Driving a manual
Sometimes you find something that articulates so many feelings in one place about something and you can't help but share them all. From a comment on driving a stick:furgooswft13
I love stick and go out of my way to make sure the cars I own use them. It was a pain back in 2005 when I got my current car, and now that the baby is over 200k miles, when the time comes, it's gonna be even more of a pain to find one, but hey.
Things you can only do with a manual transmission:
* On any road with a slight decline, easily roll back a bit just by pressing the clutch, no need to put the car in reverse.
* Roll/push start when your battery is drained!
* Downshift exactly when you want to to blow past cars/large trucks on the highway.
* Have your passenger laugh at you when you accidentally stall the car.
* Similarly have your passenger laugh at you when you accidentally grind the gears.
* An Uber driver I got in Detroit told me a story of when his car was broken into and attempted to be stolen, only for the perpetrator to give up when he discovered the stick shift he did not know how to operate. Very handy!
* Get so used to down shifting to first when coming to a stop that you instinctively put automatics in park when doing the same.
* Impress noobs with your effortless acceleration from stop on a steep hill. The ladies love this.
* Bond with other stick shift drivers by collectively looking down upon the masses who never learned. Fucking kids these days (Jeep Wranglers with automatics!? Ugh!).
Clearly the superior driving experience all around.
The only things I'd add would be "because of the fun of needing this extra skill while driving you're now more attentive on the road than average" and "improved ability to eat in the car without making a huge mess".
I want to drive a little ford ranger forever, still looking for a slight upgrade to my current one that has 4WD and AC...
Posted on 2019-04-26 by Jach
Tags: fodder
Permalink: https://www.thejach.com/view/id/361
Trackback URL: https://www.thejach.com/view/2019/4/driving_a_manual
Recent Posts
2024-02-29
2024-01-18
2024-01-14
2023-12-20
2023-11-21