To my American friends : why don't you like driving with a stick shift?

Question

In France, 99% of the drivers drive stick shifts. In america, you mainly drive (probably 95%), automatic transmission.

Have you ever learnt (in driving schools for instance) to drive a manual transmission. You'd control more you car.

Answer 1

Heavy traffic, cheap gas, so the economy of a stick doesn't mean as much here..

Control is a complicated issue. Sticks have more control if you're going very fast. In normal driving automatics let you focus on traffic, steering, and braking, actually giving you better "control" of the situation than a stick.

I drive nothing but sticks. They're fun.

Answer 2

I drive a manual. I love it, but the added control you may have is rarely needed. There are advantages to having automatics. In pickups, automatic transmissions are rated for higher towing capacities than manual transmissions.

And unlike other answers say, there is not less wear and tear on an automatic transmission. Autos have clutches too, they just are not controlled by a pedal in the cabin. They actually have more moving parts. It is all personal preference.

Answer 3

I think your numbers are skewed...There's no way that 95 percent of the cars here are automatic. My guess is that is't maybe 65%.

Most of us know how to drive a stick shift, and many choose to avoid it, because it's much less work to drive an automatic.

Some prefer the stick because of the control.

It's just a matter of personal preference.

Answer 4

Me, my husband, and both our kids drive stick shifts. We have 5 cars in our driveway, all have manual transmissions. So I don't know what you are talking about. I even drove one last week in San Francisco.

Answer 5

properly, I even have dealt with this question before from different persons and that i will talk approximately this with some adventure to lower back me up. I even have in no way been to France, yet I even have been around French human beings many circumstances in my travels worldwide. i'd say that only as there's a common Cowboy character that persons opt for of people, which has a tendency to be frequently genuine, i think of there are time-honored French who come off as elitists, as though to return for the era of that certainly everyone seems to be decrease type than they're. needless to say its no longer all the French who think of this way. only because it is not all individuals who've this cowboy mentality. My dad interior the 50s and 60s did shuttle to France and had a thoroughly super time there, needless to say the guy could talk French fluently which helped. My aunt went there interior the 80s and reported she had a terrible adventure with a lot of human beings there, specifically human beings interior the service field, waiters, bell hops, etc... She could talk some French as properly, yet no longer as stable as my father. And my aunt is in no way a impolite or stressful individual. So, i replaced into shocked on the time. For all all of us be attentive to it may be that something got here approximately politically between France and the u . s . a . between 1970 and now. And this would of fairly strained kin between our 2 countries. you are able to perchance think of of it plenty alongside the way of ways 2 sisters have been struggling with for those sort of years, yet neither one knows why they began and neither one needs to make an apology, or what no longer. I do think of nonetheless that for the Bush administration to declare we could constantly call french fries Freedom Fries is extremely very conceited and definitely absurd. yet whats up, dont blame me, I voted for Al Gore.

Answer 6

I don't know how you consider that you have more control of the car when you have to use one hand to shift and are concentrating on clutching instead of the road and other traffic??? Most of us prefer automatic transmissions because thery are much easier, require less maintenance for clutch wear and tear, and are a big step out of the dark ages. Consider having to continually clutch in stop and go traffic and compare it with the ease of moving by the mere touch of the gas pedal. I'll take automatic anyday!

Answer 7

I love driving with a manual transmission. I had to beg my dad to let me get a car with one. He was not happy about it. I taught myself to drive it, and after popping the clutch a few times, I had it down pat.

Answer 8

No wonder I have that overwhelming sense of no control when I drive my automatic.

Forget automatic transmission, I can't wait for them to invent the car you don't have to steer.
Bet you guys like cleaning the record, checking the needle, loading the record on that spindle thingy, and sliding the play lever. That's control. Forget the Ipod.

You ever drive in stop-and-go traffic, uphill everyday?

Answer 9

I love my manual transmission. I would NEVER trade it for an automatic. I feel more "in control" with my 5 speed mustang. I acually HATE automatic cars.

Answer 10

You are asking the wrong question. The real question is, "Why can't the French AFFORD cars with Auto transmissions?"

The reason the French drive manual transmissions is that in their socialist economy where losing a job means YEARS, perhaps the rest of your life on the dole, they are too poor to buy automatic transmissions.