Community Chat

[GingerPeach]

I've always had a manual transmission in my cars.  Love it!

I have to wonder how much longer I will be able to use one as age and RA keep taking their toll.  I'll hold out as long as possible.

I do love downshifting around corners, and accelerating onto freeways up into the higher gears.  Driving has always been fun.   Luckily I am not in a place with too many hills that I need to cross regularly.  I do remember selling our old VW bug (a 1970s model) and had to help the young man who bought it shift so he could go uphill.

[DiAnne]

Of course but I am out of practice.  

[Sushismom]

Well, I used to know how to drive one but it's been 25 years. I'm sure it would all come back to me, though. I gave up driving a stick when I commuted over a very small mountain. I got SO sick of pushing my clutch in and out and in and out and in and out in the traffic over the "hill". 

[Montana]

My very first car was a stick shift.  I did not know how to drive it when I bought it.  I cannot remember now, why I didn’t get an automatic. Probably money.

It sat in the apartment parking lot for a good while until one morning I decided to try driving it to work. It was rough, but I sputtered my way there. After that, I just kept driving every day until I finally mastered it.  Idling on hills was my biggest problem.

Since then all my cars have been automatic and I have zero interest in shifting gears.  

[Pearlee]

Yes, I can.

[Noel7]

I drove a stick shift for years.  I was taught by a boyfriend who was a pro race car driver in Santa Cruz.

[GingerPeach]

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wrote:

I drove a stick shift for years.  I was taught by a boyfriend who was a pro race car driver in Santa Cruz.

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Well, now you're just showing off, @Noel7 

[libbyannE]

Yes. I only drive a stick, and it saddens me to see that they are getting harder to find. I love to DRIVE! And I like the control that a stick offers. I had to wait six months for my last car from Germany to get the car I wanted with a STICK. 

[Lilysmom]

Thanks to an old boyfriend and one of my brothers, I learned to drive a standard.  My first car was a standard Honda Civic.  My city is full of hills too.  

My brother taught me on a Jeep.  I swear to gawd that clutch only engaged when my knee was at my chin.  That was some machine lol!  Very brave of my brother to teach me how to drive on the back dirt roads of our county.  Great memories!  LM

[Noel7]

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wrote:

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wrote:

I drove a stick shift for years.  I was taught by a boyfriend who was a pro race car driver in Santa Cruz.

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Well, now you're just showing off, @Noel7 

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@GingerPeach

The background is that my father refused to teach me.  I went longer not knowing how to drive than all of my friends.  My father was beyond strict.  Then I got a new friend from Santa Cruz whose brother was a race car driver and after several stays with her family and several dates, I learned.

Nothing to show off, just sad that my own father wouldn't teach me.