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I mean it takes a couple of hours of practice to learn it, and maybe a week or so to really get comfortable with it. It's not that hard. Millions of people drov

I mean it takes a couple of hours of practice to learn it, and maybe a week or so to really get comfortable with it. It's not that hard. Millions of people drove manual cars in the past.

deleted 5y ago
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naoqj 5y ago
Or in the present... I have yet to see an automatic in Europe (granted I haven't been paying that much attention)
- topspin 5y ago
  I drove an automatic Renault lent to me by an employer around Lyon, France for several weeks in 2005. Manuals are common in Europe, but automatics certainly exist there as well. One of the cars I routinely drive in the US today is a 5 speed manual. I do like manuals. They're a hassle if you need to operate a cell phone while driving, but that's just a bad idea in any case. One wonders if there were more manuals on the road if there would be fewer t-bone wrecks caused by people texting through red lights.
- archi42 5y ago
  What part of Europe? When I got my license 15 years ago they were a minority, but already not that uncommon in Germany. E.g. a friend from school drove an old Merc with the 4(?) gear automatic. On the other end of the scale [at least to a pupil] the new BMW 645ci owned by another friend's parents also had an automatic (Google says it was a 6 gear automatic, nothing special; I only know it had paddles for manual shifting, but the details are lost on me because for some reason his parents never let us drive the V8). They only became more common since then. These days I mostly associate them with cheaper cars (which isn't a bad thing, just economics) and expect them to vanish into obscurity within the next decade.