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Manual vs. Automatic

What kind of car do you drive?

  • Total voters
    115
I'm ashamed to say that I can't drive a stick. My cars have all been automatics, and therefore I have had no reason to learn to drive a manual. It's not all bad, as it eliminated me many times in college as a designated driver (when I didn't have a car and the only car available was a stick). My brother tried to teach me to drive a manual once by making me drive on the interstate in Atlanta. Not the best place to learn.

At this point in my life, learning to drive a stick is a bit worthless.
 
DeacHoops said:
we're probably going to end up renting a car when we're there for the honeymoon. so you're saying the cars will be normal, but the roads will be opposite? that's going to confuse the heck out of us. sounds like dhtoy is going to be responsible for all of the driving. i want no part of that.
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Yeah, it's a pain in the ass because you have to watch for cars turning left onto the road you're on.
 
DeacHoops said:
we're probably going to end up renting a car when we're there for the honeymoon. so you're saying the cars will be normal, but the roads will be opposite? that's going to confuse the heck out of us. sounds like dhtoy is going to be responsible for all of the driving. i want no part of that.
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I can confidently say that on Cat Island, this will not be a huge issue. Noooot exactly a thriving metropolis.
 
I understand what you mean, ELC, but I also feel like it's a skill that you'd rather have and not need than the other way around. The circumstances that might bring something like that up may be rare, but from a preparedness standpoint, it does make sense.

Plus it's fun.
 
lbE08 said:
I can confidently say that on Cat Island, this will not be a huge issue. Noooot exactly a thriving metropolis.
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ha, true. we've also considered just getting bikes for the days when we want to really explore. all the info seems to indicate cars are better, but we figure the info is probably written for people who aren't terribly active.
 
I learned to drive with a manual transmission, I took my driver's test with a manual transmission and I drove cars with manual transmissions for years and years. Then I moved to a city and experienced the agony of stop-and-go traffic with a manual. No more. So I bought a car with a tiptronic transmission. Nowhere near the same, but it's still fun to be able to switch gears when I want to, especially when I'm passing people on the shoulder or gearing down for the assholes that constantly tap their brakes on the Interstate.
 
DeacHoops said:
ha, true. we've also considered just getting bikes for the days when we want to really explore. all the info seems to indicate cars are better, but we figure the info is probably written for people who aren't terribly active.
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Car is better. To really explore you'll want to get around the whole island, and it's big enough that unless you want a WHOLE day's (long, hot, flat) bike ride, a car will be best. If you're in a settlement area, you can just bark and walk it. PM where you're staying again?
 
I do not have any desire to learn how to drive a stick. I guess I could envision some scenario where it might come in handy, but I would not be willing to invest any effort in actually learning. I am not the type to get any joy out of driving.
 
lbE08 said:
Car is better. To really explore you'll want to get around the whole island, and it's big enough that unless you want a WHOLE day's (long, hot, flat) bike ride, a car will be best. If you're in a settlement area, you can just bark and walk it. PM where you're staying again?
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two places. fernandez bay and shannas cove.
 
I remember which of my cars was the first manual that I owned, but i don't actually remember when I learned to drive a stick before that. I do remember when I was a little kid in the passenger seat for years my dad would let me run the stick through the gears while he worked the clutch while we were driving around. Looking back on it, that probably wasn't the smartest thing for him to do.
 
Learned to drive stick on a 1990 Subaru Loyale station wagon that I drove in high school. I also learned some on my dad's 1994 Toyota T-100 pickup. I haven't done it in a while but I'm sure I could drive one with no problem. Might kill the engine a time or two but I could pick it up again.

The best thing my folks did was to take me to an empty parking lot and made me start and stop a lot. Once you learn to take off, changing gears is easy. The Subaru had the hill holding clutch someone mentioned which is helpful but once you learn to drive, taking off on a hill isn't bad.
 
lbE08 said:
yep, car. I'm pretty sure FB has bikes you can just take to ride.
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ok, cool. i'll be asking you more questions when the date gets closer! (we aren't doing the honeymoon right after the wedding. we'll be going in december, so we've got a while to figure this all out) i guess we're back to the point where, even if there's not exactly a lot of traffic, i'm still going to make dhtoy drive. i get flustered easily by the whole left side of the road thing. he can handle it better :)
 
Never learned how to drive a stick.

Don't really care either.
 
First car was 1990 Jeep Wrangler so learned on a stick. My HS GF also had this corny Toyota Supra, so I learned to drive that as well. Both sticks but, very very different to drive.

Current car is auto, but has paddle shifters, which I do not use.


Also,

 
Can't drive stick. First car my dad ever got for me was a stick right after Wake. Hated it so much I kept on going car-less for a while longer till I got an automatic. I think I more just didn't want to have a car yet, think I had a fear of driving built in from a really bad accident I got in when I was 15-16 right before starting to drive.
 
First two cars were stick, learned on a stick, cars #3 & 4 are automatic. I can go back if needed.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
I remember which of my cars was the first manual that I owned, but i don't actually remember when I learned to drive a stick before that. I do remember when I was a little kid in the passenger seat for years my dad would let me run the stick through the gears while he worked the clutch while we were driving around. Looking back on it, that probably wasn't the smartest thing for him to do.
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My dad did the same thing with an old F-150. I've never owned a stick but I'm able to fake it when i fly home to Florida and have to drive my mom's car. I would definitely be nervous if I had to drive anywhere with hills though
 
TheTwinAndreBen said:
Current car is auto, but has paddle shifters, which I do not use.
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I fucking hate paddle shifters, as well as that tiptronic crap. My wife's car has those and every time I drive it I inadvertantly hit them and all the sudden I'm in "manual". They are just irritating, and pretty pointless since the car won't let you rev too high before it auto shifts anyway.
 
Thought I'd talked myself into an automatic with my most recent car but drove the manual version and it was a no-brainer. Not sure I'll ever make the switch - manual's are just too much fun to drive. Even when you have a dual clutch auto that shifts faster than any human could I'd still take a manual.

I will say that I wouldn't enjoy it nearly as much with a really heavy clutch. Would be brutal in DC traffic.
 
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