My first manual car

disgustipater wrote: My manual Ford Ranger had the e-brake pedal. Though it's honestly never even occurred to me to use the e-brake on a hill, even when the vehicle has a hand brake. I've never seen anyone else do it either when I've been in the car. Maybe that isn't taught around here.

Every word of that terrifies me!

It's a major fault on a driving test here to allow the car to roll backward on a hill start - parking brake on, use clutch and accelerator to find the bite, release parking brake and move forward. Doing that in a manual with the parking brake on a foot pedal would be a touch risky. I also find it odd to refer to the parking brake as an emergency brake - over here it is considered stylish yet somewhat impolite to powerslide sideways into hazards. I suppose the emergency usage is meant for driving brake failure.

I learned on a manual and until I had to buy a truck for work all my vehicles have been manuals. When I summer worked at Luck Stone, I got to drive water truck instead of shoveling belt lines because I could drive the manual HD truck. I don't think I've ever used an e-brake on a hill start.

But for my driving test, I took it in the same car that I had my school sponsored driving classes in. so it was an automatic and there wasn't anything about driving a stick ever.

This thread is highly entertaining. In the UK, almost everyone drives a manual car: automatics are seen as weird.

The only time I've ever driven an automatic was a hired car for three weeks in Canada. It was so boring to drive. Although I was briefly thankful for it right after I picked the car up, driving an unfamiliar car on the wrong side of the road for the first time ever in rush hour Vancouver.

Sticks used to be cheaper and more fuel efficient and easier to repair. Now none of those still hold, so it's just a matter of preference.

Yep. And I'm past the age where I want to go all Red Barchetta everywhere I drive.

I took my test on an Automatic, but there was no restrictions on driving a Manual in Massachusetts back in ye olden tymes. I used to drive my mom's VW Fox around Greater Boston and that thing had the smallest fucking friction point on Earth. When I got to college, a friend had a Toyota pickup and it was like driving a stick of butter it was so loose and easy.

My dad's old miata has a similar tiny friction point and it makes driving it a constant exercise in delicate coordination.