Taking a driving test in auto?

dmpzsn

We had a Fireman on my 3 pupil coach driving course 1980's, he couldn't hack it with the gears we had to cope with, (16 i think, it was a luxury double decker) and soon dropped out, the other 2 of us carried on and passed as we were used to manuals.

The Dreamer

I’m sure my next car will be an automatic, but any physical skill such as driving a manual box is perishable, if you don’t use it you’ll lose it.

That’s not to say you wouldn’t hack a manual box entirely, just that your shifts may not be as slick as if you were doing it all the time.

I’ve driven a fair amount of stuff, from tractors and combines, to buses with pre-select boxes, to stuff that have no gears at all! Each one requires a different skill set - best to stick with what you need at the end of the day.

Certainly driving an auto is more ‘relaxing’ than a manual, and hence that’s where I’ll head with my next car - though I’ll most likely get ‘something for the weekend’ too - my lad fancies building a kit of some sort, which I haven’t done for over 30 years, so might be fun to stick a Westie, or something in the garage - that, most certainly, won’t be an auto!

AMc

I learnt in manuals and my first car was a manual too.  Then I was given a family members Peugeot 205 Auto and discovered the joy of Grandma's insurance group and a 1.6l engine .  I drove autos for the next 7 years.  The first mile or two in a manual was a bit lumpy but then I don't remember any difference.
My favourite is watching manual drivers in autos pumping their left leg up and down for no reason.
My old man once braked hard when he put his clutch foot down to "change gear" in his auto after a manual courtesy car - scared the "life" out of me! I'd sooner he'd done it the other way around and ground a gear or two

The Dreamer

Yep. My dad did the same, we had two near identical Volvos, the old man's 144 and mum's auto 244. Going on holiday to France, he had driven Mum's auto quite successfully all the way from Lincolnshire, to the ferry at Dover - as we approached passport control, he had a brain fart, went for the clutch, and performed a near perfect emergency stop.

Unfortunately, mum had just unclipped her seatbelt to reach down into the footwell to pick up the bag with the passports in. Her head made a dent in the glove box! That set the tone for the next couple of days, weeks, months and years - I don't think she ever forgave him!

Over by there

First hire auto, did the same in the outside lane near Oxford. We were in a jam for some 40 mins or so and it started to move, went to change up and the driver behind nearly hit me.

mij

My daughter had many expensive manual driving lessons, and still failed two tests. she was terrible to put it politely.  I decided to take her out in my auto and the difference was amazing, she was so much better not having to multitask, a thing best left to us men   Anyway, after a few weeks of driving my auto, she took some more lessons in a manual and passed her next test with flying colours.

I think not having to worry about the clutch & gears allowed her to improve her other skills, which then took away the fear of multitasking when eventually going back to a manual.

I have driven almost every type of vehicle in over 40 years of driving mainly commercial vehicles and have chosen automatics for my own cars for a long time now, even my Mazda MX5 is an auto

nvingo

My current car is an automatic version of my previous manual car.
My father's car is manual, as is the family motorhome.
At work I drive a forklift truck, single-speed but 'auto'.
I have no trouble from the seating position and vehicle size, remembering which driving mode to adopt.
In a convoluted sort of way, driving the motorhome can be more 'fun' than a car, like minibuses and LGVs I've previously driven.

Bl4ckGryph0n

In my experience, haven't owned a manual for over 20 years, but drive one every time I rent a car, it is no different then when you do drive a manual all the time and then all of a sudden are in a new car. The way the throttle responds is different, the biting point for the clutch is different, the way the brakes respond is different, the way the steering provides feedback is different. They do the same things but just respond/feel slightly different. As such I can't agree with it being perishable or not using it means loosing it...Anyone taught to drive with some experience will never forget and adapt quickly to the slight differences...

So yes I do agree that the first few may not be as slick, you may hit the brake pedal slightly to hard as well, and give it too much or little throttle....There after anyone should be ok

The Dreamer

Plenty of evidence to show that both mental and physical skills are all perishable - but by that, I mean that they become degraded, not that you'll lose them totally - a bit like riding a bike.

It's one of the reasons we spend a couple of days in the sim every six months - just to refresh the skills that have inevitably declined, and be tested to make sure that by the time we leave the sim our skills are back at 'top drawer' level.

At 5 and a bit months from our last check, it doesn't mean we become incompetent, but certain skills that we don't necessarily use day to day, may need to be bought back to a peak level so that we are still safe to operate for the next 6 months.

It's the same with driving, your handling of a manual car after driving an auto for any length of time will obviously not be optimum for a while - but it's not like it's rocket science, operating a car, even a manual car, is quite a simple exercise - some people make more of a meal of it than others, and that's to be expected, as we all have to sit somewhere within the usual bell-curve.

A lot will depend on how frequent a driver you are (auto or manual) as to how quickly you adjust from one to the other, an infrequent driver will have a large part of their capacity taken up by other issues when driving, leaving little spare to cope with the change from auto to manual, or vice versa. A regular driver will find the transition much easier. The thing is we're all different - but skill sets, both mental and physical, are most definitely perishable.

outoftheknow

Great explanation @The Dreamer.

I think adding the colloquial “use it or lose it” made it look like you meant that after a year of not driving a manual, you were stalling and bunny-hopping for a week or two