Prince Harry Is Teaching Meghan Markle to Drive Stick.

[Doctor Amadeus]

For American visitors to the U.K., it is up there with the lack of air conditioning and low water pressure in the shower. Meghan Markle is learning how to cope with one of the great inconveniences of British life by learning to drive stick. According to a report this weekend in the Mail on Sunday, Meghan is receiving lessons from none other than her boyfriend Prince Harry. A source told the paper that Markle has been seen brushing up on her manual gear shift skills inside the grounds at Kensington Palace, where she lives with Prince Harry, 33, as she prepares for her May 19 wedding. In common with the vast majority of American-taught drivers, Markle learned to drive on an automatic. In the U.K.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/prince...%29&yptr=yahoo

I Guess my question is WHY, I can drive a manual, but everything I own is automatic, I will admit there is something lost if you ever want to go off roading or to a race track or plan to drive really expensive OLD high end cars, but it seems kind of tedious.

How about you, can you drive stick, if you can which do you prefer?

[Iphie]

Yes, I was taught to drive stick, I was given the choice between stick and automatic. I chose stick as that is still the majority of the cars here.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Automatic cars are for women.

At least that is what the manly men of europe say around here.

Pfft nonsense, I can drive everything with wheels up to a 18 wheeler, there is nothing manly about automatic. There are certain some advantages to it like I said if you go Off Road or drive a classic High end supercar.

[Doctor Amadeus]

I don't know how to drive stick and don’t want to know, as I like automatic and see no point in learning it. I don’t care about it being “more fun”. I hate driving to begin with and can’t wait for driverless cars to take over.

Well I don't know about driverless cars, but I'll agree with all the rest haha.

[Slant]

I Guess my question is WHY, I can drive a manual, but everything I own is automatic, I will admit there is something lost if you ever want to go off roading or to a race track or plan to drive really expensive OLD high end cars, but it seems kind of tedious.

How about you, can you drive stick, if you can which do you prefer?

I have driven both, I prefer stick. For many reasons, but mostly the coasting is just a nice and obvious way to save a little gas. And stick is much more fun, to be honest.

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Pfft nonsense, I can drive everything with wheels up to a 18 wheeler, there is nothing manly about automatic. There are certain some advantages to it like I said if you go Off Road or drive a classic High end supercar.

I can see the advantages of automatic if you're a professional driver. Especially if you drive in cities a lot. Every professional driver should have automatic. It should be a labor law, actually.

[Masark]

I Guess my question is WHY

Family tradition?

[ls-]

Know how to drive stick.

Learning how to drive automatic isn't an option because then you get a license which says that you can't drive manual.

[Doctor Amadeus]

I have driven both, I prefer stick. For many reasons, but mostly the coasting is just a nice and obvious way to save a little gas. And stick is much more fun, to be honest.
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I can see the advantages of automatic if you're a professional driver. Especially if you drive in cities a lot. Every professional driver should have automatic. It should be a labor law, actually.

Maybe in a high end classic roadster, but maybe it's just a preference thing, I just remembered seeing this in Yahoo, and thinking it's pretty odd, of all the thing. I would think learning the metric system over there would be more helpful or getting used to it. LOL!

[xcitng]

I can but I will never buy anything that uses it so its pretty wasted on me, much rather the ease of auto

[Doctor Amadeus]

Family tradition?

[IMG][/IMG]

WOW what a pretty smile. That looks like a beast, that looks like it would be fun to drive, but tradition or no, I don't see Stick transmissions staying around in another 30 years.

[Slant]

Maybe in a high end classic roadster, but maybe it's just a preference thing, I just remembered seeing this in Yahoo, and thinking it's pretty odd, of all the thing. I would think learning the metric system over there would be more helpful or getting used to it. LOL!

Despite popular belief, "learning" metric isn't actually hard. If you can multiply by 10, congrats, you can do the metric system. It's more that some nations simply refuse to adjust. But there's really nothing to it. Why do you think the rest of the world is doing the metric system? Just to spite the 3 countries that are still on Imperial? :P

[Zelk]

Hope she teaches him how to relinquish his claim to the throne in return

[Slant]

WOW what a pretty smile. That looks like a beast, that looks like it would be fun to drive, but tradition or no, I don't see Stick transmissions staying around in another 30 years.

The way things are going, you will probably see stick getting replaced by electric cars that don't need transmissions rather than stick dying out in Europe. Automatic isn't catching on at all here. It's had what, 30-40 years to hook into Europe, we seem to be pretty resilient to the higher gas usage and boy does it get expensive when your transmission is fucked. A manual gearbox is much, much cheaper to fix/replace.

[Will]

None, my mum drives an electric car, I ride a zero motorbike, and for longer trips we have an auto combustion engine. Traffic is shocking in the UK, it's really stop and go at rush hour, it's already stressful enough without having to worry about driving a manual in such conditions. If there were a poll option for 'can't drive stick, don't care to' I'd go with that. At the end of the day you guys have fun changing gears, I'll have fun just twisting the throttle or putting my foot down and taking off with instant, crazy, throw-back-in-your-seat torque with absolutely no delay before it kicks in.

Also um, our shower pressures are just fine, lol.

[Doctor Amadeus]

The way things are going, you will probably see stick getting replaced by electric cars that don't need transmissions rather than stick dying out in Europe. Automatic isn't catching on at all here. It's had what, 30-40 years to hook into Europe, we seem to be pretty resilient to the higher gas usage and boy does it get expensive when your transmission is fucked. A manual gearbox is much, much cheaper to fix/replace.

Yeah that is mostly true here, or at least it has been for a while, meaning fixing an automatic vs a manual, because you can replace a manual yourself much easier and cheaper.

But now days, as I said hell even high end roadsters are automatic. Had no idea about the resistance in your neck of the woods, I guess it makes sense then.

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Hope she teaches him how to relinquish his claim to the throne in return

He's number 3 an I right, he's like never getting the throne right?

[Deleted]

How hard can it be? Even for an actress.

[Orlong]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/prince...%29&yptr=yahoo

I Guess my question is WHY, I can drive a manual, but everything I own is automatic, I will admit there is something lost if you ever want to go off roading or to a race track or plan to drive really expensive OLD high end cars, but it seems kind of tedious.

How about you, can you drive stick, if you can which do you prefer?

Because its more fun and gives you more control. I will always drive a manual and I'm in the US. Only an asshole would buy a Corvette, NSX, or any other sports car with an automatic transmission (Of course those are probably the same people who buy a convertible and drive with the top down and all windows up, or the old men who buy a new Corvette and drive it 15 MPH under the speed limit). A great side effect of having a manual transmission is it will likely never get stolen because most Americans don't know how to drive one.

[Phlegethon]

Automatic cars are for women.

At least that is what the manly men of europe say around here.

No they don't. As a manly man from Europe I can honestly say, I don't care for stick shift. I'm happy I can do it (I mean it's not rocket science) but having the car do it for you, soooooo much easier. Especially with high traffic and traffic jams. Combine it with adaptive cruise control and you are golden.

[XDurionX]

Automatic is not "driving".

[Slant]

Yeah that is mostly true here, or at least it has been for a while, meaning fixing an automatic vs a manual, because you can replace a manual yourself much easier and cheaper.

But now days, as I said hell even high end roadsters are automatic. Had no idea about the resistance in your neck of the woods, I guess it makes sense then.

It's not so much resistance, as it's...simply not occuring to most people. As people get older, they try out automatic at least once, but I hardly know anyone that's an actual automatic enthusiast. Mostly people buy used cars, and mostly they just look at the price tag. And manual wins on that end every single time.

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Automatic is not "driving".

It is. Trust me. If you're a professional driver in the city or if you happen to be in traffic jams a lot, because fuckit, everyone else seems to know when you want to go to work and just blocks the road to tick you off, you're ripe for automatic. That is the true advantage of automatic, slow traffic and automatic is the absolute undisputed world champion of stop and go traffic. If you sit in an automatic in stop and go traffic, you can't help but smile your ass off at everyone around you getting a tired left foot. And as you sit there like a smug motherfucker, you can witness the pure hate radiating out from them and when you see their lips move, it's mostly "Ok, fuckit... this is where automatic wins" that they're saying, despite all their pride. Source? Myself, when I am stickshifting in heavy traffic. :P