I used to drive stick in one of the most dense cities and worst traffic on the planet. My left calf muscle is noticeably larger than my right. Manual is enjoyable and freeing, but at this point I prefer an automatic in urban areas with heavy traffic. The volume knob shifter is still weird though.
I live in a city famous for it’s bad traffic, but prefer driving a manual anyway (when driving a car, at least – actual first place goes to riding my bicycle).
Yeah, but when it takes an hour to drive 4 kms, it gets old pretty quick.
Hence,
actual first place goes to riding my bicycle
I still hate to this day one of my parents cars. The gear shift is on the side of the radio and the radio controls(what isn’t touch screen) are underneath.
What the hell is this design.
Bringing back the classics! Great-grandad had one, he’d be right at home.
Bruh, that’s almost worse than Tesla
Laughs in Allison 18 spd
I have never owned a car with an automatic transmission, and I am proud of that fact
I’ve owned ten cars and eight were manual transmission. Currently driving a 2020 Subaru Crosstrek with a manual. We bought it for my wife but she developed severe hip problems right after we bought it. So I made it my own - a 2" lift, smaller wheels with off road tires, aftermarket intake and exhaust, added a subwoofer under the passenger seat, tinted the windows etc.
I probably wouldn’t have bought it for me but now I love it. It’s been up some crazy mountain trails where the only other people I saw at the top were in jeeps or similar. It’s been in deep snow and deep sand. I’ve even broken an axle, no regrets. I use it to it’s full potential and I love being able to be in exactly the gear I want to be.
That sounds absolutely rad! Glad you’re having a blast, friend.
what a silly ass thing to take pride in.
What about those of us who use our triptronic transmission? I manually shift down constantly to take advantage of engine braking to make my brakes last longer. I used to ride a motorcycle so it made sense to me. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manumatic
The driving school I went to would fail people that used the “handbrake start” on a hill.
And also fail people that tried to drive backwards by looking back instead of using the mirrors.
And also fail people that tried to drive backwards by looking back instead of using the mirrors.
Huh, that’s interesting because I was tought to do the opposite. In practice, I do whichever feels right, usually mirrors but I’ve noticed in pickups I’d rather just look back
Wife owns an automatic, it’s fantastic for when you’re stuck in traffic, but GOD does it make shitty decisions. Of course it cannot anticipate whether or not you’re going to be climbing a slope, so it goes up a gear, but then when it struggles to climb it has to immediately go back down a gear, but you lost all speed already and it’s raining and you can’t pick up traction again so you slide back down the slope and try again. It’s also only really effective for the most tranquil driving, and it has a huuuuuuge inertia when accelerating, like a good half second of not obeying your pedaling, which is 1.frustrating and 2.dangerous in situations where you have to get out of the way urgently. So, would only recommend for old people or people frequently stuck in traffic. The technology has ways to go still
Check your owners manual to see if you have a button to disable “overdrive”, it’s for adverse conditions such as uphill or downhill, off-road or rainy, etc. It prevents the shifting up too early and gives each gear more range to operate in. By default it’s on because it saves fuel, and they make the button hard to find sometimes.
There is in fact something like this, never tried it. Thanks for the tip
I drove one of the first semi trucks with an automatic transmission, and that thing was dangerous. It would pop me out of gear going down hill, thank fuck the brakes held out. The reverse gear could either roll the rig back at 10 inches per hour, or 10mph, and not much in-between.
Was nice being able to sip a coffee through traffic tho
That must have been a while ago, I assume trucks got auto transmissions before consumer cars ?
No, much later. Transmissions in trucks work differently and have to withstand so much more stress. Wasn’t till the early 00’s that anyone got serious about them.
They’ve been around since the 50’s, but only became widespread in 2010ish. I think Volvo started offering the first production model auto trucks in 06.
Automatic transmissions have been around since the 60’s or 50’s, IIRC.
Damn. Ours doesn’t behave that way.
Maybe it’s the brand. It’s a Hyundai
US: predominantly automatic transmission, low speed limits
Germany: predominantly manual transmission, higher speed limits and no limits on around half of autobahns (motorways)
US road deaths per capita twice of Germany.
Draw your own conclusions.
What if we’re too American to draw an appropriate conclusion from that?
How many football field sized conclusions would it be?
Probably more related to the god-awful infrastructure design in the US, like stroads and an unfathomable tendency to use stop signs for a lot of things they are just not fit for, like to replace speed bumps, chicanes, and roundabouts.
Also the better comparable statistic should be deaths per distance traveled in cars.
Chicanes are the best part about riding a sport bike! I get to drag knees on public roads!
Here is the list 6.9 vs 4.2 deaths per 1 billion km. 12.8 vs. 3.35 per 100’000 inhabitants.
But you need both for a fuller puncture, not everyone involved/dieing is in a vehicle.
Not to mention the DUI rates in the US are astronomical. Over 1/3 of motor fatalities are alcohol related in the US.
I would, but I ran out of crayons
Quick Google
In 2024 36% of Germans reported using the car daily.
In 2023 95.3% of Americans older than 16 drive on occasions.
83 million Germans, 63% above 16
340 million Americans, 65% above 16
52 million potential drivers in Germany, 17 million actually drive
221 million potential drivers in America, 210 million drive daily
17 million vs 210 million daily drivers
~12x more drivers, only 2x more death
Per capita isn’t really a way to look at it
Besides automatic cars or lack of a manual transmission is not causing accidents.
Chance of death goes up significantly with speed
No one has ever crashed because they couldn’t go over the speed limit
Downvoters mad to find out cars are inherently unsafe and need very good infrastructure and to be remotely safe.
Downvoters mad that Ek= ½mv2, and speed, funnily enough, is dangerous.
Downvoters mad that manual transmission isn’t making cars safer.
Car go vroom vroom, but public transport go better
Fax
83 million Germans, 63% above 16
Not sure why you think this is relevant. Children aren’t allowed to drive in Germany.
Well you can start driving in US at 15
Like I said quick Google
Even less Germans driving, proves my point more
Germans only really drive if they are willing and able
Americans are forced to drive
Car deaths in America aren’t happening because they have automatic transmissions and can’t drive as fast as they want.
Just the seer amount of drivers, more cars on roads to crash into, and less willing and able drivers.
No, crashes in the US happen because Americans are shit drivers. They are shit drivers because you get a free driving license with box of cereal. Germany on the other hand has one of the strictest driving tests there is. A German with a driving license has had many hours of instruction from a professional instructor.
In addition, American cars are shit. Lots of poorly maintained and unsafe vehicles on the road with very lax regulation. By contrast, German cars have to pass a very comprehensive yearly safety inspection.
The perfect transmission UI was the Teletouch on the Ford Edsel. And if anyone tries to argue I’ll say “nuh uh,” run away, and cry.
Agreed
We should also get rid of starter motors. Who needs them? We can just hand crank the car to start it, like real men did back in the day.
I love when it backfires and accidentally breaks your arm! So manly!!!
All hail the Unimog!
Biblically accurate transmission
“How many hydraulic levers you need?”
“All of them”
“How many hydraulic-driven pieces of equipment does your rig have?”
“Mind your own business”
you aren’t supposed to show people what the control panel to the mcflurry machine looks like
i miss my stick
There must be a trans joke in here somewhere.
don’t eat the crab dip!
Happens at higher age
Oh good I got here before the lemmy fuck cars brigade showed up
LET’S FUCKING TAKE THE BUS
Seriously the funniest thing talking to immigrants in the US is them reminiscing about being able to buy high quality produce, food, tools, clothing, gifts, books, etc by walking down the street or taking a bike a few blocks away. Also people daily taking vans, busses, and trains to get to work or school.
Meanwhile our transport setup is so bad, people have successfully marketed ship to your house meal prep boxes which is actually such an insane first world problem when you think about it.
Hi, !fuckcars mod here. I absolutely love my manual transmissions and unironically fully endorse this meme.
I think you might be surprised at just how much crossover there is between car enthusiasts and people who hate car dependency. Cars ought to be like horses: they should be available for enthusiasts to play with, but it should be wholly unnecessary and considered kinda ridiculous to use them as routine transportation, especially in cities.
Frankly, I would prefer it if all transmissions were manual, as it would help encourage people who see driving as a chore to use other transportation modes instead.
Yeah I honestly love driving, but I love walking and biking too. Just because I’m a car enthusiast doesn’t mean that I don’t wish that my city was more walkable or had actual public transport.
Manuals are infinitely more fun to drive and I like to manipulate the performance characteristics of the car myself but they’re probably going extinct to EV which is fine.
Not just EVs, modern beltless CVTs and automatic transmissions make manual transmissions practically obsolete. With a wider set of gear ranges and way better performance and reliability they’re better in almost every way than a stick shift. That said, doesn’t matter how good a transmission is if it’s undersized for the engine, so I’m not say the transmission in any particular vehicle is good, just the tech has developed in recent years
those transmissions are only better on paper. sure they could be theoretically better but in practice the transmission programming is to way over aggressively upshift in order to miser out a little more fuel economy on paper (but in practice they waste fuel)
True, and as someone who’s been driving the same stick shift for almost 15 years now, you can take it from my cold dead hands. I haven’t seen anything with a beltless cvt, and I haven’t seen an automatic transmission I like more than my five speed, except in traffic. The tech exists, although it’s not available.
Waste fuel, and they don’t always do what you want them to do, or sometimes lag before they do it.
I’m suddenly reminded of some ai-death clock site I saw recently. It predicted my death on May 13st.
You’ll die of 3st
