Automatic
As you know, I am currently learning to drive a car. One of the principle difficulties of learning to drive is dealing with the clutch and gear changes. In fact, without those I suspect driving would become a bit of a doddle- while there are still mistakes to be made, there is much less to be dealing with- simply accelerating and steering, something I suspect most of us can easily do with a bit of practice.So why don't we all have automatics? I know that in the US it is far more common to have automatic cars, but here in Europe most cars have a clutch, and are much harder to drive. It certainly makes sense to learn on such a car here, because pretty much everyone you will encounter will have that. But why? There are advantages to stick driving- better mileage,theoretically better speed, but they depend on you going much faster than you would normally for speed, and being very cautious when driving and watching your revs for mileage, as this website argues.
I suspect we vie away from automatics here in Europe for simple matters of inertia, and perhaps prejudice against a system that seems suspiciously easy. Oh well, it's not like I'm going to switch to automatics any time soon, it is just a tad frustrating.
posted by Mr K @ 8:05 pm
3 Comments:
My new car's automatic and it's so easy to drive, with the cruise control on I can pretty much just go to sleep*
When Fred questioned me about the oddly shaped gear stick I explained to him that it was because it's automatic. He immediately disliked the idea claiming it was too complicated, I tried to explain that it's actually a lot less effort. However he flat out refused to like the idea of an automatic clutch - some people eh?
I believe it's a good idea to learn to drive a manual because if the Zombies ever attack and you're stuck with just a manual car to drive you don't wanna be stalling now do you?
Always be prepared that's what I say.
*Don't go to sleep - you still have to steer and brake fools!
manual gearboxes are substantially cheaper than automatics, that's one reason. the other reason would be manual car can accelerate faster than an automatic car, and obviously gives a greater control to the driver :)
Sometimes you want to leave the car in a higher gear going round a corner - if the automatic changes down then it will just spin the car around.
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