EVIL EVIL EVIL stick shift! They spend YEARS telling you "push the pedals with one foot, one foot only!" then they give you this THIRD pedal! And you're supposed to use both feet all at once! And never at the same exact time! Gah!!!
I learned to drive on an automatic... and it's only this month that our arguments over my dreadful shifting have finally subsided. This is for two reasons:
1. We got the car tuned up, so now I can tell the difference between "engine complaining because it's in the wrong gear" and "engine complaining because it wants new spark plugs."
and
2. Andrew rented a little Kia with an automatic for a conference a few weeks ago, and discovered that it was just as bad as me...
I hear you. But once you do master the stick shift, you can drive like a crazed European, dodging from lane to lane and screeching to a halt 3mm (a distance that does not even exist in this country) from petrified pedestrians
Anonymous said…
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With a few tips from a professional truck driver down the street who cringed everytime I tried shifting gears, I now consider myself quite accomplished. I only stalled about three times today and only had obvious bad shifting sounds that could be heard through out the intersection about five times today. Next on my list of things to accomplish is to figure out how I can delete these other comments that are a poor excuse for spam.
Grrr... you can set your blog to only accept comments from fellow bloggers... but why isn't there a way to only accept comments from actual readers? You don't have to have a blog of your own to comment on my blog---you just have to actually read mine!
Comments
1. We got the car tuned up, so now I can tell the difference between "engine complaining because it's in the wrong gear" and "engine complaining because it wants new spark plugs."
and
2. Andrew rented a little Kia with an automatic for a conference a few weeks ago, and discovered that it was just as bad as me...
I feel vindicated.
=)
Next on my list of things to accomplish is to figure out how I can delete these other comments that are a poor excuse for spam.