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Comment by Herbstluft | Hacker News Reader

As a european it is always weird to catch glimpses of the stick shift vs. automatic topic. Not because I can't imagine what it's like to not have the ability to drive stick, but because it seems like some kind of heated, ideological debate in the US, and I do not know why. It seems to me as if it is either treated as an arcane art, something to be shunned, a trait of "masculinity", or a trait of toxicity and pretentiousness.

Automatic is very much the minority here and almost everyone learns to drive on stick, even if they switch to automatic later.

While I won't deny that people like that exist here as well, not once have I encountered someone personally or in the form of a news article (in my native language) with strong opinions on the matter.

Edit: when I say "here" I mean my home country, not trying to speak for all of Europe of course

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Unless my experience is very atypical, far from it being controversial, for most Americans it is a non-issue - they literally never contemplate it, any more than they wonder if there is a case for bringing back manual ignition advance.

I hate stick shifts and, born and raised and living in the eu, I have always driven automatic. The interesting comments I get ‘for not being a man’ (as an almost 2m, 100kg hairy bloke) in different countries, is always perplexing. And that’s over the past 30 years since I have been driving. Especially brits think (and say) I am a total wanker for not driving stick. But the dutch (my birth country) have similar emotions.

To me it really depends on the vehicle. I love stick but I do not want to drive a large fully loaded diesel truck through 2 hours city traffic.

In the UK auto vs. stick felt like the ideological debate you mentioned.

Myself having done 10y consecutively of both, auto is a better experience overall. Except when you need that bit of immediate power from smaller engines. This is for my normal A to B driving, I don’t race.

> Automatic is very much the minority here and almost everyone learns to drive on stick, even if they switch to automatic later.

In Norway there's been discussions about phasing out teaching stick as standard - partly because of demand, partly because driving schools need to upgrade their fleets, and want to avoid the need for two sets of cars.

In Russia, you choose which one you learn and take your exam on. If you choose automatic, it's marked on your license and you can only drive automatic. But if you choose manual, you can drive either.

All car sharing cars are automatic, but other than that, it's really a matter of taste and/or budget. Some people buy manual cars because they're cheaper. Russian-made cars are almost all manual-only, and are cheaper than imported ones.

I got my license on manual, and... I just don't drive lol. Mainly because almost everywhere I go it's easier, cheaper, and sometimes faster to get there on public transit or taxi.

I have been living in the US my entire life and the extent of the debate I’ve heard here is:

- Someone makes a joke about how you should get a manual, that way nobody will steal it (because the thieves won’t know how to drive), and

- Someone makes a comment about how they visited the UK and decided to rent a car, and either they paid extra for an automatic or they saved money and drove manual.

> It seems to me as if it is either treated as an arcane art, something to be shunned, a trait of "masculinity", or a trait of toxicity and pretentiousness.

I have no idea why you sense this from American culture.

> I have no idea why you sense this from American culture.

The internet. And it applies to much more than this

You know that in your local social circle very few people have opinions about such trivial topics and you rightly see those with strong opinions as weirdos

But then you go on the internet and something in our monkey brain makes it hard to remember that comments on a thread are not a representative sample. Which is very bad because the kind of people who take the effort to comment on an internet thread are also the kind of people who have weirdly strong opinions one way or another

And because negative opinions are much more likely to be expressed than positive ones you end up basing your model of some other place (the US for europeans, europe for americans, other countries and so on) on samples which over represents the most toxic and negative opinions

My wife and I both have historically driven stick shifts here in the US. Initially for budget reasons, since they are of course cheaper.

These days they are harder to find, and that means you have to pay the "automatic tax" on many models. So I would be frustrated to lose the option.

Our current car, a Volkswagen GTI, still has a stick, but it does seem like it could be our last. Even some valets do not know how to park the thing!

Europe is wide continent. For example, in Finland most new cars sold are automatic. Hybrids and EVs make big portion of sales (even a majority) and are of course automatic, but it has been a longer trend.

Outside of USA does anyone else drive automatic? Curious.

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