Motors Why do Americans predominantly drive Automatics?

ya imo its cuz americans are lazy, then again since they multitask its not really laziness

but ya, we like to (i dont personally, but stereotypically) eat, drink and do other stupid stuff, like read or watch dvds and talk on are cell phones

i only really talk on my celly, and ya its quite hard, haveing to switch to speaker phone, and shifting with my phone in my hand at the same time

and well young teenage girls are quite lazy so they like to drive autos (in america)

 

I can't stand cell phone use while driving. I refuse to answer my phone while the car is moving. The only time I could possibly see someone using one is on the highway, where there's not much steering or braking involved, or around small suburban streets, but even that is iffy. On a 40mph road with traffic lights and such? No way.

 

altron, when was the last time there was a 60 car pileup on "<I>On a 40mph road with traffic lights and such?</I>" Talking on the phone is dangerous, and you might only be able to check the road every few seconds, especially if like, oh my god, jamie broke up with kevin and it was <I>soooooo</I> sad!!1!11!! (people talking on their cells usually are more worried with their conversation than their driving) the faster you go, the more distance is covered in-between checks. more than enough distance to get yourself killed.

there was a 60+ car pileup last year in san francisco. someone was yapping on their phone when it was raining and crowded. dangerous enough without talking to the person you are driving to see.

 

Using phones, eating putting on makeup etc. whilst driving is banned in many places for good reason...its bloody dangerous. Driving requires a lot of concentration especially at speed and you don't need distractions while doing it, even in an auto where your right/left hand (depending on RHD or LHD cars) might as well not be there. Personally I hate auto's and I dislike those stupid flappy paddle gearbox things as well, manual is definitely my preference. I have a hands free phone kit in my car but its rarely used as I find my attention tends to wander when talking on it.

 

you talking about paddle shifters? well i would much rather have a regular stick as in most cars then a paddle shifter or sequential shifter

anyways, myth busters did a test about driving while somewhat drunk and on your phone. They showed that driving on your phone is more distracting...especially when your thinking about what your saying over the phone

 

i'd rather have someone drunk than someone on the phone hit me. regardless whether or not it was my fault the drunk will get it, but the biatch driving on her phone has a chance to hide the phone before i notice.

what does it say when I'd rather have a drunk hit me than a sober person?

.:EDIT:. teaching my GF how to drive stick, shes gotten about an hour behind the wheel and can already go from parked on a hill into first without rolling back any appreciable amount. this after two weeks of her "it'll be too hard, I'll never learn!!!" BS.

 

the simple answer is that american cars are big engined high torque vehicles combined with long distances and an auto makes sence, smaller engines need manual gearboxes to enable the power and torque to be harnessed

 

I am American.

 

The clue is in the name of the component peeps....

torque converter, as in you need some torque to convert....

whiny 4-pots don't generally have very much (except diesels) anything under 1.6-, forget it! Wheras 6-pots and above have loads of it, even if they're de-tuned and thier Max power output seems a little low with respect to the engine size

 

hmmmm no. torque converters are like reduction gearing they multiply torque at the expense of speed. its got **** all to do with torque from the engine(in fact power drills use them) and more to do with the having to decouple the engine from the drivetrain because the driver is too stupid/lazy to do so.

delete as appropriate

 

Oh, it's never alright for just aimlessly chatting. It's for 'Oh ****, I just passed Exit 16, wasn't I supposed to turn there?!?!?!' calls.

Or 'I'm on the highway now, I should get there in time for dinner, so set me a place'

Quick, short, and to the point calls that are important to your trip are acceptable. That's all.


A quick note, I find it really funny how some of the things that the German luxury manufacturers like to advertise as new breakthroughs have been around for years.

Take the tiptonic paddle shifters and that crap. Such a revolution in driving. Now you can shift without a clutch. Never been able to do that before. Well, unless you have a 30-40 year old Oldsmobile. They've had that technology since the Hurst dual-gate shifters in the late sixties. Left gate is standard automatic, right gate has only 1, 2, 3, 4, and N. You drop it into the right gate and you can select whichever gear you want.

And those 'swivel when you turn' headlights. The light goes to the side while you turn. You can tailgate bikers so that they can see the road. Or you could grab your American car, which has cornering lights, which are the same thing except better. A third headlight mounted perpendicular to the rest. When your turn signal is on, that light also lights up, so you can see to the side. No servos to bother with, just a simple relay.

I don't want to start a flame, it's just that I was researching some Oldsmobile vehicles because I really like Oldsmobile and was surprised that Hurst had a sequential-automatic or whatever they called it as early as the sixties. And I was reading the manual and found out what those lights on the side are for, then when I turned at night I started to notice them and it's really cool.

 

what? do you mean that 3 lights come on when you use the indicator(ie one at the front ,one on the side and one at the back?) or one wholly different forth light comes on?

oh and the DS beat you to the whole lights round a corner deely

 

I have three lights on each front corner. Two face foreward - one is the regular headlight, the other is for high beams. The third is perpendicular, behind the bumper, and lights up when the turn signal is on.



The white light between the wheel and the bumper is the cornering light.

 

offtopic hmmm citreon ds I'd love one of them mad cars /offtopic

 

My mom finds any possible excuse to use her phone while driving. "Oh crap I forgot the milk..I better call your uncle to tell him that" Mind you my uncle has nothing todo with her forgetting the milk. She drives like jack **** when no using the phone, so when she is, its like wreckless driving. If I tell her to turn it off, she just screams "SHUTUP". Im this | | close to throwing her cell phone out of the window.

 

I actually hear from my dad that Americans actually drive stick more than Canadians do... It sort of ticks off my dad and myself. Honestly, you'd think you'd learn by now that talking on the cell is dangerous while driving... Only bad thing is that its harder to eat a sandwich while driving around with a stick. (Unless you've got some crazy multi-tasking skills... Dual core, anyone?)

 

I saw my friend drink coffee while talking on the phone while driving a five-speed today. He had the coffee in his right hand, the phone between his face and his shoulder, and was using his left hand to change gears and steer.

 

thats the opposite reason. think about it, if i were driving from my hometown to Los Angeles (which i did today, 7.5 hours coming home from disneyland) and i was on the freeway for 6.75 hours, i wouldn't need to shift that often, so why would i need an automatic? but if i were to be in a crowded city, with narrow streets and those horrible roundabouts, wouldn't you want one less thing to worry about? (as in an automatic tranny)

 

i would put it to laziness/fear of wrecking the internals of a car as why americans tend to buy automatics. but im not lazy, so i went 5 speed when i bought my car. it definately lets my geo prizm actually move compared to its auto bretherin.

automatic geo prizms are pathetic...3 speeds...why not just walk?

i tried to teach my mom how to drive manual once...it was terrifying. she gave it a go in my high school parking lot...she almost hit a gym teacher. my sister, on the other hand, does quite well with the times shes tried her hand at it.

[edit]by the way, the next time i see someone drive while eating, im going to hurt them. cell phones are bad enough, trying to eat and drive is just dumb. be late for your stupid meeting, or eat when you get there. driving a car shouldnt be taken lightly. i rarely even drink a soda while im driving. [/edit]

 

I heard this a while back (I think it might have been the wisdom of Clarkson) and I think it applies, both in terms of gear changing and the general quality of engineering differences we see between UK and EU.


Back when cars were busy being invented and brought into use, in the UK it was a very rare thing to have a car. They were seen as toys for the rich upperclasses.
As they grew more popular, Britain being an engineering powerhouse naturally had a fascination and developed on it; improving the cars, manufacturing techniques, and at the same time the car was still seen as a status symbol, a rareity. Something to treasure.

In the US, Mr Ford decided that he was going to make a car for the masses. Enter the Model T. Comparative to the situation in the UK, everybody could have a car. They were tools - a method of getting from A to B, and in the eyes of many that is how they have stayed.


So predominantly in the UK/Europe, you have car owners who cherish their belongings and engineers who are consistently striving to improve and hone the next models. They love the driving experience. Whereas in the US you have car owners who recognise the value of the tool at their disposal, and as long as it works and gets them where they need to go with the minimum of fuss, that's great.

Obviously that's not the case for every citizen of every country, but it seems to make sense.
Look at the Ford Focus.
The Euro Focus is seen by most people as one of the most accomplished vehicles - if not THE most - in its class and for its price. It drives brilliantly, doesn't fall apart, has great gear changes, etc.
In comparison the US Focus is the opposite. Bad handling, engines that keep breaking, generally an all-round poor car.