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How America lost its love for the stick shift

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Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#351

Post by brenschluss »

r00fus wrote: post #221
0x00000000 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To each their own, but stop and go traffic does not exist in the absence of stoplights if you leave adequate space in front of you. If you tailgate, ride your brakes, or have to stop completely you are contributing to traffic jams behind you. I drive a 6 speed in one of the worst traffic areas in the US every day.

This is pure conjecture. You cannot control how traffic behaves, and if you constantly let people go in front of you, people behind you will get irrationally angry (danger exposure). Yeah you can smooth things out and inject a bit more zen into your experience by accelerating and decelerating more gently and leaving a larger than normal gap, but stop&go simply exists and is a pain even with an automatic. Adaptive cru…

Here’s an experiment proving this idea: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607841/a-single-autonomou...

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#352

Post by chrisdhoover »

jhayward wrote: post #309
0x00000000 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To each their own, but stop and go traffic does not exist in the absence of stoplights if you leave adequate space in front of you. If you tailgate, ride your brakes, or have to stop completely you are contributing to traffic jams behind you. I drive a 6 speed in one of the worst traffic areas in the US every day.

This is arrant nonsense, and is just short of telling everyone who drives in freeway stop and go traffic that they're just idiots who don't know how to drive. Unless you can control the behavior of adjacent lanes there is no achievable amount of buffer space that eliminates stop and go. The best you can do is increase the glide time between stops. At times you will see, e.g., semis lining up side by side to help keep…

You are wrong. You can drive like truckers, just roll, maintain space, and keep off the brakes.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#353

Post by saltcured »

rootusrootus wrote: post #183
taeric wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I confess I gained a ton of respect for Klik & Klack was when they gave the advice to not teach kids on a stick shift. This is akin to teaching a kid to ride a 21 speed bike. They can probably get up to that rather quickly, all told, but just learning the basics of balance and pedaling will already be difficult enough. Similarly, just learning the basics of the car will already be tough. Why add to it? Why not take a…

I'm not sure it's really that big a deal. My dad taught me to drive by going out to a lonely national park with a lot of parking lots and letting me figure it out. On an automatic, yes. 20 minutes later he said, okay, good, now drive us home. And I did. Driving isn't that magic. So I will probably teach my kids how to drive our pickup first, and then for laughs we will take my 455 horsepower Camaro out to learn how a…

I think I started learning manual transmissions when I was about 8 years old, riding with my father. He'd pick less busy stretches of road and tell me I had to shift for him, while he operated the clutch. At first, he told me what gear to move to next, then started to just say "shift" and expect me to have figured out we need to upshift or downshift, and eventually he would just warn me I was on duty and then expect me to anticipate and synchronize with his pedal actions without further voice signals.

When I was tall enough, he'd have me move his car around on our long driveway so I learned to feather the clutch for start/stop maneuvers in first gear. By the time I was getting my learner's permit and hitting the road for the first time, I already had the theory and practice for the drive-train and could focus on the more important traffic rules and vigilance.

I still remember his "graduation" test for me, which was taking me on a ride to a nearby very steep hill and parallel parking. Then, he gave me the keys and said very sincerely that I needed to pull out, drive around the neighborhood, return, and park back in the same spot without burning the clutch and without stalling the engine...

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#354

Post by chrxr »

The major downside, I think, of the US totally abandoning the stick shift is that in my experience the majority of rentals outside of the US are stick. I'm very aware of this in Europe, and I guess it would also be true in even less developed countries. I recognize that this is a somewhat niche problem but when the time comes and you can't drive any of the rentals on the lot, that's going to be a real pain!

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#355

Post by rmason »

I love driving a stick shift. I also love Morse code. They're both probably anachronisms but I don't care.

My 19 year old niece bought an old F-350 and taught herself to drive a shift. She told me that it was retro cool because so few in her generation know how to drive one. I may have to teach her Morse code ;<).

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#356

Post by jjjensen90 »

goatslacker wrote: post #304
t0mbstone wrote: post #163

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…

Never found paddle shifters to be in the same league as a manual transmission even in modern high performance cars. There's always that bit of lag and delay with automatic that there isn't on a manual.

Maybe you've only driven traditional automatics with paddle shifters slapped on? I've driven quite a few high performance sports cars with twin-clutch automated manuals, what most people would call an automatic (Cayman, GT-R, Evo X, etc) and the shifting using the paddle shifters is WILDLY faster than I could ever shift (I drive a 400+whp manual every day). There's a reason sports cars with heavier twin clutch transmissions still beat their manual counterparts in 0-60 and quarter mile... No human can shift as quickly as the computer controlling the clutch.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#357

Post by ubernostrum »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #311
ubernostrum wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have completely the opposite view. To me, all the "engagement" type arguments just feel like someone telling me that they still insist on using only rotary telephones, because it makes them feel more "engaged" with the telephone, "closer to the machine", etc. So I don't find anything magical or special about having to manually manage the gears when a computer could do it more efficiently and relieve me of the need…

There's nothing magical about it... With a manual, there are two free parameters: Engine speed and its coupling to the wheels. With an automatic transmission, only the engine speed can be controlled by the driver. Computers have gotten better at managing the coupling sensibly, but they still are not perfect at predicting drivers' future intentions.

Computers have gotten better at managing the coupling sensibly, but they still are not perfect at predicting drivers' future intentions.

This argument basically says that if the computer only does it better in 99.99999999999999999% of cases, the correct solution is to have the computer handle 0% of cases. Which makes no sense.

(also, almost all "automatics are terrible at anticipating what needs to happen" arguments are based on decades-old experiences, as if automatic transmissions are fixed in time and incapable of improving)

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#358

Post by stouset »

city41 wrote: post #310
t0mbstone wrote: post #163

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…

My wife and I both have manuals and we sit in stop and go traffic every day. Having to shift in traffic doesn't even register with my brain that it's really anything at all. I simply don't notice.

Yeah, I don't at all understand this mentality that stick shift is a burden in stop and go traffic. I've since switched to a motorcycle, but when I used to drive stick I can't say I ever really noticed or paid attention to the fact that I was having to shift, even in stop and go traffic. After you've gotten comfortable with shifting it just fades completely into the background.

Re: How America lost its love for the stick shift

#360

Post by whateveracct »

0x00000000 wrote: post #208
t0mbstone wrote: post #163

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…

To each their own, but stop and go traffic does not exist in the absence of stoplights if you leave adequate space in front of you. If you tailgate, ride your brakes, or have to stop completely you are contributing to traffic jams behind you. I drive a 6 speed in one of the worst traffic areas in the US every day.

Yeah if _everyone_ left adequate room, but that just is never gonna happen.
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