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I am learning to drive again. Yes, I learned to drive more than 28 years ago... but that was on a modern car, you know, the kind with an automatic transmission.
I have to tell you, I find this whole 'manually shifting gears' thing to be nonsense. Really, the wipers on the car can sense how fast to wipe the windshield, based on how much precipitation has fallen - but the motor needs to be told when to switch gears?
Once you have put the car in gear, the motor does not reflect the information back in anyway. Am I in 3rd gear or 5th? It would be nice to know. Do you think the car could tell me, maybe somewhere on the space age-looking digital display? Nope. It's a secret. I can look at the display, and see that the current song on the radio is by Cheryl Crowe and the title is "Like the Way I Do" (I refer you back to the Time Machine...). I can see the date, time and the current external temperature, how much gas we have, how far we have gone.... but nothing as critical as WHAT GEAR AM I IN? At least the manufactures could leave off that little leather cover on the stick. Maybe then I could see where the stick is in relation to the gears?
Truly ironic, that automatics are always labeled to tell you exactly whether you are in drive, neutral, reverse, park - even though you only rarely need to change from one to the other - and when you do, the car isn't moving! (Nor is there a very impatient and rude German driver behind you, about to drive directly into your back seat because you have - horrors of all horrors - slowed down.)
I did reach a milestone today - I drove - by myself to the grocery store, and, more importantly, I drove Z home from soccer practice. I only stalled when I was parking in our driveway! Yay!
Janice, Janice, Janice. May you someday enjoy the delectable pleasures of driving a stick shift vehicle. It's like riding a sleek 18-speed road bike instead of a sluggish 3-speed commuter bike; like enjoying free range eggs in cardboard cartons instead of factory eggs in styrofoam; like using Linux instead of Windows XP. Feel the force, Janice, let it flow through you, do not fight it; let go your conscious self and act on instinct.
ReplyDeleteAh, but isn't that just the thing? I don't drive for pleasure. I drive to get someplace that is too far to walk to. And I understand that driving is the most dangerous activity humans (in the developed world) engage in on a daily basis. Why complicate matters by inserting the opportunity for driver error with every shift? Worrying what gear I am in or whether I am 'easing off the clutch' too abruptly takes away precious attention from what all the other crazy people out there are doing.(And other things I should be doing... rechts bevor links?????)
ReplyDeleteThe other night, I was pulling into a parking space in front of Z's school. I had the left directional on, indicating my intent to move leftward... Because I have a tendency to release the clutch too abruptly, and thus stall the car, I was taking some time to let it go... apparently too long, because some idiot came up from behind and PASSED ME ON THE LEFT, just as the clutch was about to release.
Similar things happen at traffic lights, traffic circles, etc. If you take a millisecond too long, there is another car either directly at your rear end, or zipping past you on the left.
I am doing my best, and I am getting better at it. But I still maintain that it is stupid to take a dangerous activity and needlessly complicate it. (Here I would take your windows/linux example and point out that XP is needlessly over complicated and very prone to security failures, and linux is sleek and secure. It shifts its own gears, in the most optimal way.)
BTW: Number of gears on my bike: 21. Number I actually use: 3 :)
Of course German drivers are always mere inches behind you, but that isn't because you're driving a stick shift. Rather, it's because Germans follow the "one second rule" ("always stay one second or less behind the vehicle in front of you, so that if it stops suddenly, you will crash into it"). The "one second rule" is why Germans have 259-car pile-ups (I kid you not: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8159290.stm).
ReplyDeleteYeah, rechts vor links is a doozy for us Americans to get used to.
If it's any, um, consolation, the rate of traffic-related fatalities in the US is 2-3 times greater than in Germany. So if you have to learn to drive a stick shift, you're safer doing it there than here.
I'm not sure it's historically accurate to describe the existence of manual transmissions as "taking a dangerous activity and needlessly complicating it," but whatever. Kudos to you for giving this a try. I imagine it's kind of like trying to learn to ski as an adult rather than as a kid. Once you get it, it can be liberating; until then, you just hope you'll emerge from the situation alive.
It is not that manual transmissions *existed* that I find needlessly complicated. It is that they *still* exist in a place where superior technology is available. I am sure at one point, patients were monitored with a stethoscope during major surgery. But now, we have computerized monitors that don't doze off or lose count...
DeleteI don't trust humans with rote tasks - especially this particular human. The likelihood that I space out and forget I am driving a shift in the first place is a little too high. I'd rather leave it to a machine to remember for me. Oh, and I don't get any kudos for trying. Perhaps the very worst part of this is that *it is not up to me*. I can either drive the stick or not drive at all. Great choices.
Re: the pile up.
"Police said the pile-up was believed to have been caused by a combination of heavy rain and excessive speed."
Sigh. Why is it that wet/icy roads don't seem to cause people to slow down?
Ironically enough, there were two major pile-ups (I think only in the teens though, not hundreds) here in the past couple of weeks that were due to wet roads and the sun unexpectedly coming out and blinding drivers.
Funny you should mention skiing - it is an activity I plan to never engage in. Michael Kennedy, Sonny Bono, Natasha Richardson... not to mention the mere incidence of paralysis and broken bones. I like to get my thrills on a boogey board. Sure, there's the drowning thing, but at least you aren't barreling down a mountain with long sticks attached to your feet, dodging trees, rocks, other people... and all of it in the snow, for goodness sake! Never understood it.
I have gone water skiing though - now *that* is fun! And if you fall, you fall into water... and then you get out, and walk barefoot on the lovely white sand... Can you tell that I grew up on an island? :)
Check back tomorrow - we are going to dinner tonight at a restaurant that has, umm, interesting decor... I want to bring the camera this time!