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What type of transmission do you prefer?

I always drive stick shift. I don't think automatics are safe - they try to guess for you what gear is best in your current situation, and they don't always guess well. If you have a manual transmission, you can drop into a lower gear for more power and wait to switch gears until you're out of a potentially hazardous situation.

It is kind of vaguely formulated question, Lisa. Theoreticaly, if both manual and automatic transmissions are perfect, then it can be discussed, but otherwise, you can't really compare the best manual to the worst automatic and viceversa. Besides, there are also sequential transmissions, but they are expensive and do not fit in 99% of cars, so I guess they're out of topic.

Automatic transmissions have greatly evolved for the past years. For example, Mercedes, will soon put a 7-gear automatic transmission on all their V8 cars (standard). It is highly advanced and it won't only go down one gear, when you want to accelerate (for overtaking for example), it will go down 2,3 or any gears that are necessary. You must be familiar with kick-down effect in automatic transmissions, when a lot of power and acceleration is instanly gained when lowering the gear. Imagine this effect multiplied with new technology. Also, nowadays, automatic transmissions allow you to go up and down gear manually, there is no clutch involved, kind of sequential, only slower. So - for driving for everyday business, I'll choose automatic, for driving around city in traffic jams, etc. (Maybe in USA you drive a lot on highways, long, wide and not too busy but near cities and inside, it's impossible). You'll go mad shifting gears up and down all the time (also breaking your car).

Also, you maybe more confident in choosing the right gear when you need it. But what if you need to change it quickly (while overtaking)? You must be a professional racer to do it quickly and on right revs, otherwise your car will drastically slow down and jeopardize your safety on road. (Well, maybe not a racer, but a very experienced driver). It's more, american cars usually have quite low revs limit, as far as I know, meaning that you won't be able to be pushing throttle for a long time non-stop without changing gear, will you?

Having said that, of course, any cars enthusiast likes manual transmission. What can be more classic than a good sports car with manual transmission? But you must be good driving it, otherwise you'll be loosing a lot of speed instead of gaining it. In magazines, when they publish acceleration figures from 0 to 100 (well, from 0 to 60mph), manuals usually do better. But you have to be one hell of an ace to be able to do this, while with automatic, you just push the pedal down an observe.

Also, big sedan carsa re meant to be driven with automatic. Smaller cars work well with manual. It also depends on HP of the car. The more power you have, the harder it is to shift gears well manually.

My verdict: family car for everyday driving - automatic. Sports car for Sunday morning drive outs - manual.

Note: (all of above-mentioned is taken out of experience in driving in mid-scale busy European area, with both highways and narrow city streets full of traffic, using BMW's and a Mercedes)

You don't have to be a race car driver to drive a car properly. And really, if you say someone can't handle a manual transmission, then they probably can't handle driving in the rain or snow or other "not-normal" conditions either!

I really feel strongly that someone who steps behind the steering wheel of an extremely heavy hunk of metal and then goes out onto the road with other human beings must train and practice all sorts of situations. I am NOT fond of the excuse "Oh I didn't know how to drive in that condition". If they get behind the wheel, they are responsible for being trained and practiced.

How hard is it to go to the local parking lot in the rain and snow, and practrice braking and skidding and acceleration and turning? But how few people actually do it. And then millions die each year in traffic accidents because they never bothered to learn the skills.

When you think about it, it's pretty amazing that we let people into the driver's seat with so little skill and that we never bother to retest them. I'd be all in favor of yearly tests with a computer simulator that made them do all sorts of difficult situational handling, to really make sure they knew what they were doing out there. Not just because of their own lives - but because of all the other innocent people who they can slam into <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

A bit of topic, aren't you? <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Anyway, if it was depending on me, 99% of all drivers here would have their licences revoked and never be given again.

From the point of view of safe driving, I guess that automatic transmission is safer.

You do have to be good driver to hande manual transmission well under tough circumstances. I'm not talking about normal, start, stop, gain speed procedures. I'm talking about overtaking maneuvre (which is considered the most difficult and dangerous), when overtaking, all of your attention must be on road and you must sit tight, shifting a gear distracts and may cause problems. You need plenty of experience to be able to shift gears in absolutely any directions in absolutely any circumstances. It's so much easier to just press the pedal and watch the road.

As for practicing driving in tough weather conditions ... I don't know, sorry. I know that all cars I've ever driven had all the new fancy electronic systems and believe it or not - they do work. So rain, snow, tight curves, etc. don't make much difference, the car won't let you do anything bad (within reasonable limits ofcourse ... if you enter a 90 degrees curve at 100mph, then it's hard to expect the car to correct this ... but this means that you're just an idiot and should be isolated from people). Then again, I haven't actually driven the very basic cars, nor american cars, so maybe you could enlighten me somehow. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

What do you want to do? Drive or shift?

Whe you go somewhere and the important thing is to get there in the most comfortable way, you just drive. When you want to enjoy a ride in a good car then you will enjoy shifting.

Ah but my point is you never "just drive". There is always potential for danger and you always have to be prepared for it.

I disagree completely that cars "drive themselves" in dangerous weather <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I live in New England where there is a lot of rain, snow and ice. And believe me, if you put a 16 yr old in the snow, and they don't understand how to handle curves, or skids, or slick surfaces, they are going to crash. The car doesn't compensate for a bad driver.

I only drive automatics, live in the North East USA where snow and rain abounds, have had my license for 16 years (I'm 32...OMG, I just realized that's half my life! LOL), and have never been in or caused an accident.

Lisa, let us not cross the limits of reasonable. I'm not saying that anyone who gets into any car can drive it, and be safe in bad wether condition.

What I'm saying is that if you have a good car and normal driving skills, you should never have an accident due to bad wether. Ever. I have been to a circuit to test BMW's 3 series. And they have put plenty of different tests and had two different cars. One with desactivated ABS and ASC and one with both activated. There was a test of braking from 80km/h on a wet plastic (slippery, isn't it?), the car that had traction control and ABS braked slightly hiting a soft block they put in the end and the car without any controls almost hit the brick wall which was like 20 meters beyond the soft block. There also was a test of accelerating AND turning on wet plastic. The car with electronics on did it well and the other one had sent me spining. There also were tests of hard braking from high speed AND turning at the same time and in all the cases, the car with electronics behaved predictably and safely. And those were just the standard 3 series. If you take a more advanced BMW, which has DSC instead of ASC, it will be completely safe in any wether as long as you don't do anything stupid. So cars can compensate average driving skills.

Of course, if you take a 20 years old car, it will compensate nothing. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> And if you put a 16 years old with no experience, no car will compensate wreckless driving either. If you take both ... wait ... better don't. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />