Automatic or Manual Licence? what’s your preference

Automatic or Manual Licence? What’s your preference?

The time has come to start thinking about your driving licence, so do you go for the automatic or manual Licence?

Im sure if you ask friends and family who passed their test many years ago they will tell you ‘do your manual licence then you can drive manual and auto’

They would be correct and to be honest I said the same to my kids when it was time for them to get driving (I had enough of being a chauffeur)

Now 6 years later and they both drive automatics, with no intention of ever buying a manual car again and I’m the same, I would never willingly buy manual ever again, automatic are so much easier and less stressful to drive.

With a complete ban on combustion engines by 2030 manufactures are already changing their ranges, there are no manual electric or hybrid cars they are all automatic, we are going through an Industrial Revolution again when it comes to cars.

In terms of how much they cost and how much they are to maintain is not worth mentioning, we have had automatics in this household for over 15 years and the only time one has broken down was when my wife accidentally put diesel in instead of petrol, the AA man that came out said “what have you done to this, Toyotas are indestructible” then we figured out what she had done, £300 later it was fixed

So I think the argument of wether you should go for an automatic or a  manual licence is becoming a lot less important.

Today (6.5.24) I went onto Autotrader and searched how many automatics are available to manuals

Automatics 246730

Manuals 202879

I could not believe such a big swing from when I taught my kids how to drive, manual back then far out weighted automatics.

Plus so many manufactures have or are phasing out manual altogether, such as Volvo, Mini, BMW, Mercedes are just but a few.

Now you may say that these are premium brands, ok yes but if you look at the best selling car in the UK currently the Nissan Qashqai cars built in the last 12 months automatic 686 manual 318, open that up to the last 4 years and its the same picture automatics 1722 and manual 1272.

Even small cars like the Vauxhall Corsa or the Ford Fiesta are available in plenty of automatics

For me as an experienced driving instructor who has provided automatic and manual lessons I really don’t see why people bother with manual anymore.

Most of my students come to me as they have been persuaded by parents and partners to try manual and then find the coordination required to use the couch and gears whilst steering and braking just to much to handle. they the come to the automatic and you can see the relief in there faces when they discover how much less stressful driving Automatic is to manual.

So automatic or Manual licence what one would you prefer?

I have written a blog on buying your first car to give you some tips to getting it right and hopefully help you make a decision of automatic or manual licence

www.autolessonsbolton.com

www.autolessonsbury.com