Elon Musk

having yoru kid drive you for the first time is truly a test of the nerves

having your kid teach you how to drive even more so

esp when the child seat doesn't get high enough

My kid passed his test about three hours ago (UK). He's had a fucker of a time since the pandemic and it's the one thing he can focus on without impediment; I couldn't be happier for him. (And I can genuinely say I've always felt safe with him in the car.)
Now I've got to sell a bollock to afford the extraordinarily expensive insurance.

Fwiw, I'm glad I learned manual. It was never really presented as a choice when I learned (early 90s) - everyone taught in manual and you had to properly search out someone teaching automatic.

I learned manual on an 91 Ford Ranger we called the Deranger in the Humboldt hills, bless those days.

I learned to drive manual on a 1979 VW Rabbit, which was old even then (1990)

I'm terrified of my kid driving. She's 14 so I should probably start letting her practice in parking lots. She's pretty erratic and clumsy as it is, I can't imagine what driving is going to be like. She has driven an old car out at my parents place in the country and that wasn't too bad.

I'm glad we're not in Houston anymore. That would be a shit city for a new learner.

I've driven a tractor at slow chugging pace through a field, and electric go-karts, dodgems, but no fucking chance a car on the roads and motorways with many other vehicles. That's just an insane idea. Once a boss offered me a more than decent payrise and he offered to pay for a few months worth of driving lessons if I showed some genuine interest in getting a driving license. I said thanks, but no thanks.

If I had to learn to drive with a manual, I would never have learned how to drive. I've tried several times to learn how to drive one and failed each time. It's like middle school algebra: something I should be able to do that seems to be forever beyond me.

I passed my driver's test on automatic. Then a year later got a car that was manual so had to learn that. My Dad and I got in a huge shouting match in the car after he had given me the basics, so I yelled at him to get out and I figured out the rest.

I passed my test in an automatic as well. in the UK that means I can't legally drive a manual which is just as well for everyone else on the road. I haven't driven a car since my wife died and not sure if I will again tbh. parking it here would be a total nightmare anyway

One of the things I'm grateful to my father for is teaching me how to drive. His laconic and patient nature served him well as a driving instructor. He drove us out to some dirt roads outside the city and just let me make mistakes on our three-speed 1978 Chevy Malibu until I figured it out.

worst manual transmission experience: one time the last 14-foot u-haul available when i was moving was stick, and first gear got you to like 5mph, second to 15, third to 25, etc. -- merging onto an interstate was deeply unpleasant

Most of the cars I’ve owned have been manual - I grew up on them and I always appreciated how dealers would discount them because most folks couldn’t drive them. My car insurance agent once told me that the best anti-theft device is a manual

Also my fave parts of early The Amazing Race episodes was watching folks completely lose it when confronted with a manual

i have adhd and double vision, which i thought was a normal everyday thing but apparently isn't? i don't think i have strabismus, either. i just see two of everything unless i get these special glasses with "prisms", which means i can't order them online, they have to be ground by hand, probably with a stone mill or something. also, apparently other people can just move their eyes to the left and right to see laterally, like, to check in the rear-view mirror? i can't do that. i have to turn my head to see what's in the rear-view mirror. this is incredibly dangerous and i probably shouldn't be driving! nobody's ever told me i'm not allowed to drive, though, only that i'm a bad driver.

i'm 48 years old and i'm figuring this out now for the first time in my life, lol. apparently it's my left eye. i literally can't move my eyes to look to the left of me. i can look fine to the right of me, but i can't look to the left of me. this might also be related to the way one of my eyes is always squinty. when i get double vision i squint one of my eyes because that way i can see one of things again.

I have no idea how an automatic even works. I don't think I've ever even been in a car with automatic gears. I can only think of one person I've ever met who said she had an automatic.

I have no idea how an automatic even works. I don't think I've ever even been in a car with automatic gears. I can only think of one person I've ever met who said she had an automatic.

Hmmmm. Shall I say it again?

I own one, but we bought it in 1997. We're willing to sell it to any interested ilxor for a fair price!

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Thursday, December 14, 2023 10:32 PM (two days ago)

what kinda car is it?

A Subaru Legacy station wagon (it has a sticker under the Legacy nameplate that says "Brighton" - whatever that means). It was the bare bones model. No extras. We did buy the four little floor carpets for it.

The Amazing Race thing still happens once in a while! Generally the contestants know this is a thing to practice beforehand, but they can still get flummoxed in the heat of the moment.

a traditional automatic works by using one of multiple variations on traditional gearing and automatically shifting between them, with varying results depending on the age and model of the car. some have settings to shift more aggressively or less so to get better fuel economy

newer vehicles, especially electric ones, use a continuously variable transmission. there are a few mechanisms, but imagine the gear that controls the ratio being cone-shaped. so there are not distinct gears, there’s a spectrum of ratios you can move through depending on current speed and desired acceleration, etc

if you’re worried that this is drive-by-wire, I wouldn’t. nearly every vehicle has had some drive-by-wire aspects for many decades

I have no idea how an automatic even works.

I mean that's kind of the point, they just do. you press the accelerator and the car goes forward

I had a much better time when I tried to learn to drive in the 90s, cars only had 4 gears then. now they have 5 or 6, I just can't do it, my left hand is too unco-ordinated. the instructor would tell me to go from 1st to 3rd and I'd put it in 5th and the car would stall. or even worse, go down from 5th to 4th and I'd put in 2nd. then he'd get mad and tell me I'm fucking up his gear box. you told me to do it mate, not my fault you're a shit teacher

anyway most of the stuff I'd been told about automatic cars was absolute bullshit. oh they can't deal with hills? total bollocks. I lived in Hastings at the top of a really steep hill, my car zipped up it like it wasn't even there. my mum's car was manual and shuddered the whole way up there. it's all lies

On steep downhills it is kind of nice to be able to gear down manually as an adjunct to braking. Other than that the continuously variable automatics I've driven are as good or better.

I always found changing gears incredibly stressful whereas breaking is really easy so I don't really know why it would be better. this is something the US has got right

I don't really know why it would be better.

Chances are you've never descended a road that starts at 9500 ft above sea level and ends at 1000 ft. Brakes can overheat and fail in those circumstances.

everything i know about car transmissions (which is very little) comes from having built lego kits. they're really good! although mine did not feature a synchromesh

xp true and that's a thing that people do all the time

Maybe not all the time, but in the western USA it certainly has its applications, especially if you predictably spend time driving in the mountains because you enjoy spending time in the mountains and they are accessible nearby.

Chances are you've never descended a road that starts at 9500 ft above sea level and ends at 1000 ft. Brakes can overheat and fail in those circumstances.

nearly every automatic transmission vehicle has an equivalent to engine braking or downshifting, at least everything I’ve driven has?

chipping away chipping away: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/elon-musk-tesla-crash-1234930544/

xpost Yeah, some automatic low gear. L2, etc.

moving to an automatic next month, probably for good at this stage id imagine and ill miss the control but will get used to it

I drove manual transmission autos exclusively for 30 years. Now I drive an automatic 95% of the time. There's not a lot to miss. It's all just driving, but some driving involves more left foot/right hand activity.

almost no manuals are sold anymore in the usa anymore its around ~1% rip

Yous are all fannies. It's just a gear stick and a clutch.

I feel like we are having a debate from 1988

chances are you've never descended a road that starts at 9500 ft above sea level and ends at 1000 ft. Brakes can overheat and fail in those circumstances.

I'll remember this next time I drop my daughter off at violin lessons and run to Target

lol

I love it when ilx tells everyone how to drive

You should see the football thread.

i am nearly 56 and have never driven an automatic.
i kinda like the whole process re manual.
in my head : automatic = more stuff that can go wrong.
i like my cars to be simple and basic.
as little s/w in charge as possible.
and yeah, i know, old man shouting at the clouds meme etc ..

nearly every automatic transmission vehicle has an equivalent to engine braking or downshifting, at least everything I’ve driven has?

― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Sunday, December 17, 2023 10:22 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is true most automatics have S and/or L gears for that sort of thing, also you can pump the breaks down a mountain to avoid overheating

i do not know how to drive a "stick"

its not that hard good to learn if you have the opportunity

manuals used to get better gas milage than automatics but thats no longer true, new automatic transmissions of all types (planetary, dual clutch, cvt) work really good in general now, also a lot of the new related tech like adaptive cruise control is good too, manuals can be fun to drive and def feel more connected to the true mechanical nature of cars, but crawling around in traffic with them kinda sucks