Driving along Michigan expressways this morning, I caught a soft-news piece on public radio about the declining popularity of manual transmissions. Now, I’ve never really ascribed to the notion that manual transmission affords drivers better fuel mileage but the piece kicked off toting that “fact”. Sad but true, Americans are slowly turning down manual transmission.

Though the piece largely defended manual transmission, the people used in the sound-bytes clearly stated the wavering attitude of the run-of-the-mill driver. One woman cited the fact that her city’s traffic sucked the fun out of driving a stick, which struck a cord in me. During harsh Detroit winters, the roads aren’t the best conditions for driving any vehicle. Compounded with a highly congested evening drive-time, I choose to take the bus. Now that the warm weather, the morning commute is akin to stock car racing, thus my love of driving a stick is restored.

For a different perspective, the daughter of the woman quoted shed some light on the situation. From what I recall, the daughter (18) said that that because the average engadgeted teen doesn’t want to fiddle with a gear shift as they busily chat on the mobile phone while holding a Starbucks coffee. I heard this and angrily bit down on the slice of pizza I was eating, sent a text message, and down-shifting into 4th gear to pass the jerk in front of me. With the surge of street-drag movies and motorcycle-building television shows, it puzzles me that in this youth-obsessed culture our teenagers aren’t clamoring to learn how to drive stick.

Being in the motor city I found it necessary to learn how to drive a stick because with the exotic cars around here, one is bound to be offered a test drive. I didn’t want to be offered a spin in a sporty luxury car and find that I’d have to turn it down because I didn’t know how to get it in gear. Case in point; the new James Bond, Daniel Craig was asked to drive a tricked out Aston Martin for the film. Not knowing how to drive a stick and the notion of a James Bond that just puts the car into “D” to get into a high speed chase, Mr. Craig was forced to learn.

Unfortunately, my biggest fear now is coming to fruition. It is now becoming difficult to find a manual drive car on a car dealer’s lot. If and when I decide to purchase a new vehicle, I may have to go back to the two-pedal ho-hum blues.

PS:
The image to the right is the “SHIFTER” logo, sold by the Detroit clothier “Made In Detroit“. Stop over and pick one up [here]