I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I was using my situation as an example to show that not all cities are equal when it comes to public transportation.

I'm talking about someone that cannot pass the driver's exam due to not being able to drive a stick and their access to public transportation is crap(either because of poor planning, poor execution, or whatever).

How do you handle those people?

Because if you mandate that they must know how to drive stick and yet, after that they don't have to have stick, then there might be a good chance that the next generation doesn't have a stick to learn from and therefore, may not be able to pass the driver's test.

I know how to drive stick, but I don't own stick now and I'm not going to buy a stick just so my children have something to practice on, it doesn't make fiscal sense since my marginal benefit is not equal to the marginal cost of owning one.

This is probably why they didn't teach parallel parking when I was getting my license. Unlike lane changes, turns, entering/exiting interstate etc, "you" could go a lifetime without parrallel parking(so far I have), so making something like that a crucial make or break portion of the exam isn't an exactly wise thing to do, especially if the odds of doing it outside that exam are very very very very very very low if not non-existent. Now odds of getting a stick are higher then parrallel parking, but those odds are quickly dewindling for alot of reasons and really your odds are greatest for getting sticks in trucks or sports vehicles(sport trucks/cars etc) and the old style jeeps, but in your everyday passenger cars not so much and that's the bulk of vehicles out on the road.

Same thing with mandating the portion of the exam where it's make or break for the person taking the exam. Unless there is a means to make sure that the next generation will have the ability to have practice with it for them to get a license or "you" might run into the chance of having more people needing public transportation and less people on the roads. Which on one hand would be very good for alot of things, but on another would be very bad since our infrastructure isn't setup for that in alot of places(more places aren't setup for it compared to ones that are).

I would love for people to take the exam in a truck(doesn't have to have "hips") as that would hopefully give them a better understanding for those that do drive trucks after the exam. Is it really practical, no not really and it especially wouldn't be if it was a make or break part of the exam.

Now there are ways around this(training facilities etc to rent this stuff out to license takers), however, this all adds costs to having a license, which in turn makes it more attractive to do public transportation, which depending on where you are located may not in the end be a viable option.

 

I had the choice to drive auto or stick for my drivers ed, picked auto. My first two vehicles were both stick, now on my third and it is an auto. I think only thing I would take in stick now is a little play toy car or something.

 

We didn't have a choice. It was auto and it was a sedan as well. Didn't really help me all that much other then get used to the basics, but even some of that changed as soon I got my first vehicle.

Also, you are going to have to remember that some people aren't going to be physically able to handle a stick, but otherwise they can drive. I just now thought of this, because there was a girl that was in my driver's ed class that was extremely short and she actually had to sit on a couple of hardback books in order to get situated enough to look out of the rearview mirror and there was no way that she could do all the multi-tasking that goes on with dealing with a stick.

There are a lot of roadblocks to this type of stuff, especially when it's make or break. I would think it would actually be better to have this stuff just for driver's ed and reward either better insurence rates or other incentives for people that do well with handling a stick(rather or not they get one in the end), but still have an option to do everything with an auto if there is a need or just because someone may not want to deal with a stick, but they just don't get as low of rates as someone that chose the manual or chose learning to drive the bigger vehicle both of which may be intrepretated as having a steeper learning curve to them.

 

it is amazing what one can accomplish when necessary. Not that operating a clutch and a gearbox is an amazing feat, but anyone who claims that they actually cannot, one time in their life, is simply lazy.

if nothing else you could give out "Automatic Only" endorsements for a small fee...


Drivers education courses often have their own "student" vehicles... at mine, a couple of those were manual shift cars. Each student ended up driving all of the vehicles at some point both night and day. This means that the individual does not have to have access to their own stick shift, and with 2 or 3 other students in the vehicle with you while learning to clutch... you learn FAST so you don't get ridiculed.

 

Very good point, you obviously did some research. However, I as referring to motocrossers, and all the four stroke MX'ers aren't EPA-legal any more than the two-strokes they replaced.

 

there are many people that cannot drive because of a physical condition no matter what kind of transmission you use... she may have been close to being one of them

 

While I agree that it isn't a hard feat, there are conditions in which a person cannot accomplish this. Mainly some physical issue(either strength or other physical characteristic), but I wouldn't say that if they can't do it, that they are lazy in every circumstance. That would be overgeneralizing and not accounting for every conceivable scenerio. What I mention may be few and far between and maybe only account for at most 5%, but they are still there and because they are still there keep someone from saying something is 100%(as in people are just lazy if they say they can't do this(in this case drive a stick)).

Like I said, mine didn't. It was only one car and that was it. Take it or leave it.

Also, I have only been rediculed once about my not ever having learned to ride a bike. I haven't been since and guess what I still haven't learned to ride a bike. Of course, at this stage in my life, I couldn't give a crap if someone rediculed me about that now.

 

MX bikes are exempt because they are assumed to be used only for competition and not recreation. The EPA left themselves this "out" when writing the Act. in 2002 (that went completely into effect in 2009)

Maybe the manufacturers didn't want to deal with it?

 

that's where exemptions and restriction endorsements come in to play.

for example, I physically cannot drive without corrective lenses. My license says so because I cannot tell a stop sign from a highway exit sign 500 feet away.

If somebody has a medically valid condition that prevents them from pressing a clutch, and/or shifting, there would be an exemption for that. It would even be one that anyone could get, but without a condition, it would cost extra.

One thing that's eating me though... If somebody can't press a clutch, why are we trusting them to press a brake?

 

Pretty soon, no one will be able to escape the EPA hand of death.

They are already drafting up rules for stuff like leaf blowers, chainsaws and even the smaller 2 cylinder tractors as well. There are enough dollars on an VSL in order to make it worth mandating that manufactors of those goods have to comply with some regulation. In the end it's actually minimal, but it'll **** alot of people off just because they are doing it.

 

Well that would actually depend on the individual circumstance. You could have people that have muscle atrophy in the left leg, enough so that it would impair proper use of the clutch and yet still have good muscle tone in their right leg to apply the brake.

You could have a situation like that. Granted the odds of that are slim, maybe not as slim as we might like to think, but I do believe that they are slim.

I mean this situations don't have to be genetic, they could be caused by accidents or whatever. However, there are situations where they won't be able to use the left leg as effectively as the right for this type of application. Or could have had a birth defect that left them the use of only one hand, adding a level of difficulty with shifting and keeping one hand on the wheel. Of course, you could be alittle more creative with handling that, but the example I could think of would add even more difficulty to the situation and add even more chances of an accident.

I mean there are other situations that would make it hard to actually shift the gears, they don't have to deal exclusively with the clutch.

We could be at this all day. Auto v. Stick is about the same as Diesel v. Gas. I just think that the stick has the losing end in the first situation, particularly in our application and the diesel may be on the losing on in the other. It would depend on a few other factors and how they fell into place.

 

Doncha' be dissin' Darts, now. The '63 - '65's were very good transportation!

Owned two of them back then. Both automatics......

Pop

 

I just resent no longer having the freedom of choice regardless of the reasons. And the fact that trucks are so much more costly to purchase and maintain than 15 years ago and really don't do anything that much better than a 95, it just makes me more reluctant to make a purchase of a new truck. The "build it and they'll buy it" marketing strategy won't work with me as long as there are aftermarket suppliers.

 

Thats inflation for you Greg, my house is almost double what it was only 4.5 years ago, and that is down from what it was 1 year ago but prices are going up again.

 

mind you we experienced the oil boom here for that to happen