Zen and the Art of Stick Shift Driving
Slate’s Lantern — which examines whether certain behaviors are environmentally sound — takes a look at the manual transmission. Manual transmissions, it turns out, can realize something around 15% mileage efficiency gains, assuming that the drivers are proficient in not letting the revs getting too high and coasting whenever possible. As a manual devotee, I think this is important information to spread, but the benefits of stick shift driving are much more expansive than being more gas-efficient.
The first is, especially as a teenager, the feeling of superiority you feel by driving in a much more sophisticated manner than 90% of drivers. Of the all the drivers at my school, only THREE drive stick shift cars. Ergo, I can feel superior. There’s also the feeling of accomplishment after one learns how to competently drive a manual transmission. The first few attempts are universally awful, with stalling, the clutch making horrible noises and the awful smell of a poorly treated transmission. But once you figure out how to start on a hill without rolling back, you have a real sense of having learned to do something that’s both difficult and useful.
Even more importantly, manuals are just more fun. One has more control of the car, and by controlling the revs and being able to do things like downshifting, freeway driving and passing is just more enjoyable. Though I haven’t seen any statistics, I have to imagine that those who drive manuals are safer. This is probably for a few reasons. The most obvious is that people driving manuals are just better drivers, or else they wouldn’t go through the trouble of learning how to drive like a gearhead. The second more speculative reason is that having to work the clutch makes one more attentive. When you’re driving stick, you can’t ever space out, you must always be attentive to what gear you’re in and where the revs are, and since its hard to disaggregate driving attention, this leads to being more attentive to what’s actually going on the road.
The final reason stick shifts are sweet is the possibility of achieving a Zen like consilience with your vehicle. After enough time driving a manual transmission car, you are able to shift at the right time without looking at either the revs or even what gear you’re in. You can deduce when to do everything by feel and sound. You feel the car straining too much, you know that when only these two gears are even possible at a certain speed, and thus know when and how to shift. The best comparison I can think of is Luke is flying into the Death Star at the end of a New Hope, when the ghost of Obi Wan Kenobi tells him to “use the Force.” Luke then turns off his computer targeting program and shoots the proton-torpedoes into the Death Star using only the force as his guide. Luke Skywalker would have driven a stick.
NOTE: I realize my last paragraph clashes with the one before, but just roll with it.
I am sorry, but you are wrong about the attentiveness. I find myself spacing off all the time even though I only drive manual. It becomes so automatic, so instinctive, that no thought is necessary. Still, though, I love the control that manual gives me over the car instead of submitting to the whims of the automatic transmission.
cap_and_gown
November 1, 2007 at 2:00 pm
I definitely space out too. But accidentally putting the car in second rather than 4th. Wakes you up real quicklike. I’ve been driving manual (or standard as my parents say) for 14 years now (i’m 33) and I won’t go back ever. I’ve never owned a car that wasn’t. It’s part of driving. When I drive an automatic… I don’t know what to do with my feet and hands.
Christopher
November 1, 2007 at 2:38 pm
I drive a automatic now, but when I was driving a stick I could eat/drink/use the cell phone/nod off/ etc., just as if I was driving an automatic. After a while it was so natural it almost felt like automatic.
But you forgot to include the one big drawback to manuals–being stuck in hours of stop and go traffic seriously sucks in a manual transmission.
SFM
November 1, 2007 at 2:50 pm
I want to support Matt’s attentiveness theory, with the important caveat that we’re all just talkin’ anecdotal here. I drive a stick through city streets every day, and I love it (though I’d prefer public trans). I have a low-to-the-ground mid-90s Honda Civic coupe, and because it’s small and zippy, and I am constantly shifting up or down, I am totally focused on the driving. I have an easy comparison to make, because I occasionally drive my partner’s automatic Subaru wagon, which feels like an enormous boat in comparison to my car — wide, high off the ground, totally disconnected from the road. I feel like I’m floating through space in that car, and it’s really easy to get lulled into a false sense of security.
pdp
November 1, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Neat article! But let me (as a rare visitor to this site) complain vehemently about this “snap preview” feature in the link in the piece: I can’t seem to launch the link in a separate browser, and the damn preview window pops up whenever I scan my mouse across the page.
Stick shifts are great! Javascript popups are evil!
ColoZ
November 1, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Manny Tranny, it’s for me.
The toughest thing to teach new drivers is how to make a turn.
“Brake into the turn, accelerate out of it.”
With the manual trans, knowing just when to downshift/brake, then accelerate/let the wheel spin back to the straight-ahead position is the essence of knowing how to drive/control a car/truck.
Jim Bouman
November 1, 2007 at 4:53 pm
You say that you think manual drivers are safer. Could be, could be not.
Attentive, competent, suggest yes.
Young, think they are more competent than actually are, in small fast cars, suggest no.
Statistics suggest the safest drivers drive tractor trailers, which is manual.
catclub
November 2, 2007 at 6:29 am
“the clutch making horrible noises and the awful smell of a poorly treated transmission”
It’s actually the maltreated gears making the noise, and the smell comes from the clutch.
Cap'n Chucky
November 2, 2007 at 8:54 am
OK, all you stick shifters. How about taking it to the next level – I mean double clutching. Saves a lot of wear and tear on the synchros, but only if you do it right.
Anyone up to that?
aaron aardvark
November 2, 2007 at 1:34 pm
I’m all over it! Let’s start a campaign to “save the synchros!”
The Piratess
January 11, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I disagree with the attentiveness part. I drive a stick shift and I can honestly say, when driving an automatic, you have a bigger capacity to be aware of your surroundings because you’re not in tunnel vision or shifting. I used to be able to spot every cop within 200 feet. Now, driving a manual, it takes my friend pointing out to notice my surroundings. Scoliosis doesn’t help either…
Michael C.
November 6, 2009 at 6:55 am