I have always been passionate about cars and driving, My first memory of driving was sitting on my dad’s lap and steering and shifting gears as he pressed the clutch. He would pull over on our backroad and let me drive down till we reached our house. I loved being behind the wheel, his car was a Peugeot, a French car which was featured in the movie Taxi, a French version of Fast and Furious. I would watch him shift gears and press the clutch, every single car in Romania was equipped with a manual transmission.
Once day, I was up to no good. My dad left the key in car and parked it at the end of the driveway. I was about 8 years old and I thought I could drive the car. I got inside it and didn’t know anything about making the car move, I twisted the key and pressed the clutch… out of nowhere the car launched forward and stalled as the fender scraped our gate. This was one of the craziest ideas that I had ever had. I panicked and ran to the neighbors to ask them to reverse the car back to where it was parked. I scuffed up the side and I tried to wipe off the green paint from the silver fender. Luckily the paint wiped off as I buffed with my t-shirt. A Romanian saying from my grandma is “the devil’s horns were growing on my head” because I was doing bad things.
A couple of years later, I wanted to learn how to drive a manual car without anyone’s help. On my 13th birthday I successfully learned to shift gears. My mom taught me how to slowly let go of the clutch and give the car gas. I think I stalled the car about 5 or so times, this made my mom very angry. 1st gear was hell for me, the car would just jerk forward and or stall. I managed to get up to 3rd gear in the abandoned space where I was driving. I realized once I got out of 1st gear that everything became so much more simple. Since we are from Europe, my moms new car when I was 15 was again stick shift, I had to relearn again how to drive manual on a new car. I was so nervous because stalling a new car was bad for the clutch and I didn’t want to ruin it. My biggest fear was thinking the car would stop when I press the brake while it is still in gear.
After 5 years of driving manual, I think I got the hang of it pretty well and I learned a few tricks which sadly weren’t so friendly to my clutch because I had to replace the clutch on a 6 year old car, this should have lasted me another 4 years. My favorite thing about driving manual is always being busy in the car and I feel less distracted. I love messing with the clutch and making the tires squeak. Sometimes I wish I could drive an automatic because driving to Philly in traffic is one of the worst drives for a stick driver. I think that in the future I am going to buy another manual car to uphold my European roots, I actually almost bought another manual car this summer but it sold before I could go back.
#Driving #manualtransmission #cars
Related Articles:
https://jalopnik.com/5230172/how-to-drive-a-stick-shift-in-ten-easy-steps
http://momvantage.net/2013/07/18/nine-steps-to-help-your-16-year-old-be-a-safe-driver/
Alex Calinescu 