Quote:
Originally Posted by captainaudio
IMO if you need to be shifting gears to pay attention to driving you are just not a very good driver.
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I didn't say "need" it's more of a "want". (oh, and I didn't take this personally, I'm pretty sure you didn't mean to say I'm not a good driver).
What I meant is that I feel more "in tune" with the car at all times with manual transmission. Daily as well as spirited driving is just different, you're approaching your turns and intersections differently, your climbs and descents, icy/snowy roads, passing other cars, you're just doing things differently. It all demands just a bit more care, your fundamental driving skills have to be developed first. In my opinion with manual transmission these skills are what makes you that much smoother, better and I'll even argue safer driver overall for everybody else on the road.
Quote:
Originally Posted by captainaudio
I agree with your observation that knowing how to drive an MT tends to lead to a better understanding of how to drive an AT in manual mode.
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For all the reasons I stated above, I'll just argue "better understanding of how to drive" and omit "
AT in manual mode".
In your example you bring Florida and long stretches of boring highway as example and it's hard to disagree with that. What about other places, mountains, sometimes snow covered roads, two way traffic, cities that are not "flat" and have variable weather... etc?
There's never going to be universal agreement on this. I agree with most of what you said. I'm just trying to help manual side of debate and explain why personally I favor manual.
But the bottom line is, we'll all spend money on what we like and car companies are going to build what sells.