Can you drive a stick shift car?

[sancarlos]

We've been talking a lot about differences between various generations. One of my friends noted to me the other day that most young people can't drive a stick shift, which is quite the opposite of how it used to be. As illustrated in this article. So, it got me wondering...

[rass]

[vandwagon]

I can if I have to, but I wouldn't call myself accomplished. Never had to on a regular basis outside of a month when my wife and I switched cars after our first kid was born. I had a 4 door automatic Civic and she had a 2 door manual Civic. She wanted to have 4 doors while she was on maternity leave. I used to plot a way home that helped me avoid stopping on hills. Embarrassing, but what can you do...

[brian]

Of course. (Though I can imagine the younger you are, the less likely that you can. Short of sports cars, I'm not even sure you can buy a new car with a manual transmission these days).

[Gunpowder]

I had to teach myself when I was valeting, and I was good enough after a few times to go into 4th gear down a main-ish street, but for all intensive purposes you wouldn't want me driving a stick and I'm closer to no than yes.

[rass]

When I lived at home and was of driving age my parents had two cars, one automatic and one standard. Whiny stubborn teenager that I was, I refused to learn to drive stick because it was difficult, so I was stuck driving a minivan around instead of a pick-up truck.

When I got my first car after college, it was a lease, and because it was cheaper, the car had a standard transmission. I stalled out twice driving it off the lot, and as the sales guy was looking at me like WTF I happily shouted "I can't drive stick!"

I eventually figured it out (mostly thanks to NJ traffic and small hills), got stick shifts in my next two cars, and then finally went back to an automatic when I got my current car last year because my wife insisted on being able to drive my car.

[A_B]

When I lived at home and was of driving age my parents had two cars, one automatic and one standard. Whiny stubborn teenager that I was, I refused to learn to drive stick because it was difficult, so I was stuck driving a minivan around instead of a pick-up truck.

When I got my first car after college, it was a lease, and because it was cheaper, the car had a standard transmission. I stalled out twice driving it off the lot, and as the sales guy was looking at me like WTF I happily shouted "I can't drive stick!"

I eventually figured it out (mostly thanks to NJ traffic and small hills), got stick shifts in my next two cars, and then finally went back to an automatic when I got my current car last year because my wife insisted on being able to drive my car.

Sheeh. 70s kids and their safe spaces.

[Ryan]

Not even a clue

[Giff]

Yup. The only cars I had to drive were manual, so it was forced upon me. I was told to stay in our neighborhood until my Dad thought I was ready for busier streets. One day after school I thought for sure I was. And I was, until I ended up stalled at a major intersection and then flustered by all the honking cars. Not fun when you're 16.

[L-Jam3]

I can drive a stick shift, but it's probably been over 20 years. So I wouldn't say I was "accomplished".

Although I always use manual when playing arcade driving video games like that Batman game with the kids. I'm partial to the Batmobile from the animated series.

[Rush2112]

Every car I've own save one (that I rebuilt to resell) has been manual. Started learning to drive with a 2 speed (hi-lo) jeep when I was in my early teens on old logging roads. When I get an automatic as a rental or loaner I feel out of place, don't have as much control, etc. plus I tend to want to shift.

[degenerasian]

not a clue, never learned

[Gunpowder]

Every car I've own save one (that I rebuilt to resell) has been manual. Started learning to drive with a 2 speed (hi-lo) jeep when I was in my early teens on old logging roads. When I get an automatic as a rental or loaner I feel out of place, don't have as much control, etc. plus I tend to want to shift.

Least surprising post in this thread

[Johnnie]

Long story short, I can pop the clutch with the best of them. Can I drive it smoothly? Absolutely not.

Short story long, I initially wanted to drive stick when I first got my license, but no one had one in Boston. The only time I ever saw one was when I was 8 (in California). My downstairs neighbor that drove everyone to school had one. She taught me the concept behind it.

In total, I've tried learning on one everywhere I've lived or deployed to. I've tried learning on multiple vehicles from my friend's Subaru or Mini to a beater Ford that I had to start in 2nd to a beater Honda and to multiple rentals. When you're overseas and unable to drive stick, you get laughed at. So I was definitely the butt of jokes in all those locations.

And even with that equilibrium method of "foot slowly off clutch, foot slowly on gas pedal," it's not smooth. When I borrowed a friend's car in Germany and toyed around on a hill for three hours, I still couldn't get it. When I'm at a dead stop and have to go to first I'm popping the clutch every damn time.

[brian]

Every car I've own save one (that I rebuilt to resell) has been manual. Started learning to drive with a 2 speed (hi-lo) jeep when I was in my early teens on old logging roads. When I get an automatic as a rental or loaner I feel out of place, don't have as much control, etc. plus I tend to want to shift.

Least surprising post in this thread

Audible, literal lol.

[Shirley]

Nope, not at all. My dad "tried" to teach me for about 45 minutes once. On top of a mountain. Somehow, I didn't get the hang of it that one time and I've never had a chance to try since.

[duff]

First car was a manual transmission. Got pretty damn good at driving it. Next two cars were also manuals, but everything since has been automatic. Still am able to drive one, just not as well as I used to.

[The Sybian]

I voted no. Never owned a manual, but my college roommate taught me how to drive his manual truck. I drove it around a few times, but I'm sure it'd take me a while to figure it out again.

[brian]

First car was a manual transmission. Got pretty damn good at driving it. Next two cars were also manuals, but everything since has been automatic. Still am able to drive one, just not as well as I used to.

Yeah I haven't had to in 10 years, but I doubt it would take very long to pick it back up. Also, having a motorcycle (until recently) helps even though the controls are backwards.

[Rush2112]

I voted no. Never owned a manual, but my college roommate taught me how to drive his manual truck. I drove it around a few times, but I'm sure it'd take me a while to figure it out again.

Friend growing up had a 'three on the tree' pickup. I think I drove it a few times, could never get used to it.

[sancarlos]

First car was a manual transmission. Got pretty damn good at driving it. Next two cars were also manuals, but everything since has been automatic. Still am able to drive one, just not as well as I used to.

It's like riding a bike. Once you learn it, it stays learned.

[Moreta]

I can drive a stick. (Insert obvious joke here). I deliberately steered my daughter away from buying a manual though because I was worried her friends wouldn't be able to drive her home if she was incapable due to being young and stupid.

No one I know in her age cohort drives a stick. I learned when I was 18.

[DC47]

I've got several hundreds of thousands of miles on a stick vehicle, including heavy equipment.

My first car was an automatic. A 1968 Thunderbird with a 429. How that thing would fly.

I learned to drive stick when I dropped my dad off in downtown New Haven and had two hours to kill. My plan: learn to drive his manual Fiat 124. About 60 lurching seconds in I was stopped by a policeman. He inquired as to whether this car that I clearly couldn't drive was actually mine. The proper paperwork convinced him. But he shook his head in disbelief that I would to to figure out a manual transmission in heavy urban stop-go traffic. But stupidity is not always illegal.

Like much of what I did at 17, this wasn't the best idea. But also like much of what I did back then, I persevered and it came out fine. Two hours later when I picked my dad up, I was an adequate stick-shift operator.

Hardest stick driving I've done? Taking a dump truck towing a trailer with a back-hoe up route 1 in Northern California. Switchback after switchback, with ocean cliffs on one side. Scenic. But incredibly slow, and nerve-wracking.

Second place is driving my over-loaded VW bus through the Eisenhower Tunnel in a Colorado blizzard when I moved from the east coast to California. Backwards. That's the way to get the best traction in snow with a rear-wheel drive car and a rear-mounted engine; the gear ratio is also lower than first. And I needed every bit of traction as I drove past the "Chains Only" signs and the state troopers waving cars over. I had never been in the Rockies and had never seen tire chains. Though I suppose this episode doesn't really count, as there wasn't not much shifting involved except at the beginning and end of the epic reverse drive.

My teen daughter got a job as a forest ranger in Colorado this past summer. She told me that one of the reasons she beat out hundreds of applicants with similar mountaineering skills was that they had some stick-shift equipment at the ranger station. Not many people under 30 could drive stick. My daughter learned to drive on a manual VW. She had many anxious moments when starting on hills, and shifting at high speeds (missing fifth gear can end badly). But she had a great attitude, and eventually got the hang of it. She spent most of her summer at 10,000+ feet, covering 'her' 500,000 acres of the southern Rockies with a partner and a lama. But driving stick got her the job, even if she only had to use her skills a few times back at the ranger station on days out of the high country.

We considered renting a automatic transmission car for a couple weeks so our daughter could use it to practice and then pass the drivers test more easily than with a stick. But she didn't want to waste the money and was up for the manual transmission challenge. Moreta, one of my arguments for her learning to drive stick was so that she'd never get stuck with a drunk driver taking her somewhere because my daughter couldn't drive the drunk's manual transmission vehicle. In her case, knowing how to drive a stick is protection of the abstemious and smart from the drunk and stupid.

[Rush2112]

If you got into any trouble with the 124 you could have just lifted it out of the way, no?

First time I drove through the Rockies was over Independence Pass in a VW. Fun, fun!

Where in CO was your daughter?

[DC47]

http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/sanjuan/ ... ecid=81032

That Fiat was a total waste of metal. The right approach to dealing with car trouble beyond changing a tire would have been to pull the plates and abandon it on the side of the road, after setting it on fire.

[Rush2112]

http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/sanjuan/ ... ecid=81032

Fantastic! I worked for the Forest Service for a summer as well, though it was at Hapgood Pond in southern VT. Enjoyed my time there and with the NPS, sometimes I wish I had stuck it out, but I didn't really want to be a fee collector in BFE, Utah for 3 years just to get a permanent job. The hats are cool though, and I kept the fleece.

[DC47]

After all, the forest service is a government bureaucracy, with all the negatives that this implies. It's just bureaucracy with fine scenery. So you'd have to get lucky to have a universally smooth experience working your way up from the bottom. But if you are seasonal and not trying to make it a career, you can have some outstanding experiences.

My wife was a ranger in the Uintahs in Utah for two summers, and fell in love with that place. In her second year it was just her and a horse -- she had little equine experience when she started out -- up in the high country, doing what rangers do. When off shift, she roomed with a Mormon family in a small town in a mountain valley. We've been up there twice. Before kids, we backpacked the area that she once rangered. It will always be a special place for my wife, and I certainly see why.

Was your VW trip over Independence Pass in the winter?

[Shirley]

Can you even rent a manual anymore? I thought they got rid of stick shifts at rental places years ago.

[DC47]

Sorry, I mis-typed. I corrected the story above to correctly state that we considered renting an automatic transmission car for my daughter to use to get her license.

[sancarlos]

Can you even rent a manual anymore? I thought they got rid of stick shifts at rental places years ago.

Last time I rented a car in France they only had manual transmission cars.

[Rush2112]

Was your VW trip over Independence Pass in the winter?

No thank goodness, we were headed to a now defunct music festival in Aspen in August. It's harrowing enough in Summer. Though I suppose if plowed the multiple feet of snow on the side would keep you from looking down.

[Shirley]

Can you even rent a manual anymore? I thought they got rid of stick shifts at rental places years ago.

Last time I rented a car in France they only had manual transmission cars.

Well, lah-dee-dah! I was only talking about renting real cars in a real country. Automatic transmission cars, like our forefathers intended.