Manual or automatic?

What do you prefer to drive? Manual or Automatic?

  • manual

    Votes: 195 70.7%

  • automatic

    Votes: 81 29.3%
  • Total voters
    276
I learned to drive on a manual. I prefer them. Every vehicle (four total) I've owned since 1984 has had a manual transmission. I won't buy anything else.
 
I use to spend 5days a week 50 weeks a year messing with an 18,13, 10, 8 … so Auto for everyday car (can’t stand a manual gas car).The toys, both diesel & manual … 94 tdi Jetta and 90 f250 both 6 speeds
 
I love driving a manual for fun and in some vehicles it is a must-have. However, when commutes become long stretches of stop-and-go and bumper to bumper traffic, I dream of an automatic. I also miss the full act of operating the machine completely with no computer intervention. One of my fondest vehicles was a 72 dodge pickup with a 3 on the tree manual, no power steering or brakes. It was an adventure going anywhere in it with no electronic nanny.
 
I love manual, not quite good while you’re suck in traffic. But loved them since I was a kid and watched how O’Conner drove his skyline and supra
 
I used to prefer manuals. But as I've gotten older, I've become fond of automatics.

Plus the effort needed to find a manual transmission version of the car I want these days just isn't worth it.
 
Neither. I stick to buses. UK has a good transport system.

Why risk car accidents? Do you people know how common they are?

more than 1.35 million lives each year and cause up to 50 million injuries.

Yea. You people better be mindful on the roads.
 
Mesond said:
Neither. I stick to buses. UK has a good transport system.

Why risk car accidents? Do you people know how common they are?

more than 1.35 million lives each year and cause up to 50 million injuries.

Yea. You people better be mindful on the roads.
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Not every place has a good transportation system. The UK does. In most of western hemisphere, you don't have any choice except to drive because there are no buses.
 
K9Evangelist said:
Not every place has a good transportation system. The UK does. In most of western hemisphere, you don't have any choice except to drive because there are no buses.
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The U.S kind of fucked itself with its road system. Not enough lanes for busses basically. In order to make buses work in the U.S it requires either more lanes (and thus taking up more space) or phasing out cars for buses.

There's no ideal outcome once you already built the roads. But there's also trams. Trains. There are options.

If you don't have the options then create them. Make them somehow. Sky trams is an idea. Why don't we have sky trams again? Are tracks just harder to mantain if in the air or something? Probably something to do with weight when it comes to long term use of trams or something.
 
Population density. Most of the US doesn't have high enough population density to support your suggestions.

Your suggestions makes sense in major cities and along the Atlantic Seaboard. They don't make sense in states like Wyoming, Idaho, any state west of the Mississippi River other than the major metropolitan areas.

Two examples: I live in a state that is 20% larger in land area than the UK with 10% of the population. California, our most populous state, has 58% the population of the UK and is 74% larger in land area.

It's often difficult for Europeans to grasp the distances in the US. We drive from state to state the way Europeans drive from one country to another.

We do have public transportation where population density supports it. Everywhere else an automobile isn't a luxury, it's a necessity.
 
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K9Evangelist said:
Population density. Most of the US doesn't have high enough population density to support your suggestions.

Your suggestions makes sense in major cities and along the Atlantic Seaboard. They don't make sense in states like Wyoming, Idaho, any state west of the Mississippi River other than the major metropolitan areas.
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THIS!

K9Evangelist said:
Two examples: I live in a state that is 20% larger in land area than the UK with 10% of the population. California, our most populous state, has 58% the population of the UK and is 74% larger in land area.

It's often difficult for Europeans to grasp the distances in the US. We drive from state to state the way Europeans drive from one country to another.
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In some places (I'm looking at you, New England region) driving from state to state is comparable to a Londoner going from one block to the next. And once yu get there, you're likely to find out that although everybody (most of 'em, anyway) speaks English, the "customs of the country" can be so radically different that you might well think you've crossed into another country altogether.

K9Evangelist said:
We do have public transportation where population density supports it. Everywhere else an automobile isn't a luxury, it's a necessity.
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Yep. Absolutely correct. Major metro areas like NY, L.A., Chicago, and similar, public transit makes at least SOME sense. Other places, the idea is absolutely ludircrous, and would cost more than any possible benefit that could ever hoped to be gained from it.
 
Mesond said:
The U.S kind of fucked itself with its road system.
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Yeap

Mesond said:
Not enough lanes for busses basically. In order to make buses work in the U.S it requires either more lanes (and thus taking up more space) or phasing out cars for buses.
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More lanes? The problem is their car-centered road design. 4 lanes in a residential area is fucking nuts! More lanes isn't going to promote the use of alternate modes of transportation.

Mesond said:
There's no ideal outcome once you already built the roads. But there's also trams. Trains. There are options.
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Tram & train infrastructure isn't cheap, and th eUS just doesn't have enough population, nor infrastructure density to make that affordable.

Mesond said:
If you don't have the options then create them. Make them somehow. Sky trams is an idea. Why don't we have sky trams again? Are tracks just harder to mantain if in the air or something? Probably something to do with weight when it comes to long term use of trams or something.
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Are you gonna pay for that?
 
*LOL* Ah another older thread gets 'new life'! I learned to drive with a four on the column manual in a 1957 Plymouth. I've driven both and I suppose now I'm kind of driving a two in one as the transmission in my car is a dual (dry) clutch 6 speed automated manual. What I'm especially fond of is that the car can be driven in either manual or automatic mode. On the highway I'm able to wave at fuel stations when I drive by as it gets 18.7 km per liter or 44 miles per gallon.
 
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Mesond said:
Will it make money?
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Almost certainly not, even with government subsidies piled on top of government subsidies. The "customer base" just doesn't exist to even get it to "break-even" in probably 90% of the contiugous United States. Basically, anyplace other than the biggest of "big cities" has zero chance of turning a profit, and even there, I expect that it'll be a damned close thing.
 
My daily is an auto my projects are manual. I like driving manual it's fun but not very practical for long commutes with lots of stopping and starting. So that's why I got the automagical well that and my daily has more space for doggos and gets a whole lot better mileage talking like a 10 mpg difference between them.
 
Bloit said:
No, that's the problem.

The US isn't anywhere closely densely populated enough.
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That's just it. How can you get more populated without more efficient transport?

Here's the real problem though. Food. Would we have enough food? Considering that farmers are in strike in high numbers...

Solve one problem and you get another.
 
Mesond said:
That's just it. How can you get more populated without more efficient transport?

Here's the real problem though. Food. Would we have enough food? Considering that farmers are in strike in high numbers...

Solve one problem and you get another.
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Increase in population density isn't a goal you should strive for...
 
Well, I'm an old fart compared to most on here, so I learned on manuals. I grew up on a farm and started driving tractors at age ten.
I started driving semi-trucks/big rigs/lorries that were all manuals shortly afterward around the farm and out in the countryside. I didn't have an automatic car until 2014! Now that I have an automatic, I'm wondering why in the hell it took so long to get one! lol
 
Bloit said:
Increase in population density isn't a goal you should strive for...
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It's more of a result. Look at China. They try to expand for a reason.

So if you think about it easier transportation which leads to higher population could do more harm then good. Hence why it's not tried for more.

Would it make more money? Yes. For sure. But would it risk more wars?
 
Mesond said:
easier transportation which leads to higher population could do more harm then good
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Correlation != Causation.
Easier transportation doesn't suddenly make people poop out exponentially more babies.

Those leaps in logic you're taking are nuts o_O
 
Bloit said:
Easier transportation doesn't suddenly make people poop out exponentially more babies.
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But it does make it happen faster over time. The simple fact of the matter is that more people settling in locations (due to faster transport) would lead to more space for more babies. Easier travel means faster growth. Which in turn means more food.

One word. Inflation. With food most of all. Due to the war.
 
I'm manual all the way.

Learned in a 1972 F100 3 on the tree.. First vehicle was a 1973 F100 with 3 on the tree...

Just finally found another 73 F100 with 3 on the tree..

And got a 69 mustang with 4 on the floor..
 
I took my first driver's test with a Ford F-100 with three on the tree. The state restricted your license to "automatic only" if you took your driving test with an automatic. Times have sure changed.
 
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