Driving standard

Member Joined: Apr 19, 2012 Posts: 24

Why is it so hard to go from driving automatic to driving standard? I have never been able to learn to drive a standard which makes life harder as my husband loves standard trucks.Anyone have any tips on how to learn to drive one?

Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 9:12 pm

Stick shift is not too hard really. The hardest part is starting. I think had a tutorial somewhere here, let me try to dig it out.

Yep, here it is: http://www.funandsafedriving.com/ftopict-84.html

Enjoy Smile

Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 2:57 am

One reason it's so hard to learn to drive with a manual transmission is that few driving schools teach how to do it. It's assumed that everyone will drive a car with a slush box.

I searched in vain for statistics indicating which is safer, a manual transmission or an automatic transmission. There are no statistics which indicate which is safer. The AAA assumes that an automatic transmission is safer and therefore recommends that parents provide their kids with a car with an automatic transmission. However, there are some types of accidents which would be very unlikely to happen with a manual transmission.

Probably we've all read about accidents that have occurred when the driver has hit the accelerator in error instead of the brakes. That's especially likely to happen while driving slowing in parking lots. We've also read about cases where a crash has occurred because the accelerator has stuck or something else has happened to cause the driver to lose control. On some cars with automatic transmission, one can drive without the key and, when the car is moving, stopping the engine requires holding a button in for more than two seconds. So, if the accelerator sticks, the driver is likely to panic and not know what to do to stop the car. With a manual transmission, declutching would obviously stop the engine from driving the car, but an automatic transmission has no clutch. On computerized cars, the shift lever may be nothing more than an electric switch and, if there is a computer failure, the computer may not be looking at the shift lever so shifting to neutral would have no effect.

I suspect that manual transmissions are safer, but there is no proof. It is gross negligence that accident reports to not indicate what type of transmission cars have.