lol, of course your 1 year old likely won't ever drive at all but will chuckle at you wanting to teach them the 'old ways'

 

that's one of the only things that might make me sell my lexus. driving 1 to 1.5 hours each way in downtown LA traffic never bothered me enough to want to get rid of the 3rd pedal.

 

Don't be so sure of that. Not every kid wants to depend on Mom and Dad, Uber or mass transit for getting around.

 

Thats not what he's talking about lol. He's talking about his 1 year old having self driving cars.

 

Guess you never know what they will come up with nowdays.

 

no learning curve switching to RHD?

 

That's a good point. Both driving and flying a plane from the right seat gives one a totally different perspective.

 

LOL, touché!

 

Manual is always fun

 

I think I would die if I had to drive a manual in Japan all the time!!!

 

Welcome to CL. I see this is your first post.

 

Thank you very much

 

Anything you want, Andrew.

 

I visited England and Wales with a friend some years back, and decided to travel around by car. I was somewhat anxious about driving RHD cars so insisted that we rent ones with automatic transmissions.

From Manchester, we were able to rent an automatic Ford Mondeo but at Heathrow, all they had was a manual Ford Focus. It was actually easier than I thought it would be -- even the manual Focus. I was still anxious about parallel parking, though (something we don't do much of in North America anymore), not just because I am driving on the wrong side of the car, rowing my own gears with my left hand instead of my right, but also reversing into a spot on the wrong side of the road. So I avoided it or had my friend (from Singapore) do the parallel parking.

I would be willing to try it again -- but not in London (we did not drive into London that time). I would have to do all the driving though, since my wife never learned to drive stick and has never driven (intentionally) on the wrong side of the road.

 

I have a co-worker who has only driven manuals all his life. He's turning 50 next year. So yesterday, he traded in his manual 2003 Tacoma for a brand new 4-Runner from Longo. He is so happy with the whole thing, including the change to automatics. When I dive deeper into the topic with him, he's basically tired of the added cost of fixing manuals over the life of the car. The Tacoma had been bullet-proof, except for the ongoing wear and tear of the transmission. So, I suppose that can be added to the negative list. Then again, manual cars are usually cheaper to purchase than automatic ones, so perhaps it's a wash depending on how long the vehicle is kept.
Personally, I'm happy manually shifting my automatic. Similar control, without the potential clutch issues.
By the way, in the time he was there making the deal at Longo, he had four interested parties for his Tacoma trade. Talk about resale!