I’m doing the driving lessons and I dread them every time. I don’t feel like I’m improving much and it’s just stressful. I feel like giving up. I’m only going because I passed the theory exam with that school, and i would had to spend more money (that I don’t have) if I start again with other school, basically I’m too deep into it to stop.
Btw I now understand the hate towards manual cars. Automatic should be the only option, one less BIG distraction on the road, especially when you’re new on these things, being too soft or too rough on the clutch is a matter of millimeters is ridiculous, watching the road, the signs, the traffic lights, the cars around you, the stupid people with their bikes, while fumbling in the car with the pedals is the worst… (unfortunately you must learn manual where I’m living).
Driving manual takes BOTH Theory and Practice.
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Replay potential scenarios in your head and try to predict how you will react.
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Re-examine your realtime reactions on the road.
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Learn both rules of the road and real-life motorists reactions to rules.
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Safety - Safety - Safety. If it feels unsafe, get off the road safely and wait it out.
Manual driving tips.
Use the emergency-parking-hand-brake for hill-assists.
Practice dual-brake-accelerator press/release.
Practice clutch-release-hold with no brake-accelerator ( fully depressed clutch, quarter-release, half-release, no-clutch … does the vehicle jump forward, at what point does it start creeping forward, what noise is the engine making, how does the gear-stick/shaft feel smooth or vibrating or extremely-stuck, etc etc )
Practice a reliable gear-stick-shift-shaft action. Turn your wrist outward and push horizontal, and up for 1st-gear. Neutral with a downward wrist and wiggle along the central neutral line. Turn wrist upward and firmly push straight forward for 3rd-gear, and tap gear-knob down and wiggle along central neutral line to confirm gear-stick is in the neutral, etc etc.
So by judging how traffic behaves and by establishing clear personal good gear/manual habits, you can improve your reactions.
Look forward of the vehicle for less than 10 meters ( 30 feet ) and drive below 60 kmph ( 40 mph ) if you can’t smoothly handle the manual transmission. Increase by 5 feet look distance as you get more comfortable over several months.
Don’t drive in traffic, park if you feel unsafe without causing problems.
Avoid steep shopping mall parking lots and narrow spaces until you are comfortable handling the manual vehicle.
Add wing mirrors and antenna at the edges of the vehicle corners to help visually identify the area around the vehicle.
Best of Luck and Have Fun once you are good at it. If after 2 years you aren’t getting any results, then manual may not be the best choice for you and you may need to give it up. Automatic transmissions are now making amazing progress and reliability.
No shame driving automatic transmission vehicles.
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I really didn’t like driving when I first started taking lessons and even after I got my license and a car ( I never started driving until I was 30) but eventually I got much more comfortable with it . Now I deliver newspaper and Amazon packages as a side gig .
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Learning the clutch friction point, especially for a new driver, can be a challenge. Even after being experienced with driving manual for years, two things I still hate about them are stop-and-go traffic and taking off on a hill when someone is right on your ass.
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I love manual driving! Sure it didn’t go super smooth when I first started, but after 2 years, I don’t even realize I’m shifting automatically. But it might be me that I want to have control over my car, rather than it driving for me.
Where do you live that you HAVE to learn manual? Here in Germany you have a choice of either learning manual or automatic. If you learn automatic though you are only allowed to drive automatic cars and if you learn manual you are allowed to drive both.
You’re basically forced, there’s the option, sure but nobody takes it because for all jobs and stuff EVERYONE uses manual, so you shouldn’t even bother
Also my family is not rich, I can’t afford a car so I would have to use the only car they have, an old fiat, manual obviously
Hard to say without knowing details. How’s the traffic in your area, is it a big city or more rural? What country?
Honestly it doesn’t make a difference. Especially since I will have to deal with anyways
It gets easier with practice, I don’t know about where you live but in Portugal to get your license you can only learn manual and you have to do
4032 hours of driving lessons before the exam. By the end of the lessons it becomes second nature. We practiced a lot starting and parking in steep climbs and even rolling starting the car as if the battery was dead. But this was my experience, it changes from school to school.Since here the majority of cars are still manual, I believe we should learn them because its much easier to move to automatic than the other way around.
You’re right. You should give up driving.
As someone who drives an automatic, I so wish I could have a manual. I much prefer driving them.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m really glad I was able to drive an automatic and get experience first, but once you start really driving a car, you realize how much an automatic limits you. Things like engine braking, coasting, and honestly just staying in one consistent gear when you’re trying to maintain good speed control are much harder, if not next to impossible depending on the automatic.
Learning to drive is going to take a lot of time though, and the fact that everyone just does it and takes it for granted I think really messes with you. Speaking from experience, most people don’t even learn to drive that well, no matter how much they drive. I see people constantly driving off the lines, poor speed control, braking distance, etc. just blows my mind that where I live (USA) there’s next to no requirements to drive.
I wish that here would work like it works there, next to no requirements. You don’t even need turning lights that much there right? Also majority uses auto, one less thing to think. I don’t even want to take a highway. I want to stay under 70 kph roads
Yeah, the USA has huge issues with people straight ignoring road laws… no turn signals, no zipper merging, no yielding properly in roundabouts, “no cop, no stop” at stop signs…. I mean just insane.
Like I said before, I think it’s much easier to learn to drive in an automatic, and move to a manual when you’re better at it, you know got the basics down. Like using a manual if you’ve exceeded the limits of an automatic, as I described above.
I do think driving can be a lot of fun though, even more so in a manual, but that only comes when you have the experience for it to be second nature to you.
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No, the USA is filled with idiots who refuse to signal… I’m the weird guy for signaling everything, including in parking lots….
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It becomes easy with practice, and driving a manual is not distracting at all once you get the hang of it
I think the roads would be safer everybody drove a manual. It makes it harder for drivers to do other things and be distracted.
Not really, most people here in Germany drive a manual and it doesn’t stop them from using their phone while driving
“Operating death machine is safer if it’s more difficult” is definitely a take
I have a car that’s both auto and manual and I use them both but I cannot agree with that.
No, it’s not awful all the time. Cruising down a highway or familiar streets can be kind of zen. I say this as someone who despises car-culture and believes most transit should be mass, public, transit options like buses and trains. But I have fond memories of cruising down the highway at night by myself singing along with my favorite music.
I live somewhere that’s walkable and has a subway system now, and it’s much better. Don’t have to worry about parking, insurance, fuel, drinking too much. So if you really hate driving, you could look into living somewhere that doesn’t require it.
The whole “living somewhere else” is not a reality for me, I already live somewhere else and I’m broke
I don’t have much experience with manual, but I do have severe ADHD. From my experience, it takes about 6 months of driving every day before your brain does most of it automatically. It is really awful at first having to constantly think about every step. Couple random anecdotes that may help. My assumption is you are driving on the right:
- Drive barefoot or with minimalist shoes. You can really feel the car and road this way. Flip flops are a no no. All it took was them getting caught in the pedal once to never do it again.
- Leave lots of space in front of you in high traffic situations. If you are sitting in the far right/exit/slow lane a lot it will help other drivers get around you. If it is a mulilane highway, it may be safer to stay in the middle lane until it is time to exit.
- Look left first. Oncoming traffic hitting your driver side door is bad.
- If you ever ever doubt when looking both ways, just look again. People can wait.
- People get mad or do stupid shit. It is ok. We stop being rational people once “time” enters the equation. At some point, getting mad at other drivers all the time makes you a worse driver. Learn to just let shit go.
- Try to space yourself where you don’t create blindspots for yourself or others.
- Position your side mirrors properly. If you can easily see you car door, they are pointing in too far.
Adjust your seat and steering wheel. You want the steering wheel far away from your face. If you have an adjustable steering wheel, this will be a lot easier. There is a little lever you can pull to unlock it.
- Unlatch the wheel and push it completely away from you.
- Adjust your seat first so you can reach the pedals and feel in control of run. Test how it feels to push the brake, clutch, etc.
- Now, adjust the steering wheel. Put your arms straight out. You want your wrists to touch the “10&2” position of the wheel.
- Keep the steering wheel as low as you can, but still see the instruments, and make sure there is plenty of space between you and the very deadly airbag. You do not want it hitting your face and it needs enough space to deploy to properly protect you
- Make final adjustments as needed and recheck your mirrors.
Ah, so I really did mean the 10 & 2 for figuring out that positioning of the seat/wheel only. I absolutely agree that 10&2 is a terrible position for driving. 9&3 is much better.
I read an article a while back on how to position the wheel, as it is especially a problem for women. Airbags can absolutely kill you and I spent some time readjusting everything to make sure the airbag would not deploy in my face or too close to my chest. Adjusting the seatbelt height thing is also really important, but with breasts the damn thing still drifts to where it shouldn’t. Just not as bad.
Absolutely check with the women in your life about this as a lot of us don’t think about it until we get in an accident and the airbag and seatbelt do more damage than the crash. I am lucky I have only had a minor crash once with no airbag deployed. There are ways to get pedals adjusted by the dealership or swapped with longer ones. I assume mechanics can probably do it too, but I personally do not know how that all works.
Yeah, I did driving lessons once and realised it was too late for me to start learning driving.
So I decided to be the stupid people with their bicycle and I’m much happier.I feel much more in control when I am the motor and tend to get much better reaction times. On top of that, the lack of vision blocking, making it easier on my low situational awareness.
It’s way cheaper too.
It’s never too late to learn. Of course, I’m not saying you must learn, but if it is something you want to do, it’s absolutely never too late.
It becomes increasingly difficult to add a subconscious actions with age. And I didn’t consider it worth the effort.
I could still drive on a highway with low traffic. And I have never seen an automatic transmission yet.
Skill issue
Hello, driving enthusiast here.
Driving was stressful for me to learn as well. But i picked it up pretty quick. I learned in an auto and learned manual later which took some practice.This all being said, like anything else, you are only finding manuals distracting because you’re still learning and they aren’t second nature. once you don’t have to think about driving a manual it won’t be distracting. automatics are the distraction problem, imo, because they allow drivers to play on their phone instead of driving.
I’ve only ever fallen asleep while driving an automatic (twice), never a manual.
You are frustrated while you are learning and that’s to be expected but don’t you dare go blaming your problems on others, such as cyclists. Being a poor, distracted, and terrible driver is your fault and your problem. If you can’t handle driving around other people then stop driving.
I’m sorry but cyclists here are horrible. I can blame them all I want due how terrible are at not respecting their space
I do think it’s the car drivers responsibility to watch for pedestrian and cyclist (I am all of these on different days) but my God yesterday during a storm a cyclist drove right through a red light into oncoming traffic right in front of the car in front of me. We desperately need more bike infrastructure here and also for bikers to not drive like they want to die.
