scrubbedexpat099

My ATV has it.

dc koop

Unless you're the type who likes to drive fast cars on mountain roads there's no sense in owning a stick shift. Just a complete waste of time, obsolescent and a bloody nuisance in traffic jams, under which conditions most Americans drive these days

hungryhorace

'Attacking' automatic cars is exceptionally easy you realise? They're utter shit, and designed for a certain type of (ignorant) driver.

You're welcome.

Pulaski

There is an America outside of California, you know.

scrubbedexpat091

Pretty much sums it up well. For this area anyhow we lack freeways so most driving is congested slow stop and go city driving.

Got gas Monday so reset the cars info screen and avg speed since Monday is a whopping 23 km/hr. Highest speed limit in town is 50km/h but its hard to get that speed most of the day and only a couple of roads have a limit that high.

Nutmegger

The lanes on which I do most of my driving aren't conducive to speed and there are no traffic jams. I just enjoy driving stick shift and always have done. And as no one else seems to want one, there are some great deals on used vehicles the dealers can't move. My OH, however, endures stop/go highway driving and consequently drives an automatic. As to the stick shift being a time waster, what else is there to do while getting from A to B?

Pulaski

Eating, drinking, tuning the radio, making a shopping list, balancing your checking account, combing your hair, filing your nails, doing your make-up, making phone calls, reading a book, surfing the web, ...... gee the list of things to do while sitting, otherwise unoccupied, in the front left seat, is almost endless!

scrubbedexpat099

You rang?

scrubbedexpat091

I saw someone on the Hwy when moving in January who had a book on the steering wheel and appeared to be reading.

Not sure if reading while driving is a offense under the motor vehicle code though.

rpjs

My driving instructor, who's European (Romanian) and quite a petrolhead (he covers motorsport in the US for Romanian TV as a sideline) reckoned manual transmissions will be history soon as the industry switches to electric cars.

Harveyspecter

Nice to meet people who also approeciate Autos. I've used automatic in my daily drivers since my early 20's. I got ridiculed for it a lot here in the UK, but funny enough many of those people are now coming round!

yellowroom

Funnily enough - no. My feet are obviously wired into a different brain circuit from my hands and arms!

hungryhorace

Not sure anyone here, bar a couple [of non Europeans] are appreciating autos. We're agreed how terrible they are, and what bad driving habits result from learning and continuing to drive in them.

Incidentally, I suspect those 'coming round' to automatics, are those who now have performance gearboxes such as the DSG, S-Tronic, PDK and so forth (essentially all the same gearbox at heart).

Pulaski

Agreed. The only ones who seem to "appreciate" an auto are those who "appreciate" that a car is a tin box that takes them from A to B. No doubt they are also excited about buying a Google car when they can give up steering too.

MrsBonzai84

What have I started!

I appreciate my big automatic MPV but I don't know any different and Ignorance is bliss as they say!