The author of this article just seems to fundamentally misunderstand (or deliberately ignore) why people like to drive. Just a lot of, “I don’t like it so nobody should.”
But isn’t the point of the manual transmission to be closer to the machine and integrate yourself into the actual driving experience, as well as perform better in edge use cases where a traditional automatic has little or no advantage over a skilled driver? This is literally the opposite of that, adding an imaginary layer of control and artificial sensory feedback that works against the drivetrain. Driving a manual is an exercise in market inertia and value engineering in Europe, and it’s barely more than an enthusiast hobby in the US. I don’t see either group wanting to “play pretend” for long.
I like to drive because it gets me places. If you are driving fast for fun, that’s reckless driving. It should only be on a racetrack. People who drive like they are in The Fast and Furious are dicks. People who ride loud motorcycles to draw attention to themselves have mental health issues.
Not all “fun driving” is reckless driving. Endangering other people is never right of course. But the majority of people with car hobbies are very safe drivers.
If driving is not really your interest, that’s totally fine. I don’t personally see much appeal to it either. But that doesn’t mean you should yuck other people’s yum.
Yes and Id like to put in my two cents. I love driving. And it’s been my experience, having owned both manuals and automatics, that it is way more attainable to achieve fun engaging driving experiences safely when I drive manual. It’s far more difficult to attain that safely when driving automatic. The reason is that automatic cars are usually only fun when accelerating, turning at high speeds, or recklessly speeding. Manuals can be fun pretty much no matter what you do. So it’s perfectly reasonable for me to expect to have a good time when driving safely in a manual, and in my experience there is little to no motivation to pull unsafe maneuvers in the name of having fun. Point is there are in fact people who drive for fun who don’t feel the need to drive recklessly.
The author of this article just seems to fundamentally misunderstand (or deliberately ignore) why people like to drive. Just a lot of, “I don’t like it so nobody should.”
But isn’t the point of the manual transmission to be closer to the machine and integrate yourself into the actual driving experience, as well as perform better in edge use cases where a traditional automatic has little or no advantage over a skilled driver? This is literally the opposite of that, adding an imaginary layer of control and artificial sensory feedback that works against the drivetrain. Driving a manual is an exercise in market inertia and value engineering in Europe, and it’s barely more than an enthusiast hobby in the US. I don’t see either group wanting to “play pretend” for long.
I like to drive because it gets me places. If you are driving fast for fun, that’s reckless driving. It should only be on a racetrack. People who drive like they are in The Fast and Furious are dicks. People who ride loud motorcycles to draw attention to themselves have mental health issues.
Not all “fun driving” is reckless driving. Endangering other people is never right of course. But the majority of people with car hobbies are very safe drivers.
If driving is not really your interest, that’s totally fine. I don’t personally see much appeal to it either. But that doesn’t mean you should yuck other people’s yum.
Yes and Id like to put in my two cents. I love driving. And it’s been my experience, having owned both manuals and automatics, that it is way more attainable to achieve fun engaging driving experiences safely when I drive manual. It’s far more difficult to attain that safely when driving automatic. The reason is that automatic cars are usually only fun when accelerating, turning at high speeds, or recklessly speeding. Manuals can be fun pretty much no matter what you do. So it’s perfectly reasonable for me to expect to have a good time when driving safely in a manual, and in my experience there is little to no motivation to pull unsafe maneuvers in the name of having fun. Point is there are in fact people who drive for fun who don’t feel the need to drive recklessly.