Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transmissions

Re:Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transm... by mnw21cam on Thursday November 17, 2016 @05:25AM (#12976136)

> I was in the habit of just holding the clutch pedal down while stopped at intersections or in traffic.

If you take a driving test in the UK and do this, that would be a minor fault. You can only have a few minor faults before you fail the test. The rationale is that you need to be in full control of the car at all times, and when you set off you mustn't drift backwards at all. The easiest way to do this without needing three legs is to use the handbrake. Unless you have a diesel engine that has enough torque without any pressure on the accelerator pedal to pull away.

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Re:Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transm... by JetSetWilly on Thursday November 17, 2016 @06:01AM (#12976314)

There's lots of minor faults that don't reflect how people actually drive.

For example if you are turning right and waiting for oncoming traffic to clear, then someone pauses and flashes their lights to let you turn, if you then turn that would be a minor fault in Driving Test conditions - where you are supposed to ignore the driver inviting you to turn and sit like a diddy.

Also you are allowed 15 minor faults before failure, which is quite a lot really.

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Re:Fewer than 3% of cars sold in the U.S. have manual transm... by Reason077 on Thursday November 17, 2016 @06:33AM (#12976467)

Huh? Whether or not you put the shifter in neutral has no effect on handbrake (hill) starts. You can still (more quickly, in fact) perform a hill start without also having to put the car back in gear.

And now days, newwer cars have the "hill hold" feature which automatically prevents you rolling backwards anyway.

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