"Does a standard shift make you a better driver? It’s quite possible because you may get a better feeling for how the drivetrain functions from the engine to the wheels. You may drive more conservatively by having a feel for the shifting of the automatic transmission."
Crap, 90% of the drivers in this country wouldn’t know a driveshaft from a fan belt.
I have driven manuals off and on for 60 years, have yet to find one I liked!! Not even a Mustang GT.
I think you might replace 2 clutches in the liftime of an automatic. And I have only had 1 experience in 12 years of a bad starter and couldn’t go. How would you push start a car if you were parked down town paralell between 2 cars?
Hey, Andrew, I doubt that you have ever driven a delivery vehicle with a manual transmission in downtown traffic for 8 hours a day… I have and believe me it is all work and no fun!! At least after the first 6 hours!!
It is common for people to make judgments by their own circumstances and experiences I have large feet, which means it IS work for me to drive a manual transmission. I even drove large straight trucks professionally when I was younger, so it is not like I did not know how. However, except in rural driving, I find automatics much less work and stress. And, in places like Mexico City and area, I’d like to see you with a manual. Hee, hee. Not a lot of older people in Mexico City drive manual transmissions. Cars literally merge with a few inches between vehicles, and shifting a manual is for the very strong.
EZ Test, drive a stick again and give us your conclusion!
Cars used to have manual chokes. Cars used to have manual distributor timing advance. Were you a better/worse driver after those systems were automated? As much as I love my MT I envy the 6 mS shift time of a quality automatic.
My buddy’s wife could drove an automatic. On a move from LA to Phoenix she couldn’t keep up with the U-Haul. Eventually he stopped to see why she was lagging. She explained that the “engine was roaring”. She drove across the Mojave Desert in second gear! The family wagon was never the same after that. Maybe if she ever drove a manual she’d have figured it out.
I’ve got a Honda Accord EX MT. My favorite shift is 6th to reverse. I’ve also got a Prius which doesn’t have a transmission at all; it’s got a power split device. I’m the best driver because I’ve got a planetary gear set! http://eahart.com/prius/psd/
When my children were growing up I stressed that they learn to drive manual transmissions. You want to be able to drive both agricultural equipment and Ferraris.
I disagree. Driving with a manual transmission forces you to be more engaged with the transmission and nothing more. As for gas mileage, that is more controlled by gearing and the driver’s willingness to accelerate and slow down gently; abiding by the speed limit is agreat method of saving gas. How does a manual transmission help you with those things? I’ve owned both, and control is up to the driver, not the transmission. he only thing the manual ever encouraged me to do was move the gear shift. Hey, you gotta take one had off the wheel to change gears, dontcha?
I have never burned out a clutch, and my current car is 11 years old. Honestly, how many automatic transmissions last more than 11 years and more than 183,000 miles without a rebuild?
If I was parked in an area with parallel parking, I could find another car to get a jump start, perhaps even from one of the parked cars blocking me in. Why would I want to push-start it when I didn’t have to? Besides, if I was on level ground, I could push the car out of a parallel parking space as easily as any other parking space.
I agree that manual is more fun! It’s much easier to do a burnout when you can control the clutch yourself. 
I think it probably does make you a better driver though, because you are forced to pay attention to your speed and how your engine sounds (at least when moving through the lower gears).
It is so sad that it’s so difficult to get manual cars now. People are doing too many other things while driving, so they don’t want to deal with paying attention to gears! 
There IS a reason for this though: emissions (or so I've read).
Don't know about Canada, but the US has some of the strictest emissions rules in the world... not LOTS stricter than, say, the EU, but enough. A lot of engines, to shave that last bit off the pollution levels to make them emissions-legal, they must control the shifts. Shifting late? Or early? Higher emissions. Sloppy shifts, not rev-matching (or possibly because you ARE rev-matching?) Higher emissions. It goes without saying if you're slipping the clutch, you are creating pollution without it all going to move the car -- higher emissions. And so on.
The flip side of this, I think some engines are run very close to stalling for emissions purposes.. you would likely find it VERY hard to engage the clutch without stalling, some models would jerk down the road until speeds got up a bit, and so on.
Last comment on all this... they are not as common as they could be, but there's systems like Volkswagen "DSG" which uses a dual-clutch manual transmission with a computer controlling shifts. So you DO get manual gas mileage in this case, you just don't get the manual fun.
As for your original question? I don't know. I've mostly only driven automatics, I don't FEEL like I'm a worse driver for it. I would "think" a stick could be a distraction, but in reality I don't think this is really true for most stick drivers, their hand and foot kind of just do the shifts without them even thinking about it.Honestly, how many automatic transmissions last more than 11 years and more than 183,000 miles without a rebuild?
Lots of them. 10 or 15 years ago, Chrysler and Ford both started using..umm... too many aluminum parts in the trannys for a few years so they would especially flake in minivans (the 4-speeds, the 3-speeds were old rock-solid designs.) I think they got over that. In general though, getting 200K out of an auto now, I don't think it's a big deal. I wouldn't use reliability as an argument for getting an auto versus a stick.
By the way, Jeffmw05, it isn’t really accurate to describe a manual transmission as a “standard.” That is a holdover form the days when almost all vehicles came with a manual transmission as standard equipment and an automatic transmission was sometimes optional. These days it is usually the other way around, at least in the USA.
I respectfully disagree. Nobody will ever refer to an automatic as a standard.
Nobody will ever refer to an automatic as a standard.
Of course they won’t. I never suggested they would. I only suggested that “manual” is a more accurate description than “standard.”
By the way, Wikipedia is a nice learning tool, but since there are no standards for the accuracy of the information and who is authorized to edit it, it might not be a good idea to rely too heavily on it or cite it as a source.
Language idioms persist…such as “regular or unleaded?” Despite leaded gas not having been the “regular” choice for almost 30 yrs in the U.S.
A common logic flaw is “it follows therefore it’s caused by”. If better drivers do indeed tend to drive manuals, you need to ask if manuals make one a better driver or if better drivers simply prefer manual transmissions.