The book figures said it gave just about the same economy as the manual version, but real life use gave me far further from those than I ever remember experiencing with a manual.

I'll never have another unless it is a sporty thing with 8 speed, paddles and a prancing horse on the bonnet.

That may be an issue with the particular model?

In all the "automatics" I drove, American as well as Japanese models (the latter only several Hondas), I had no problem to know and control very precisely when the shift up or down would occur. I would drive up a hill and I knew exactly if I pressed down just a millimeter more the care would shift, which I delayed from happening until the ascend got less steep. That level of control was easy to get with only a little bit of experience with the specific car/transmission.

I suspect I'd have noticed or cared far less if more of my vehicles hadn't been sports and I'd bought more mobile sofas, driving accordingly. :)

Overall I prefer the lazy V8 approach to avoiding gearchanges - have vast torque on tap.

The high price of gas in Europe is a key reason why people chose manuals for a long time.

I know that personally I can tell I'm a much worse driver in an auto. I'm lazy - so in a manual that means paying extra attention to lights and the traffic so I can engine brake and coast more and avoid stopping and starting from first. In an auto I'm simply lazy period so I end up driving more stop-and-go. I wonder how much of an outlier I am.

Somebody else mentioned this too. In the US, there are different driving tests for manual and automatic cars. It would be plausible to me that passing the test in an automatic meant a license that was restricted to automatics, but I just looked over my license and didn't see anything obvious. The "restrictions" section says only "corrective lenses".

However... I can't drive a manual transmission. I know I can't, and that's why I don't try. It's completely superfluous to restrict my license; I suffer the harm of trying to drive one.

And similarly, if you're not planning to drive manual, there is no benefit to having a license that says you can. If you can't drive manual, there's really no benefit to having a license that says you can. The benefit comes from having the skill, not the license. If you could, like me, get a license that allowed you to drive manual cars without knowing how, would you go out and start driving them without knowing how?

Just like having a permit saying you can legally own firearms would not mean that you are in any way proficient at their use; just that you know when you should and shouldn't use them.

But somehow multiple people are presenting the license as a reason to learn to drive manual when you otherwise wouldn't. Logically, that doesn't work.