Standards give you more control over shifting, with extremely useful benefits:

  1. Coasting -- don't have a hybrid car? Coast in neutral down a hill to save gas.
  2. Acceleration needed now! -- shift immediately your power band (instead of car figuring out your intentions).
  3. Decelerate without braking -- Cops peg some car out of a bunch speeding, everyone slows down; only you downshifted to slow down, so the cop nails the obvious guilty party who had their brake lights on the longest.
Don't know how to drive stick? It just takes an afternoon in a parking lot....


I actually learned to drive using a manual. I like the control it gives me, and have had only manuals since I started driving. However, once in a while when stopped in traffic and I have to do all that work to move up 6 feet, it gets a little old. - Nathan
I believe in Militant Anti-Commute-ism. Too bad Rick "The Isolationist" Rovegno doesn't understand the economics of public rail transport.
"Too bad Rick "The Isolationist" Rovegno" I was a Cumberland county employee for many years. He's a douche bag (I have talked to him many times)...and his stance on the light rail is the most ridiculous thing in the world. I would vote for Idi Amin over that jackass...and I do vote against him every chance I get. - Nathan