I don't understand this. I learned to drive in the north as well (Maine and New Hampshire), and this message is the first I've heard of the "manual for snow" thing. What difference does it make? It's not like you can't drive slowly or smoothly with an automatic. If anything I'd think manual would be worse in the snow, because a human driver can't shift as smoothly and rapidly as a computer can. A jerky shift could spin the tires, causing loss of control.

And for the final nail in the coffin, every automatic I've driven has had a manually controllable first, second, and third gear. You can keep yourself in first, engine brake with third, whatever. I don't understand why a manual is better in the snow.



You mean ONLY in the best conditions. More on that below. . .




It's not an absolute, but it's a truer stereotype than most, based on the small sample of drivers I've had to observe. Tallying up the traffic stops and accidents experienced by my female friends vs male. . .huge imbalance. I have two theories.

1) There are a lot more "airheaded" girls than guys. Whether this is an innate part of female psychology or just something society has forced on them, I have no idea. I do know that a lot of the accidents my female friends have had came from them just not paying attention. They think about everything except what they're doing.

2) Poorer spatial awareness. This is something scientifically proven, innit? I dunno. If true though, I'd think it would contribute to parking skills, and sideswipe accidents.

Anyway. I'm not saying all girls are bad drivers, but the ones I've known have certainly perpetuated the stereotype.




No snow, but this has been the coldest week on record here in the Raleigh, NC area since 1970, according to the newscasters. Averaging around 25 degrees or so. Brisk! We were just far enough south and east to miss the big snowstorm from a few weeks ago, too.



My car is an automatic, but I'm very capable with a manual, too. My dad has had a manual car since I started driving (a bmw 3 series, and now a saab 93), so I've done a lot of both.



First of all, I'll pick up where I left off earlier. Manual is, indeed, more fun. . .when the conditions are right. Give me a twisty country road with no one on it, and I'll take a manual any day. It's a lot of fun to rip through the gears with hands and feet. An automatic, though, is just so much more practical for every day driving (unless you live in the middle of nowhere). During my high school days, I pretty much lived in my car. 50 minutes to soccer 6 days a week, and I lived 30 minutes south of my social group, so I was always, always in the car. Which meant doing a lot of stuff in my car. Changing clothes, eating, phone calls, you name it. Call me out on it if you want, but that kind of stuff is so much easier when you're not dealing with a level and a third pedal.

Now that I'm in college, I have a "real" job, and commute about 45 minutes a day in stop and go traffic. Which is MISERABLE with a manual.

So yeah, those are the two main reasons I drive an automatic: ease of multitasking, and difficulty in traffic. Moreover though, I feel a lot safer in an automatic. I'm good enough that I don't have to think about what I'm doing in a manual, but I'm still afraid that one day I'll be waiting at a light or something, and some runaway truck is going to come zooming toward me, and I'm going to stomp on the gas and stall. I don't worry about it a lot, but I do like the security of knowing that a split second HOLYCRAP reaction is definitely going to get me out of harm's way, with no additional complexity involved.



The Raleigh, NC area.



Sure: why is it better to have "more control" with a manual? Airline pilots had more control in the 50s, but I'd take a modern jet any day. Fact is, computers do some things better. It can be fun to have more control in yours hands sometimes, but I think you'd be hard pressed to make a real argument that it's "better." It's true that it gets you a small amount of additional fuel savings, but a human generally wears out the transmission of a manual car much faster, negating the fuel savings. It's true that human drivers can sometimes shift more efficiently than a computer when zooming along twisty roads (because they can see and anticipate the oncoming curves), but in more common performance applications (accelerating from a stoplight, for example) automatic cars typically win.

What part of having more control is really beneficial to the driver, with a manual car? Sometimes more fun, but other than that?