Come on, seriously? It gives a pretty poor image of the average american. Manual transmission? Don't know how to use that. Bicycle? What is that thing?
I bet this means that people don't know how to get from A to B on a bicycle, rather than, you know, being able to pedal a bicycle in a straight line, and keep the thing upright.
For example: which streets are the best to take? What's legal/illegal to do? (sidewalks OK? "I DON'T KNOW? I'M SCARED TO RIDE ON THE ROAD/NOT ON THE ROAD") Where do I lock up this thing? What happens at night - do I need lights? What kind of light? What do I do if it start raining? Oh no? What do I do about my wheel - the tires not holding air!
These are topics not always taught to you... ever by... anyone. Especially the legal aspects of bicycle rights on the road. That leads to all sorts of arguments about what bikes can/cannot do and creates a horrible opposing relationship with cyclists and other road users. As a motorist, if you don't ride a bike as an adult, you may have NO idea what a cyclist is allowed to do on the road, but the same can be said about a cyclist that's JUST getting into riding a bike. They'll make all sorts of mistakes, and put themselves in bad situations, often angering other users of the road. How long is that going to last, until that bike is back in the back of the garage?
What's the solution? Seek out a support group of cyclists to help you.
I know biking in a city is very different from biking on a road in the middle of nowhere. And, even I, prefer to avoid crowded circulations and difficult crossings, because those other road users are pesky assholes (at least in Paris) when it comes to sharing anything with pedestrians, cyclists, or even other motorized vehicles. Kudos to cyclists support groups!
In short: it's just embedded in the French culture. France has le Tour, we have football.
Switzerland takes this to a whole 'nother level, saying nothing about the Netherlands, Denmark, etc.
In the States, I feel very much like an enemy on the road. I mean, I'm just riding my bike to work.
Also look at: public transportation.
It's no wonder that higher economic mobility people have chosen essentially a private town car company (or at least a virtual one, that undermines things like workers rights) to replace personal car ownership (at least partly so) and not a bicycle or public transportation. The illusion of the status quo is still there - except that it's enhanced, as you're paying a premium for someone else to do the stressful work for you.
As an American that has explored Europe, it's just not the same thing. Trains are amazing, people flaunting wealth by buying enormous cars is seen as a faux pas. City centers are turning into car-free zones. Being simply a pedestriann isn't see as a backwards thing. Cycling is taken much more seriously and things like safety regulations and road-side checks are a Thing.
Car ownership isn't much better.
Lyft/Uber? I tap a button, get in the car, then appear at my destination.
I don't have to spend mental cycles on accidents, vehicle failures, weather, navigation, insurance, licensing, fuel, equipment, tiredness, sobriety, clothing, locks, road laws, time of day, road debris, other road users, parking, safety of my vehicle when I'm not around, maintenance, vehicle condition and cleanliness, transportation politics, etc.
Instead, I can live my life. It's actually quite liberating.
But that's it, isn't it? There's an investment in time/energy you have to make. Is the investment worth it for you?
> Instead, I can live my life. It's actually quite liberating.
For me, being car-free is very liberating. There's just more pluses to using a bike for my primary transportation.
I assure you in MOST of the rest of the world cycling is a very effective method of transportation.
Really, I think the minimum knowledge needed to use a bike for transportation is quite small. Walk into a local bike shop, list your needs/abilities, pay money, and start riding a bike. When you stop, use the u-lock they gave you to lock up the frame. Every week, put some air in the tire and recharge your lights. If something breaks, take it back to the shop.
Back in Europe at least, I know several of people who use taxis for all their getting around -- with the occasional subway ride thrown in.
And those are people that get around a lot, though that's mostly true for above a certain income source and usually on creative professions (directors, composers, journalists, etc. -- kind of like people whose work doesn't necessitate commuting every day to some office, and who couldn't afford a 24/7 personal chauffeur, but could still pay for 2-5 taxi rides per day).
That said, this post was intended to encourage people to think about the future of transportation, not saying that everyone should immediately switch to Lyft/Uber.
Car/bike ownership will certainly make sense for some people for quite some time, even after we have fully autonomous vehicles. But I maintain that cycling is more recreation than an effective method of everyday transportation, and it is frustrating to see the biking contingent pushing it as a transportation option to encourage public expenditure on their recreational needs.
I suspect the list for car ownership would look much longer, actually. It's just that the skills necessary for car ownership are taught much more effectively because of the prevalence of driving in our society.
I take it you've never been to Denmark. I don't think I know of anyone who doesn't own one or more, young or old.
The only means of transportation that is more effective is public transportation here.
More to your point, Los Angeles has free bike safety courses for varying levels all over town. They start with "learn to ride," "interested in riding a bike for daily trips, but are concerned about safety," and "confident city cycling." I think they also give out free safety equipment like helmets, lights, and reflectors.
As an adult, I joined a lot of social circles that centered around having fun, and riding bikes. I also got into things like Critical Mass, and the local bike messenger racing scene. It felt like we were all helping each other to survive out there. A lot has changed in 10 years, and I'm very grateful for that. Just having a public bike sharing program present and very easy to access has really changed people's perceptions.
Before I lived in LA, I lived in Boston. I still have the rather nice pair of wire cutters that were left behind rather hastily when I came back to get my bicycle at the stand after being in a shop for about 3 minutes. Now that is a city with a bicycle theft problem.
But military histories quite often comment how most of the GI's had much better mechanical skills that their British counterparts, and how baseball pitching was instrumental in their superior grenade use. (Cricket bowling just doesn't teach quite the right skills there.)
Despite being one of the most homogeneous species on the planet, everybody is different. I agree it was rather cruel of the local council to stick a magic roundabout right outside Heathrow's car hire[1], to add to the driving on the wrong side/manual transmission nightmare, but at least it let's people know what they're in for.
The inverted pentagram shape (facing east) of that thing was made on purpose, right? It seems, somebody on the city council just wanted to summon a massive demon :)
Is that a thing ? Is this the only example of such a thing, or do they exist elsewhere ?
The manual transmissions? Part of this is the lack of requirement for driver training to teach folks. The other bit of this is that most folks don't have access to manual transmissions. A great deal of cars don't even offer the option. I was fortunate enough to learn to drive one years ago, but not all are. This is really simple lack of availability.
Ancedote: My spouse and I own a (older) 4 door sedan. It has a manual transmission. Now, the brand isn't sold in the states, but many similarly sized vehicles are. In the US, this class of vehicle isn't generally available with a manual transmission - if it is available at all. Usually, the only cars with the options are the smallest cars, trucks, or luxury vehicles.
I learned how to ride in my early teen years, on a bike that was too high for me. That resulted in an injury that I still have to this day.
And I've never encountered a non-smug argument against automatic transmission.
So my first experience with an automatic gearbox was on a holiday to the US. And I loathed it. It felt like all the controls were connected to the road via rubber bands --- everything seemed to happen a couple of seconds after I moved the controls. If that had been my only experience of an automatic, then I too would be saying how horrible they were.
But then, much, much later I tried driving a hybrid with a CVT automatic gearbox. (I can't even remember what it was now.) And it was... amazing. It felt just right. There was no lag, there was no uncomfortable feeling of being in the wrong gear. It was like it was reading my mind. I put this down to being an expensive hybrid with lots of low-end torque from the electric motor, but then just this year I drove a Nissan X-Trail, also with CVT, and it was just as good.
So I'm willing to say: not all automatic gearboxes are the same.
Her car has a bigger engine than my Prius (also with a CVT as well as the motor/generator), though. My car does very well around town, being quite peppy in the 0 to 30 range, but a bit more doggish getting up to freeway speed. But it makes a good daily driver otherwise.
Traditional automatics seem to change gears and re-clutch slowly. The 5 speed on my old small pickup was fun to drive, once I learned how to do it years ago :-)
The fastest gear switching is on DSG/DCT engines, or electric cars which don't have gears in the first place. Both of those should beat a manual car in speed and mileage.
BTW, as an American who can't drive manual or ride a bike, and grew up in a city which didn't even have sidewalks, I recommend this as a great way to become a computer expert.
Manual are cheaper and ubiquitous. If you want an automatic car in Europe, you pay premium on a new car, and a very large premium each time you rent a car.
I'm not sure how that works for second hand cars - there are less but less people interested too, so not sure where the balance tip. In any case, automatic car tend to be expensive cars to begin with (BMW Series 5, ...) - you won't find as easily a regular joe car that is automatic.
This is absolutely false. Not every car is offered with manual transmission, but cars that can be configured with both are almost always cheaper with a manual. I cannot recall every seeing a case where it was the more expensive option.
My girlfriend's car got stolen a few years back. When I asked the cop how much this happens locally he asked me what I drive, and when he found out my car had a manual transmission he laughed and said nobody would steal my car - the kinds of people who steal mass market cars don't know how to drive a manual any more.
$800 more with automatic, about 5% of the cost of the car.
If you are lucky the dealer might have a cancelled order on the lot with a manual transmission.
On top of that, automatic transmission cars are more fuel efficient, so the operating costs might be a wee bit lower.
What's funny to me is the observation that only low end and high end cars have had manual transmissions. I started out with a low end Honda and either had to give it up or jump to a high end vehicle a decade later. I bought a second hand Audi to keep going with a manual at the time.
Car's are a heck of a depreciating asset.
Enjoy it all you like, as long as you keep it to yourself. The point was about the argument, not the enjoyment. But "perception" is correct. After driving a '16 Corvette (Mom's) and a '15 BMW 428 (rental), I'm convinced that a manual transmission is good only for nostalgia or a mis-placed sense that one can do better with a manual. With double-clutch transmissions attached to an eight speed gearbox, I am now the bottleneck in the equation. I've played with the flappy paddles and concluded, "meh, who am I kidding, the computer can do this better and faster than I can". Let alone having to push a foot pedal and move a lever. To add insult to injury, a lot of cars I've looked at get better mileage with the auto than the manual. sigh
In conclusion, those with the smug attitude along the lines of "a real driver would drive a manual" can stuff it, the machines have won. There's no more need to manually shift the gears than there is to manually advance the ignition with a lever on the steering column. That said, four out of five vehicles in our house have manuals (the Leaf doesn't have a transmission at all), but were I to buy a modern performance car today it would have one of them there fancy DCT eight speed autos.
As for the mid-range being auto-only, makes a bit of sense to me. Low-end offers manuals for economy. High-end for performance, even if it's not entirely accurate these days. Mid-range? You mean the people that just want to drive to work in some thing other than an econo-box? Yeah, I guess they'd go auto since they're not trying to save money nor are they really "into" cars.
It is slightly amusing that my current manual car has a display I can't turn off which tells me when it thinks I should change gear. The software which issues these instructions can tell when I am trying to accelerate rapidly or navigate hills and changes its instructions accordingly, so it might as well be changing the gears for me.
The book figures said it gave just about the same economy as the manual version, but real life use gave me far further from those than I ever remember experiencing with a manual.
I'll never have another unless it is a sporty thing with 8 speed, paddles and a prancing horse on the bonnet.
That may be an issue with the particular model?
In all the "automatics" I drove, American as well as Japanese models (the latter only several Hondas), I had no problem to know and control very precisely when the shift up or down would occur. I would drive up a hill and I knew exactly if I pressed down just a millimeter more the care would shift, which I delayed from happening until the ascend got less steep. That level of control was easy to get with only a little bit of experience with the specific car/transmission.
I suspect I'd have noticed or cared far less if more of my vehicles hadn't been sports and I'd bought more mobile sofas, driving accordingly. :)
Overall I prefer the lazy V8 approach to avoiding gearchanges - have vast torque on tap.
The high price of gas in Europe is a key reason why people chose manuals for a long time.
I know that personally I can tell I'm a much worse driver in an auto. I'm lazy - so in a manual that means paying extra attention to lights and the traffic so I can engine brake and coast more and avoid stopping and starting from first. In an auto I'm simply lazy period so I end up driving more stop-and-go. I wonder how much of an outlier I am.
Somebody else mentioned this too. In the US, there are different driving tests for manual and automatic cars. It would be plausible to me that passing the test in an automatic meant a license that was restricted to automatics, but I just looked over my license and didn't see anything obvious. The "restrictions" section says only "corrective lenses".
However... I can't drive a manual transmission. I know I can't, and that's why I don't try. It's completely superfluous to restrict my license; I suffer the harm of trying to drive one.
And similarly, if you're not planning to drive manual, there is no benefit to having a license that says you can. If you can't drive manual, there's really no benefit to having a license that says you can. The benefit comes from having the skill, not the license. If you could, like me, get a license that allowed you to drive manual cars without knowing how, would you go out and start driving them without knowing how?
Just like having a permit saying you can legally own firearms would not mean that you are in any way proficient at their use; just that you know when you should and shouldn't use them.
But somehow multiple people are presenting the license as a reason to learn to drive manual when you otherwise wouldn't. Logically, that doesn't work.
The tranny has to be removed in either case, so it's a question of what's easier once the tranny's out. For me, I'm happy to put a clutch in. I haven't the first clue how an auto tranny works Well, I have an idea of the principal, but no working knowledge of what those little check balls and the like do.
And apparently that's very difficult when you don't have the clutch to moderate speed, or so I was told. It might just be that American drivers aren't used to going in any sense slow at all.
(But those damn bikers, always zipping by! By the cries, you must think cyclists in America have some magic potion that makes them go 50mph instead of, you know, <=20mph peak)
> It might just be that American drivers aren't used to going in any sense slow at all.
We have traffic jams here too. They are a huge percentage of time spent driving. (Since they're so slow.)
It is much easier with a manual transmission. It isn't going forward with some power from you. Ease up on the clutch a bit and give just a bit of gas and you have no problems.
My 1999 Rover 75 has an automatic transmission and I have no trouble driving slowly (if I must). Never had any trouble driving cars in the US either (many visits over the last 20 years) and quite a lot of that was pretty slow (freeway from Raleigh to RDU on a Friday afternoon can be pretty much walking speed sometimes).
The only real alternate route was to wind through Brentwood and around the VA cemetery. It was long, slow, and had its own hazard: there was a plant by the cemetery that made little spiky seeds that would deflate tires.
The Big Blue Bus was decent, but somehow longtime Angelenos in the early 2000s didn't believe that people who owned cars belonged on the bus.
Can you elaborate on the Hollywood part?
Most of LA is really flat, and perfect for cycling, but those hills were just annoying. Fun coming back though.
There are a few less-trafficked routes but those are windy with Waze drivers driving, you guessed it, aggressively.
If you go west of the major LA hills to Topanga and above Malibu there is a vibrant weekend cyclist community that only has to deal with... aggressive drivers in fashionable cars out joy riding (I jest somewhat but that area is one of the most popular with serious and casual cyclists (lotta spandex up in that piece!)).
I ride a bike, I dont have to lock it up because no one is interested. (Doesnt hurt that it's not new/no brand names on it.)