Most people not in the US. We just call it 'driving'

Every car has a clutch. Not all of them are manual.

What is this, some kind of poll to get the average age of Lemmy?

Right. Most of you are from the US. Argentinian here, everybody drives manual. I even wanted to buy an automatic last time but my mechanic was like " Don't even look at it. There is none in this city who can fix those. It might be a great value, but if it breaks, its done for"

99% of people in my country.....

My grandfather had a rule for his kids, and my mom passed it down to me.

You can't have a license until you can:

• Check and fill all the vehicle fluids
• Perform an oil change
• Change a tire
• Drive a manual transmission
• Change belts and hoses

I learned on a stick. I even did some learning on my uncle's beetle with a broken clutch (they were reasonably optional on the OG Bug). And I have not been behind of the wheel of one since. Still glad I learned all that stuff.

Oh, these "let's get people to reveal their password reset question" Facebook campaigns again...

Everyone? How else are you going to change gear?

I think a more interesting question would be:

How many people learned to drive in a car with a manual Choke?

Here in Spain it's estimated that automatic transmission is between 30 and 50% of cars. No official numbers have been released.

So most people have learnt with a clutch. Definitely everyone who has had their license for more than 10 years.

Common password recovery question..

Still do.

That is still the standard way here. Automatic is something we still leave to those for who a gear is too complicated.

Amazing shitpost.

People really went directly to the manual vs automatic debate without realizing it has nothing to do with that.

I still drive one WITH a clutch. Manuals are pretty cool.

Learned it from the beginning. It was my first car. Wanna say it was a late 80s or very early 90s really basic Ford Mustang that my aunt sold to my parents for me to use for like $200 bucks. I loved it, but not even a year later on my way to high school a van flying down the road rear ended me while I was trying to make a left turn waiting for traffic to clear... I haven't had stick shift since.

Here's a pic of around what it looked like so you can see it was a very basic car back then or this model was super basic haha.

Lot of people searching "clutch" right now

As someone who learned driving using a manual transmission car, automatic transmission is much better for city driving, I hated having to be careful with the clutch in stop and go city traffic, my left leg would get so sore after a while, plus I've stalled the engine more than once by letting the clutch go too fast.

I don't know if electric vehicles have one but other than them all cars have clutches, whether manual or automatic.

Learned with and still using stick.

I think it was a Renault Megane. Hopeless car. Left it outside in the cold one night. Every bit of wiring had shorted and if i turned on the wipers, the lights would flicker and the radio turned on.

Learned to drive on this bad boy:

Then my first car was this beauty:

It has hydrologic suspensions, it's cool AF. Got it 10yo and 230000km and drove it until it died into a cloud of smoke 😢 RIP

1979 Datsun 210. Eventually sold the thing for five cartons of cigarettes.

1982 SAAB 900. No turbo, no sunroof. No frills. Still a fun car to drive. Drove it till the motor gave out just shy of 1,500,000 miles on the ODO

Yep. Still have two stick cars. They’re not dead yet.

Learned on a 2000s era VW Beetle, and then a Mazda B2500 FW/2WD. Last manual I owned was a 2015 Honda Fit. Now both our vehicles are Automatic AWD.

I did get to drive a little 4cyl manual SEAT on holiday in Madeira which was an adventure. 36% grade roads, hairpin turns -- like 150cc mario kart around there

Suzuki Samurai FTW

When I was 15 in the 90s, every adult in the family, and adult friends of the family, said "You're 15? Let's go drive for an hour or two!" I'm pretty sure that, legally, a parent was supposed to be with me, but I guess any random adult was close enough.

I just added up 14 different vehicles I "learned on," including an old pickup with "three on the tree", a Corvette, a 280z turbo, a 68 Chevelle, an International Scout. The rest were boring vehicles. If I remember correctly, 9 were manuals.

OG Mini. So, yes, had a manual clutch. Now, 40-something years later I'm driving an automatic for the first time because they don't make the car I wanted at the spec. I wanted in a manual.

My first car was a '73 VW Super Beetle.

1993 Isuzu rodeo.

I believe the better question here is "clutch pedal" as automatic cars still have a clutch, you just aren't manually booting it.

But yes I did learn to drive stick in a 2002 Mazda Protege.

European here, learned in a Toyota Yaris

Since the question is 'vehicle': Massey-Ferguson 165. Or if you insist a car: Opel Kadett C.

Dad had to replace the clutch before I had mastered the subtle art of doing two things at the same time in a car.

Also I'm dyslexic and get my right and left mixed up easily . So you can imagine trying to navigate two feet on 3 pedals didn't go well.

I did eventually learn a manual.

I learned in both because while automatics were the norm, my parents never wanted me stranded in case a manual was my only option. So I learned in an older cute as hell red paint faded it was almost pink Jeep pick up truck with no tailgate.

Looking at photos online, I think it was maybe a 60s era Willie or a Gladiator from the 70s. It was pretty old, but not a classic, when I drove it.

It was a first generation Ford Focus hatchback.

Learned to drive manual on a 1981 BMW 320i. All of my cars are still manual to this day. 1999 Toyota Solara, 1988 Toyota Corolla GTS, 2003 Toyota MR2 Spyder and 2020 Hyundai Veloster N. But mostly I ride my bike, which is also a manual.

Learnt in a ford mondeo, some early 2000s model.

Still got a manual as my daily driver.

My first two cars were manuals, and I enjoy manuals (drive an EV now so no choice there) but this post reeks of acting like doing so makes us special. It doesn't. We just learned a different skill, and almost anyone can learn it if they chose to and especially if they enjoy it.

Driving stick is still the norm here. Learned it in a Suzuki Swift, which did not do honour to its name.

I learned to drive in a big ass truck, but I did recently get my first manual transmission car. It's not that hard to learn I don't think.

I only drove manual and then bought an auto. Had trouble going up steep slopes more than once and came back to manual.

I learned on an automatic and didn't know stick. Did that stop me from buying an old manual Mustang? Nope. I figured I had some practice with manual shifting in racing games (console), surely it couldn't be that hard. I stalled plenty of times leaving the lot but once I got it going it was fine. It only really took a couple days of dropping clutch and stalling on hills before I had it down.
Edit- Dang pedants

I did. 1993 Saturn SL2. I bought that car for $1500 in 2001 when I was 16 and quite literally drove it until the wheels fell off (which then ended in me flipping over the car on the highway, but that's a story for another day. That also ended with being the reason I can't listen to "The Red" by Chevelle without a mild panic attack, also a story for another day.)

The idea of buying an 8 year old car (with only 93k miles, at that) for $1500 just seems so foreign now.

All it needed was a muffler, too. I drove it for about a year and a half before I killed the clutch, and that was the most expensive repair it had.

Learned in a Golf 7 and now I drive a Golf 4. It was delightful not having to turn off auto start stop after I got my license.

My driving school had 2002 Corollas. Had a lot of problems to get the „feel“ for the clutch and after I mastered that the most challenging thing for me was starting on a hill using the handbrake. Auto-Hold these days is truly a blessing :)

Yeah I learned with a clutch, its very useful to have that skill in many countries where automatic is not available or much cheaper to rent.

Nissan vanette and ford focus. Don't miss either of those and have an automatic now. I still drive a friend's van from time to time which has a clutch, whoch is good so I don't forget how to drive it. Although it still feels completely natural since I drove manual for 2 decades.

Still own one. Was looking at going to a Kona EV but sounds like there's a wide spread reduction gear issue with the model I was considering, so maybe not.

Good old Mazda 323.

Learned and took my driving test in an 88 Dodge Omni 5 speed.

I dont seem to get the joke no matter how much brainpower i use...

I learned in a car with automatic transmission first, but had to drive both and prefer (strongly prefer) a manual transmission.

Worst one ever - The Van. The shifter was about a meter long, the gears were so hard to find, and I had to drive it in tight spaces.

Best one ever, my current Honda from 2014. Absolutely glorious.

Whatever the driving school had, I have no idea what car it was.

The fuck is a clutch? Oh, manual gear? I learned at driving school, I think all of them use manual cars in Brazil, since they're way more common than automatics

An old Chevy pickup, with my dad mocking and bitching at me the entire time which really helped my anxiety about being on the road. Wonderful learning experience. First and last time I ever went out with him to learn to driving.

started off in a Vauxhall Corsa with no power steering or windows, yes a full manual car. Except choke

I did drive some of my mums auto cars, remembering that they dont have a clutch is the problem.

An ancient 10 speed dodge dump truck doing sugar beet harvest in nodak.

The UK is becoming more automatic now, and we also have a lot of EVs. I learnt on a manual but didn't get a car until last year, which is electric. It's much better.

1972 AMC Hornet Station wagon with 3 on the tree. Literally The Green Hornet

I learned on a 1st gen Saturn. That's before GM ruined the brand. It had a good deal of pickup to it, and was a lot of fun in the snow.

I don't miss it though. If I lived somewhere I could joyride with zero hills, traffic or parallel parking, sure. Otherwise? It's not worth it.

Chevy Chevette. This may have been one of the worst cars built, take minutes to get up to speed and over-rev cruising in the highway, but it was also a tank that lived through 6 people learning to drive a stick and probably close to two decades.

It was also really easy to work on, but

• when I replaced the springs I found them light enough to compress by hand
• when my brother replaced the clutch he said it’s the only car he saw where the transmission was light enough to hold one handed while replacing

Chevy S-10. I think a 1999? Around that anyway.

Still miss that little truck. The clutch had two positions - on and off. It was a pain to drive but once I learned on it I could drive anything.

I still drive stick today.

1987 Golf, and I still drive a car with a clutch.

Mazda GLC

VW T3 with a 4 speed manual and a Passat with a 3 speed slush box.

I didn’t learn to drive in a vehicle with a clutch, but I did learn to drive vehicles with clutches! I love manual transmission cars. Been fighting the urge to make a poor financial decision and scoop one up before they’re gone.

I learned to drive on two cars because my parents were divorced: my Dad's Ford Ranger (manual) and my Mom's silly "talking" Chrysler Laser (it literally talked to you, felt weirdly futuristic see: https://en.wikipedia.org/... ). I never really had a problem with using a clutch, it was the lack of power steering on that truck that sucked. I made sure that I never bought a car without power steering after learning on that truck.

I forget what the cat is even called, but it was an old Subaru hatchback. I wanna say GT? Maybe there's a number... I dunno but it was a tiny lil thing.

Haven't given one since then, though. And I didn't do too well with it either, but I am not a car guy, and I don't drive in crazy road situations that would make it useful.

I'm still glad I learned that way though, as my cars since then made more sense to me. At least until now, since I have a hybrid with a CVT.

Volkswagen Golf type 3.

A big 2001 yellow box jeep, almost tipped that damn thing dozens of times.

I just put a new clutch in the vehicle I'm teaching my kid to drive.

International scout 2 3 speed on the column.

Learned when I was 11.

An 88 jeep Comanche with a blown up power steering pump and you had to hold it in reverse.

My second car was manual in high school. It was super fun to drive once I got used to it. I’ve had a manual for about 13 years and since switched to an auto for the last 9. Only reason I’d go back would be a fun sporty car but I’d probably be more likely to get a quick EV with one pedal driving at this point.

I learned stick in my 30s after driving an automatic up until then. Humbling to have to learn to drive again at that point in your life.

Yes, and in the land of automatics no less, and on a '99 Celica GT. It was mom's car, but I drove it like it was mine.

Hah, you're not getting my security answers that easily! 🚗