491–500 of 729 posts
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> but no automatic will ever give you the same kind of engagement or connectedness with the car as a manual with three pedals will. Good- I'd rather you focus on the world around you.
Maintaining the appropriate gear requires that you're focussed on the world around you.
Adding arbitrary other things requiring focus doesn’t seem like it would help prevent accidents.
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I found that having a stick in traffic was actually easier for me. I could keep it in one gear which meant not moving my foot from brake to gas (I could just use engine breaking and use just the gas).
Can't you do the same thing in an automatic? Put it in first gear?
Speaking as someone who has owned a number of sports cars with manual transmissions, I can tell you why I finally made the switch to automatic: Adaptive cruise control in stop and go traffic. I used to have to deal with a six-speed manual transmission in stop and go traffic for an hour every day, and it was pure torture. I mean, sure, it was fun for a weekend drive in the mountains, but it sucked the rest of the time…
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I just do like the truckers do, leave it in second and crawl. It helps to not be concerned with maintaining a 6 inch gap with the car ahead. I truly believe that stop and go is caused by automatics. All of the brake tapping tends to bunch people up at the end of long lines forcing them to a complete stop. In a manual just let off on the gas a little and the engine brakes a little, no brake lights to create cascading…
I don't know where you live that you can stay in 2nd and crawl. Where I live, the moment you leave a few inches between your front bumper and the car in front of you, someone is guaranteed to cut you off and force you to brake to prevent hitting them. When I say "inches", I mean inches - 6-8 inches of space is enough for someone to think "I'll just squeeze in here".
Driving in traffic is a cooperative activity. The only times you don’t need to accommodate and be accommodated by other drivers are when there are hardly any around.
Speaking as someone who has owned a number of sports cars with manual transmissions, I can tell you why I finally made the switch to automatic: Adaptive cruise control in stop and go traffic. I used to have to deal with a six-speed manual transmission in stop and go traffic for an hour every day, and it was pure torture. I mean, sure, it was fun for a weekend drive in the mountains, but it sucked the rest of the time…
Don’t think I’d be able to keep my sanity if it was an auto - at least I could focus on something other than the miserable drive and crazy work/study hours.
Priorities change, but if I was making a choice today just for me - manual all the way!
Now if I could only find a car without electric power steering... or any power steering at all... (Those old NSXs were a blast to drive!)
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Driving a manual car isn't about efficiency. It is about driver engagement. Yes, you can row your own gears with paddle shifters, but no automatic will ever give you the same kind of engagement or connectedness with the car as a manual with three pedals will. But yes, if there is a smoking gun for the death of the manual in America, it would be our crumbling, congested roads and absurdly long daily commutes.
> Driving a manual car isn't about efficiency. It is about driver engagement. Speak for yourself. I have a manual (actually, I've never driven an automatic, come to think of it), and I couldn't care less about "connectedness with the car". My car is a device that takes me, and sometimes my family, from A to B as safely and conveniently as possible. It's a car, I'm not in a relationship with it. YMMV.
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Here’s an experiment proving this idea: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607841/a-single-autonomou...
That's great in a single lane. What happens in the real world when the moment you leave a gap, the car in an adjacent lane cuts over to fill it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Driving a manual car isn't about efficiency. It is about driver engagement. Yes, you can row your own gears with paddle shifters, but no automatic will ever give you the same kind of engagement or connectedness with the car as a manual with three pedals will. But yes, if there is a smoking gun for the death of the manual in America, it would be our crumbling, congested roads and absurdly long daily commutes.
> Driving a manual car isn't about efficiency. It is about driver engagement. Speak for yourself. I have a manual (actually, I've never driven an automatic, come to think of it), and I couldn't care less about "connectedness with the car". My car is a device that takes me, and sometimes my family, from A to B as safely and conveniently as possible. It's a car, I'm not in a relationship with it. YMMV.
I love driving stick, but I have no illusions that I make better decisions about what gear to be in when than good automatics/CVTs, and I know I'm not saving gas the way I drive. Now, many automatics still bother me or even feel dangerous with their sluggishness, but there are great ones out there that I am happy to drive. But the American market is definitely to the point now where it makes total sense to just elimi…