Arakasi said:
Scrumpmonkey said:
Entirety of Europe here. Yes we can. They are just straight better. Outside of "urrrrrr it's really haaaard, i don't wanna learn to drive properly i just want to push the peddles and go like an eight year old in a go kart" there is really no reason to not have a manual gearbox.
Don't get it.
One's easier, one's harder, why the elitism?
It's convenience vs. versatility and responsiveness. If you can be bothered going through the effort to learn how to use a manual gearbox (and if millions of British 17 year olds can do it I'm sure 'murca can) there are a great number of advantages to physically changing gears.
Yes it's a higher level of driving skill, it requires you do learn and do more. Not being able to use a manual gearbox in most EU countries means you have a limited license, it's a very useful skill to have and makes you a more skilled driver and certainly more adaptable driver. If you ever want to do any kind of racing or track time then a manual gearbox is vastly superior. There is a reason most high performance cars and motorsport have manual gearboxes (although at the higher end they tend towards "Flappy Paddle" gearboxes now. The exceptions to this i would say are extremely new and high end clever sports automatic gearboxes. But in terms of mainstream and especially older and affordable vehicles manual is still going to be better if you can get used to it.)
If i can drive a manual i can drive an automatic. I can do both. Those who have only ever driven an automatic can only drive one type of car so why limit yourself for the sake of short-term convenience?. I also find it funny that people who have only even learned to drive automatic can comment on driving manual gearboxes. If you don't know how to drive a manual how can you have an opinion that goes beyond "That stick thing scares me".
It's kind of like asking someone why they think being able to speak more than one language is objectively better. It's an extra skill, i don't think it's 'elitist' to think being able to do more is better.