Ford Torino automatic just as I turned 16. He replaced it with a PoS Datsun F-10. So I learned on that, and I took my road test with the '78 diesel Rabbit (the "nice" car). It was a few years until I "learned" how to drive an automatic.
No doubt, manuals can be more fun, especially on a UK rental where it's backward. I broke a lot of nails trying to shift the door handle. However, I am at a stage in life where sitting in crawling traffic in a manual is NO FUN. And I do a lot of that around here. And thanks to Rocketchip, my 2.0T is a lot of fun. And for the record, I put it in D and it makes all the decisions.
My problem with automatic transmissions is so many of the people who drive them. I swear sometimes, the brake lights come on when the foot is lifted from the accelerator. Does anyone know how to coast?
I spent a good portion of yesterday afternoon teaching my 18 year old niece and her friend how to drive a standard. It was funny to see their excitement when they finally got rolling and shifting through the gears. They were excited to get out of the parking lot and 'have fun.' Made me proud, but took years off of the life of my clutch; time to sell the Audi!
They made it to the beach in my mother's B4 this morning. Good thing it has a VR6 clutch. And a beach sticker.
I have a pretty similar story, Oil crunch hit in 73 and the V8 automatics hit the bricks. By mid 74 we had nothing but manual trans Toyota's and Mazda's.
So by the time I started to drive a few years later a manual was all we had to learn to drive on. Got my license in a red 4dr 72 Mazda Rx2, 4spd manual trans.......My car was a yellow 4 spd Rx4, put 400+k miles on that thing. In later years I put a 5spd trans in the thing....
I also got my school bus license training while I still had my permit, all the buses were 4 sp manual trans. So by the time I got my license I had a lot of good training in a manual trans vehicle. I got my license on a Wed. morning and was behind the wheel of a school bus that afternoon! Later I got a commercial license, again in a manual trans truck.
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The clutch is a lot stronger than you might think, I have only lost one clutch over the years from teaching someone to row their own gears. And we are talking about close to 100 people now I have taught to row their own gears.
The one that did fail had over ~920,000 miles, that's right over 900k on the original clutch in the 1979 Celica I had. Original engine, trans and clutch! I was selling the car when some yokel who had no clue how to drive a stick came to look at the car. It ran for another ~4 years to guy I sold it to, ~1,100,000 miles on the clock when a guy ran a stop sign running into it totaling it.....
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On right hand drive driving.............
The door handles were not my problem, it was those damn wipers!
Every time I wanted to turn on the turn signals I would hit the wipers.... After a few weeks and a few thousand kms of driving on the other side of the road down under in several different 5 spd manual toyota corolla models I had gotten used to turn signals being on the other side. And when I got back to the states the fun continued for a week or so.......
After adapting to right hand drive setup driving, in the week or so after I got back every time I would try to make a turn I went to hit the turn signals those wipers started up again...
....
The second day back I was driving through a grocery store parking lot when I realized I about to turn into oncoming traffic on a divided boulevard. It was like, ok which way am I supposed to turn.....
....
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I don't care what any peddle pusher automatic only driver believes, they are dangerous to all who are around them disconnected from driving drivers!
You ask, what is a peddle pusher...?.....
(Peddle Pusher- Automatic only driver, has no clue how to drive a manual trans vehicle. They are Someone who has no clue how to actual drive the car other than just putting the vehicle in D and pushing the peddles.
They are Usually driving around pushing the brake and the throttle most of the time together. They have No clue whatsoever how to use the throttle, engine or gears to control the car.. To them "gears?"... "what are gears"..
..
They have no awareness to their speed in relation to traffic conditions or what gear they are in or need to be in. They consistently over accelerate just to have to slam on the brakes. They always see the lowest mpgs numbers possible in whatever they drive.....You get the idea......
Driving, what is that...
) )
And these peddle pushers are not aware, have no clue of how disconnected they are from most driving situations they face. And they stay clueless to actual driving until a situation arises that forces them to learn to drive a manual trans.....
I wish we would at least require them to pass a simple driving test to teach them driving control skills automatic only drivers are lacking today here in "automatic only land"......Those missing skills make them a danger to themselves and everyone else. And make them someone you really don't want to ride with and someone to be avoided at all costs by others while driving..