I taught my older daughter to drive a manual car and I really wish I had a reasonable manual car to teach my younger daughter. She will learn, but it will be like driving a tank. Not the most fun.

Your hate towards manual transmissions is exactly why it’s now an anti-theft device. If the thieves don’t show to drive it, it won’t be stolen.

My oldest daughter is trying to buy a manual transmission car now. It’s very hard to find…

I was very daunted by driving when I started, especially when I had to drive a really old clunky low-power diesel Mercedes with my overly critical dad and big brother yelling at me.

Didn’t take long for it to become second nature, and I actually drove taxis for several years.

It literally just takes a while for your brain to get accustomed to everything. Yes, youre right in that a manual can be a distraction from learning traffic, but it really doesn’t take long for the shifting to become very natural, and then you can pay attention to the traffic.

As for actual tips on the clutch, it’s not really as much a matter of millimeters, as it is about the balance between throttle and clutch. Don’t be afraid to give it a bit more gas to makeita sure you won’t stop the car even if you let go of the clutch slower. Yes it will sound a bit like a student driver, revving the car “needlessly”, but you are a student driver and it isn’t needless revving, because you’re still learning the feel for the clutch.

It also depend a lot on the make and model of the car the school has. It’s a bit of a personal preference, but clutches are really different in different cars. You might really like a 90’s Mercedes with a reeaally long clutch, but that too takes getting a bit used to. I remember the cars my car school had were fairly new Ford’s, and they had really short clutches. Annoyed me as well.

Honestly took me less than a year of driving and I knew how to shift without a clutch. Some really old 70’s sand lorries my dad used to drive didn’t have clutches, so he taught me how to (in some cars it works some don’t really like it, but basically you could do it in all manual cars, without damaging the gearbox if you do it properly); when accelerating, just as you let go of the throttle, like 0.5sec after that there’s a short period where you can just pull the gear to neutral without any resistance. That’s easy. Shifting into gear from neutral without clutch isn’t as easy, but in some cars, not much of a challenge. You need to rev the engine to match the rpm, but like with a short press of the gas pedal, which revs the rpm higher than it needs to, then when the rpm is coming down there’s a window where you can shift into gear really easily.

I ramble, you don’t need to thin about that.

I would suggest, if possible (idk if you have a learners permit or smth and can drive under parent supervision), to practice driving on highways and country roads for less traffic to learn the car better. If not, maybe ask your teacher on the next lesson if you could do that.

And if not, if you have to drive in the city, the most important is just to remember that the panic and rudeness you feel isn’t something which should make you hurry. People will be annoyed, but you have a right to annoy them, as you’re learning. It’s a shit thing, being a learning driver, but once you get your licence and get to take the car on a long drive yourself on some chill roads, you might actually enjoy the driving because the stress won’t be there. And then learning will become easier as well, when your heart isn’t beating through your chest with someone watching over you.

Just keep at it. You know what to do. Now it’s just a bit of repetition.

Edit oh and ask anything if you like, 3rd gen taxi driver, drove since 2007 (not driving currently). No stupid questions exist. So anything at all, go ahead.

Practice your manual driving in a big open parking lot or something. Somewhere you don’t have to worry about rules of the road while still figuring out your muscle memory for shifting. Like everything else, it’ll become second nature in time.

My two cents: don’t look at anything inside that car at all. Listen to the engine to know when to shift, go a speed that feels comfortable and is a bit slower than other cars. Forgive yourself when the engine stalls or you drive in the ‘wrong’ gear for a bit. If you got behind the wheel and didn’t hit anything, you’re won driving.

To make driving more appealing, I suggest living in an unwalkable American Midwest purgatory where there’s fuck-all to do but watch tractors circle fields or meth

You will begin to associate the positive emotions of escape and freedom with driving, which will make you enjoy it a lot more

Your mileage may vary, but it worked great for me

It really depends. You need to train yourself to focus on the important stuff and let the rest become second nature.

Driving a manual car usually doesn’t take conscious effort to do, you just… drive. But that takes practice. Lots of it.

And some people just never get there. Or they are afraid to drive, which tends to provoke dangerous situations. Or they can drive okay but don’t pay enough attention to the road.

But usually driving with an instructor is stressful, once you get your license everything will be more relaxed and easier.

It gets easy, manual is better because I’m more focused on everything. It doesn’t take that long to learn.

I bus to work, it takes only five minutes more than me driving, and is only five dollars a day, and I get to read or listen to podcasts or whatever and not think about traffic or bad drivers. The only downside is obnoxious passengers on occasion and people who smell bad. I don’t love driving at all.

FUCK NO. I hated driving lessons, but I love driving ever since I got my license. It took me almost a decade to figure out why. First, I hate other people telling me where to go. GPS, no problem, but Kevin over here telling me to take a left 1 second before I’m past the intersection iterates me so much. I can’t concentrate on signs or the road if I have to constantly anticipate so arbitrary direction.

Also, not driving my own car makes me anxious. It feels like the car is 2 ft wider on the outside but more cramped on the inside. My field of view narrows, and I get clumsy on the clutch. All because my brain is on a constant loop of ‘this isn’t mine, don’t wreck it, this isn’t mine, don’t wreck it’.

Driving isn’t stressful, doing it by the book is. On the road you just go with the flow. If you turn the wrong way into a one way street, you wave, say sorry and back out again. If you take somebodies right of way and nothing bad happened then you just move on. Its not like the police is waiting around every corner. Driving lessons hold you to a way higher standard then most people adhere to on the road.

Skill issue

Btw I now understand the hate towards manual cars. Automatic should be the only option

This is a big problem with people these days. You admitted you suck at driving, you’re just barely learning how to do it, but you think you’re qualified to mandate what is available to everyone else? You do not have enough experience to have an opinion that affects other people. Stick shift is completely intuitive when you know how to do it.

It becomes easy with practice, and driving a manual is not distracting at all once you get the hang of it

I sometimes wish I still had a manual transmission for more interaction in the driving experience, but they’ve been difficult to find here for the last couple decades. I did finally give up as I realized manual transmissions are no longer relevant for newer car technologies.

However to add to everyone’s comments about time and practice …. I have two teens who recently got their driving licenses. Both were technically fine but inexperienced and nervous after they got their licenses. However one has been driving to school every day for the last year, and already drives like any adult. A drivers license s just the beginning of learning to drive with you as the sole person responsible. It may seem overwhelming but you can gain confidence and experience faster than you expect. Just keep at it, do your best, learn from mistakes (as in do better, dont just criticize yourself)

I hate driving, it’s stressful to be operating heavy machinery with the capacity to kill. That said, driving a manual car is much worse, just adds a lot of stress on top

The most important skill for driving is learning to observe your surroundings calmly, but alertly. The things you mentioned as distractions are the things you need to be paying attention to because those are the things you must navigate around.

It’s easy to get worked up about all the things demanding your attention. A lot can go wrong while driving, from road hazards, to accidents, to traffic, to mechanical problems with your vehicle. My advice, take it at your own pace. It’s a speed limit, not a speed requirement. Highways and some types of special roads have minimum speeds, but the worst that happens if you drive slow enough to feel comfortable behind the wheel is some asshole who is in a hurry is grumpy.

It just takes time and practice, just relax and keep your eyes on the road.