Forget Self-Driving Cars. Bring Back the Stick Shift.
 

Interesting Op-Ed in the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/o...hift-cars.html

I never bought the premise that a manual makes you safer by making it harder to eat or text while driving. People do it anyway.

Manual transmissions are inherently dangerous

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/20...e-stick-shift/

I think that a manual transmission forces a minimum level of attention and requires a greater awareness of what the car is doing.

Does this make a huge difference? Probably not. But, I do think that people who can drive a stick learn a lot about how a car operates that does actually benefit them when driving an automatic.

This.

It makes a small difference. You are aware of what gear you're in (and hence normal speed range, not talking about track extremes here) in town. You are aurally connected as well. I definitely feel more disconnected in Automatic or PDK cars and C swears she would be more likely to rear end folks in a traditional auto (where the default is to creep up).

Worst take ever written.

Few written things as meaningless as this have stuck with me for more than a minute. This still refuses to leave nearly 15 years later.

Not quite at the same level, but I recall a comparable bimmerfest post about windshield wipers suggesting that anyone without automatic windshield wipers were jeopardizing the lives of everyone else because they would have to take a hand off a steering wheel to change the wiper speed while raining.

(Pretty sure I know who wrote it, but I can't find the post and could be wrong about it being that person and/or what they said, so I won't besmirch their name despite that person not having joined here.)

johnlew?

Oh, christ. I remember that post.

Of course the result is mentally lazier people (like they needed a reason to become lazier). This is old news. And there's nothing we can do about it, because we're on a inevitable path that sees us removing the human from the drivers seat. Just give up now and accept it.