• Wanted to Start on a Steep Hill? We had a Tool for that: it was Called “Flooring the Gas while letting go off the Clutch”
IT AIN’T NO GOOD MORNIN’ WITHOUT THE SMELL OF NICELY BURNED CLUTCH
I was going to say, I always had my e-brake on when I parked my car and so I always started the car with it on.
Does he mean slowly let off the clutch while releasing the e-brake? Does he put on his e-brake if he stops on a hill, in traffic too!
I’ve had to use the ebrake method before for a hill that was wayyyy too steep and a fence gate closed behind me.
You basically just let off the clutch and press on the gas until the car wants to move forward, then you let off the e brake and go without going backwards.
There are some steep stop sign intersections in San Francisco that I’ve had to use the e brake for.
Seattle, too. VW Vanagon Westphalia with the kitchenette and poptop. Heavy, gutless, and steep roads are a tricky combo.
That’s when you are supposed to use Mr_Mofu’s technique!
that’s mr mr.mofu to you, kind sir.
If you’re on a steep hill, yes sometimes you need to use the handbrake to get moving. This had to be demonstrated when I got my licence, but to be fair some manual vehicles now have automatic hill start. Still a good technique to learn because it doesn’t always activate.
We’d park my buddies Mustang on a hill wherever we went in case it wouldn’t start. LOL, everyone made fun of him saying it was a Pinto. (<- it was this, but really, really shitty)
Ah the Mustang II. What a historically bad letdown.
Daddy needs his coffee.
Seriously, the automatic is so much better for using a truck as a tool. I still drive a stick right now and I’m lucky I miss rush hour most days because we start and end early, one job site.
I’d never choose a manual for dealing with taking tools and materials around the Metro while the assholes I’m trying to service cut me off in stop and go traffic.
And IMO we need to start racing EVs, leave combustion for the 20th century old timer events
oshit I have been bamboozled by a shitpost
I love my automatic transmission and cruise control, but I do think that I may have been a better driver when I drove stick. By necessity, I had to pay closer attention to the road than I have to today.
It helps you become more innately aware of your speed. Gear (which you know either by remembering which one you last shifted to or by touching your shifter) and rpm (which you know by ear and responsiveness) are enough (once you become familiar enough with the vehicle) to have a good idea of how fast you’re going without even glancing at the speedometer.
Also engine braking gives more control over speed and I’m used to doing it, so can add the action to emergency situations without having to think about it so much.
Though the comparison is different when the paddle shifters are involved. I still prefer stick shift over that semi-auto style, but see that as more of a personal preference than technically superior. If anything, semi-auto is probably the superior one.
Though I’d also add the caveat of the technical differences between all three not being significant overall in practical terms. The biggest difference is probably just that driving MT takes additional skill that not everyone has or is comfortable learning/using. Which is nice as an anti theft feature but can be annoying if you want to trade off driving but the other drivers can’t drive your vehicle.
Just by realizing that you probably pay more attention than 90% of those goblins on the road.
All hail the Unimog!
Biblically accurate transmission
you aren’t supposed to show people what the control panel to the mcflurry machine looks like
“How many hydraulic levers you need?”
“All of them”
“How many hydraulic-driven pieces of equipment does your rig have?”
“Mind your own business”
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.
I had a Rambler Ambassador that came with push-button shifting on the dash!
Bruh, that’s almost worse than Tesla
When car companies start charging for heated seats… that’s why I stop buying brand new cars and go for older ones
i miss my stick
There must be a trans joke in here somewhere.
don’t eat the crab dip!
Happens at higher age
PUT IT IN “H”
She’ll go 300 hectares on a single tank of kerosene.
What country is this car from?
I hate the knob. I can’t decide if that or the Nissan “orb of motion” as Garbage Time put it is my least favourite. I miss my manual car, but I’m on the electric train now, as computery as it gets.
Ours has a stick configuration. Fellow Frank supporter
You guys do realize this is supposed to be a parody of boomer bullshit arguments right?
They don’t, and that’s the way I like 'em!
Yeah but I love my manual tbh
No! Dey takin our caaaaars
But what about semi auto/manual transmission like DCT (dual clutch transmission) or sequential transmission ?
I bought a new 2024 vehicle last year with a manual transmission. This will be the last manual I ever own. I don’t expect them to be around by the next time I get a car.
I’ve enjoyed driving stick since I was a teenager. It still makes my commute more enjoyable. A good rev matched downshift still makes me smile. I’m going to miss the experience when it finally comes to an end, but hopefully I can keep it up another 20 years.
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!!!
As a classically trained driver I’ve found automatics make people drive worse because they have to think less. And they already barely think.
Do you sing an aria by Mozart or something when you drive? But anyway, in my experience driving manual makes people more distracted because they have to think about gears and the clutch and stuff. Sure, a competent driver will not have any difficulty with that, but there’s an awful lot of them out there that don’t quite fall into that category.
You must not know how to drive a manual. When you know how to drive one, you don’t think about it. You just do it. You feel connected to the car and connected to the act of driving. Automatics absolutely allow people to go on autopilot and they focus on anything but driving: stuffing their face with food, browsing lemmy, texting, talking on their phone on speaker while holding it up to their mouth for some fucking reason even though it would be easier and better sound quality to just hold it up to their ear like phones were designed to be used, or you know, just use the fucking hands free phone calling that’s built into every fucking car that was made in the last decade and a half and included in every cheap ass aftermarket stereo system available on the planet
I’ve driven manual for over 30 years. Back in the day automatic transmissions were slow, clunky and inefficient. When I first tried modern one, I was instantly converted. Like, I also don’t want to manually adjust rotation speed on my washing machine, why would I do it in the car? Driving electric takes it to a whole new level. It just frees up mind share for concentrating on traffic. There’s no guarantee people will actually do that, of course. And if you think that things that are subconscious don’t take up mind share, you don’t know much about how the brain works. And if you think drivers on manual are less distracted, I have news for you too. I guess you live in the US, where driving manual is a choice. Here it’s mainly in cheaper, older cars which are driven by people who don’t much care about cars or driving.
You’re wrong
No I let my exhaust do the singing. It’s like playing a really simple pipe organ.
Only just noticed Your username. For a moment I thought You were serious.
If I was serious I’d say no human is sane enough to drive.
Stupid is as stupid does. A significant portion of trucking accidents involve the truck driver missing a cue because they were mid gear change.
While it is good to have a person learn to drive stick, it is really hard to get people to learn how to drive if they have zero interest in actually learning how to be a driver, no matter what transmission.
I personally like dual clutch transmissions and daily’ed a car to 175k miles with one, yet I went out of my way to find a manual version of my current car.
What the fuck is a “classically trained driver”?
Didn’t go to one of those lousy postmodern driving schools I think
Like Robert Wells or Bill Nye.
He was taught by the same institute that taught Beethoven to drift.
Grand staff drifting
Wow, was that playable?
To Beethoven and no one else probably
Mom took him to a big office building parking lot on a Sunday when it was quiet. At least that’s how this classically trained driver learned.
like going to a prestigious school for drivers? julihart for driving?
Manual occupies their phone hand. How is someone supposed to heart content so the algorithm gives them more of it!
Using the PRiNDle opens one up for so many activities.
using the PRiNDle
I’ve actually observed the opposite. Automatics leave more brain cells to focus on traffic.
“Self driving” cars on the other hand…
They use them to focus on their phones, not the road
That’s just a type of driver though. They come in all transmissions.
Now think about how much worse they would drive if they had to switch their concentration from the road to the transmission.
I mean, I’ve driven only automatics my whole life, with the odd exception of a friend’s ATV or whatnot, but I know when and how to use an e brake (and/or dual foot the brake pedal and gas pedal) to start a car on an incline, when said car has an automatic transmission…
EDIT: Also, most automatics will let you attempt a rolling start in neutral… I’ve done this many times, either rolling downhill or having people push.
You’re not gonna uninvent automatic transmissions.
Assuming you’re American (I doubt a non American would name themselves ‘Boomer Humor’), what you could do is mandate people completely retest, written and driving tests, for their liscenses every 5 years, then every 2 years after some age cutoff (60? 65?) then every single year after another age cutoff (70? 75?)… instead of just assuming that because they passed the test once in their life, all their skills and knowledge are perfect and up to date for the rest of their lives.
Most people think they are much better drivers than they actually are, so lets actually reality check them on that.
I would be so happy if we had stringent driving tests like in Europe. Hell, I’d gladly be re-tested every year if it meant people knew which lane to use and what turn signals were for.
Honestly, thats great to hear.
American car-centric culture is literally directly killing people, killing the environment, killing our ability to design cities and public transit…
You’d think the least we could do is be competent at driving.
But fucking nope, not a chance.
I used to live in Seattle.
Almost no one understands that in significant rain, you need to double your following distance.
Still fucking baffles me to this day. Rain City people don’t know how to drive… in the rain.
A big reason why I’m all for public transport is to get people off the road who shouldn’t be there in the first place so they’re out of my way when I’m driving.
Kind of like how I support new urbanism because it means less wilderness plowed under for suburbs, so I have more native habitat. I don’t want to live in a city, I just want most people to live in them so I can ve alone with my woodland friends.
“… get people off the road who shouldn’t be there in the first place…”
i get the sentiment but i think this is problematic.
who deserves the right to drive then?
i hear you, “people who are capable”. but real life isn’t so cut and dry. the way it works in america now is awful fs, you can back this up with death statistics fairly easily; however, i think this tribalistic “us vs them” attitude drivers get is emblematic of deeper problems in our culture.
everyone is all for the animal farm until they’re the other. cliche, i know, but it’s true.
Driving isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. And we determine who can drive by testing them to see if they know and will follow the rules.
Plus the old dude I saw today with shaking hands and an oxygen tube in his nose deserves to have an alternative where he won’t kill himself or others.
oh yeah, it’s surely a privilege to be allowed to participate in society.
the argument “driving isn’t a right, it’s a privilege” falls entirely flat on its face when there exist no alternatives for a large majority of people and their lives. hardcore boomer energy that blatantly ignores the reality on the ground.
i agree, there are people who shouldn’t drive. i wish i didn’t have to drive.
that simply isn’t feasible in the current reality, tho.
driving can once again be a privilege only after it returns to no longer being a necessity. it is the natural right of all peoples to participate in their society. i agree with the sentiment, driving is a privilege that should be earned. but we should do ground work to make that true, we can’t just ignore the real world and indignantly say whatever we feel like; real life isn’t harry potter and the symbols and words we create bare no direct power over reality. driving is not a privilege in todays america, you don’t get to be the arbiter of decision here. in a practical sense, driving is necessary. the right to transportation and movement evolves with the age, man; it doesn’t get narrower as time goes on in the way a lot of western law seems to want to imply nowadays.
Death statistics?
https://everytownresearch.org/graph/gun-death-vs-motor-vehicle-accident-deaths-since-1999/
This source doesn’t go up to 2024, but only fairly recently have guns killed more Americans than cars, each year, and the overall numbers aren’t too far off.
Cars certainly cause far more property damage than guns.
Anyone in a car is easily capable of killing another human being or doing them massive injury.
I agree with you that there are many more pervasive and complex issues … driving (sorry) Americans to be dangerous irresponsible drivers…
But cars are deadly weapons, whether driven as such intentionally or unintentionally.
Maybe people should be more stringently screened and qualified before they are allowed and trusted to regularly use them.
For the record, I think you shouldn’t be able to own a firearm without having gone through a certification course, but as it stands right now, only 10 US states require that.
https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/law/training-required-to-purchase-guns/
All states require you complete a certification for concealed carry… but you don’t need that to legally buy and possess a gun.
Yeah, and all the morons from the Midwest stick their thumbs in their belt loops and insist that they really know how to drive in the snow, don’cha know, not like you coastal people.
And yet there isn’t a single guardrail anywhere in Minnesota that hasn’t got a Chevy Suburban shoved halfway through it.
That would be especially funny coming from a Minnesotan aimed at … at least myself, as a Seattleite.
For starters: It almost never seriously snows in Seattle, so we don’t have anywhere near as good an infrastructure for clearing snow.
Not saying the average Seattleite is adept at snow driving… but… Seattle has A LOT of steep hills.
I’m reasonably confident Minnesota is as flat as a pancake in comparison.
(Checked. MN’s tallest ‘mountain’ is 2300 feet. WA’s is 14,000. Their ‘mountain’ is unironically what I would call a big hill. WA has almost 150 mountains taller than 2000 feet, by relative geographical prominence, not absolute height)
A fairly small amount of snow, especially if it can be cold long enough to freeze into ice, and you’re looking at something like 30 to 40% of Seattle’s roads being either insanely dangerous, or roads that are cutoff by said chokepoints.
I’m talking 18% to 22% grade.
Apparently the steepest road in Minneapolis is ‘nearly’ 15%.
-.-
That is why a foot of snow basically shuts down Seattle.
Now… going further…
If you live in the PNW and actually try to see all the sights… aka, leave Seattle…
Well you hit the fucking Cascade mountains, where it often snows considerably, the foothills have tons of smaller cities and rural communities with garbage tier snaking roads of extreme grade, and on the east side of the state, they get massive snow dumps all the time, though it is much more flat.
So if you’ve actually driven or lived around a good deal of WA… you’ve probably had to encounter a lot more difficult snow conditions than an average MidWest driver.
I’ve driven through Snoqualmie Pass in the snow. Much of Wyoming, also. Yeah, midwesterners have no concept. They just think they do.
Laughs in Allison 18 spd
During Covid, I put together a budget sim rig. Played a looooot of VR Assetto Corsa. Learned to drive a manual, then went and did a manual Porsche race car on a track in Vegas. It worked! It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. I was flushed when I got out of the car. It was overwhelming.
Anyway, I was ready. So I took the natural next step. I bought a manual 1984 Ford F-250 with a ~7L (7.4L?) engine, dual gas tanks that held more fuel than I could ever afford. It was a beast. Long story short, I was not ready. Oh, did I mention I lived in mountainous Utah at the base of said mountains at the time?
Yeah pre year ~2000 cars are a bit different lmao
