Originally Posted by Tiay
My bf is american (i'm eurpoean) and one time he said something about how he'd like to drive a stick car sometime.
I was baffled..
what the hell is a stick-car, I thought to myself. A car that resembles a stick? what exotic, strange car-type was this that I had never heard of?.. Turns out, it's.. the gear shift. Pretty much all cars are that way here. so there's your solution. Come to Europe. Lots of stick-cars with low fuel consumption. Being in control of the gears helps you drive much more fuel efficiently, too.
My family had a second-hand Volvo saloon when I was little, and I remember us driving along a very narrow road, and my dad changes gears and the stick totally comes loose and comes up in his hand, hahah.. man, it was scary!
I don't drive. I'm scared of it. damn.. have to start that soon.
Honestly, being scared of it is completely normal. I've known how to drive stick for 5 years (when I started learning to drive). My car I had was automatic, so I wasn't driving stick all day, but the few times I did get in my dad's pickup I did absolutely fine driving stick. But when I got my new car and took it out on a test drive, it kinda scared me. It's hydraulic clutch and spring loaded pedal weren't what I was used to at all. So I gotta admit, I was scared too!
But in about 2 days time I got so used to it and began to enjoy driving it 100% more. In fact, I won't turn back now. What you need to do is have someone with patience teach you in a huge parking lot, and the most important thing is starting off (hardest to learn in my opinion). After you can stop/go/stop/go/stop/go over and over and over in the parking lot so much that it's becoming a second nature to you, head out on the road. Watch for them hills, too! But like I said, it becomes easy. Even if I'm on a steep hill at a stop and someone is ON MY ASS behind me, I don't even flinch. Just comes with experience I guess.
But one thing I do advise is for you to at least learn. Don't want to drive it everyday? Fine. But what if you and your boyfriend/husband/friend/girlfriend/wife are out somewhere and "something" happens, and YOU can't drive the car anywhere because it's stick... what would you do, especially if no phone was available? It's a scary thought, isn't it?