[lamborghini]

Disciplined - NO.
Automatic won't make them change their habits - my driving discipline is the same if I am driving automatic or manual.

But calmer, & less stressed for sure; and more importantly less tired after the commute back home in peak hour traffic.

[rdst_1]

Yes for first 2 and No for the third point.
Let's put it this way. I would be more amenable to forgiving the morons on the road if I was driving an automatic than a manual in a traffic jam. So it will be good for my mental health as well as physical health (because it reduces chances of me from getting into a brawl due to a fit of road rage).

[Jaggu]

Depends on the driver, the particular car (how efficient is the AT system) and the general traffic. In my case I feel I get more aggressive driving the AT lol Has to do with the free reving 2.4 petrol engine I guess. This is on highway, but in traffic it offers a more relaxed driving experience to me.

[supermax]

Originally Posted by RavSam

I have driven manual transmission cars less than 1% of my total driving time but even then I can tell you this that the joy of turning the steering wheel with two hands while a perfect music is playing on twisty roads, tapping on the steering wheel rim is something else.

It's like dancing with both your hands being free to steer.

• Panic braking without stalling ever? That's a bonus.
• Bumper to bumper traffic? Chill with the crawl function.
• Fear of burning the clutch? No. (Not 100% sure though)
• Best one? Almost no-one will borrow your car unless they know how to drive an automatic!

It was your list that caught my eye, and in particular, the last point. It's probably the total opposite, abroad. Anybody who can drive a stick can just hop into an automatic and drive; what's there to learn. D for drive, R for reverse. P for parking. N for never (unless you want to move the car when it's switched off). In the US, a stick shift is considered one of the best anti-theft devices, because so few people know how to drive one! In Sweden, if you take the driving test in an automatic car, you can only drive automatics, so the reverse of your statement is true here. Some of my friends can't drive my car only because it's a manual, and their licenses don't allow them to drive a manual.

Originally Posted by Thermodynamics

Do transmissions have any effect on drowsiness / sleepy driving ?

A most interesting question; from my own experience, maybe. If we are driving on winding country roads with little or no traffic, it's easy to get drowsy, but when driving a stick, we need move through the gears through winding sections, giving us something to focus on, and that helps keep the drowsiness at bay. On the motorways here though, one doesn't even need to shift gears. Once you switch to 6th gear, you rarely if ever need to downshift till you need to exit the motorway. What I do instead, is to turn off cruise control if I'm sleepy, and try to maintain the correct speed, within a very narrow band, with my own throttle inputs, and that makes me more aware if I'm alert enough or need to stop for a rest.

Originally Posted by GTO

Voted for yes. IMHO, the more stressed you are, the shorter will be your fuse (temper or tolerance levels). In bumper-to-bumper traffic, I have begun to HATE MTs. An AT, on the other hand, is a breeze to drive and will definitely cause less stress to the driver. The lesser tired you are, the more the positive frame of mind & your tolerance levels = better driving. All other things being the same, of course.

Agreed on most points, but when you free up the hand, and no longer need to think about shifting gears, one tends to get too relaxed. In the US, many drivers use their free hand to text on a phone or eat food, which they probably would have been less likely to do with a manual transmission, so the discipline thing is a big no, from me, but I strongly agree with you, with the lowered stress aspects, particularly if one lives in a high vehicle density location. I rarely see bumper to bumper traffic in my home city, so that's not much of a botheration for me, but when I drive in Stockholm, I do wish I had an automatic instead.

Originally Posted by lamborghini

Disciplined - NO.
Automatic won't make them change their habits - my driving discipline is the same if I am driving automatic or manual.

But calmer, & less stressed for sure; and more importantly less tired after the commute back home in peak hour traffic.

My point exactly. In fact, clubbing discipline and lowered stress in the same statement has probably led to this poll getting inaccurate hits in cases where people strongly agreed with one aspect but disagreed with the other. In fact, I believe that automatics negatively affect discipline, as people tend to get too relaxed and casual about driving. Combine this with other features like ADAS, blind , spot warning etc, and people tend to become worse as drivers, and should they happen to drive a car without these driver aids, they'll suddenly be exposed for the unsafe drivers they actually are.

[RavSam]

Originally Posted by supermax

It was your list that caught my eye, and in particular, the last point...Some of my friends can't drive my car only because it's a manual, and their licenses don't allow them to drive a manual.

Of course this is for India only! At-least for now. This situation will definitely change and be the opposite in next decade or so with automatics getting popular and EVs being AT only.

[supermax]

Originally Posted by RavSam

Of course this is for India only! At-least for now. This situation will definitely change and be the opposite in next decade or so with automatics getting popular and EVs being AT only.

Even for India, I think people are just scared that it'll be a fancy car with strange systems or something. For people riding motorcycles, riding a Scooty or Kinetic Honda is not a scary thing, right? So why should driving an automatic be any different? In India, it's not yet possible to get DL for automatic cars only, but such DLs are quite popular here, but with that, they can never drive manuals, even if they need to in an emergency. I recently read about someone who rented a car, but forgot to mention they needed automatic, and got a manual instead, and was forced to rebook at the last minute, at higher expense!

[airguitar]

Voted "Neither". In fact for *some* AT drivers, it actually eggs them on to pip MTs to the post. If you disagree, let's start with how the automatic AC BMTC buses are driven (chose not to put the brand name).

[ac 427]

Voted yes.

I've been a manual gearbox driver for the past 20 years, just got a new car that has an Automatic Gear box.
Mind you its not the slick DSG, but a CVT.
ive noticed that, unlike earlier MTs, when i used to get anxious about shifting gears, and trying to 'close the gap', I live in mumbai where driving is like a contact sport. But now with the CVT, I am much more relaxed, much more chill, i dont try to get into that non-existent illusive space.

[xenon0025]

Driving an automatic feels less stressful especially in the city. It can lead to a person being calm. But I believe discipline has not much to do with the type of transmission an user is driving.

I have mostly driven manual transmission cars till now. But since I have experienced automatics via self drive for my previous outstation trips, I would want to stick to automatics only and not want to go back to manuals now.

[Kar_Om]

Voted Yes.

I am driving Honda Jazz CVT for last 8 years and it is my first car. Driving dynamics of the car has made me a sedate driver right from start. I don't go for aggressive overtaking on the highway journeys and patiently wait for opportunity to overtake.

Benefit of driving an automatic in bumper-to-bumper traffic in city like Mumbai is you only need to use one leg and hand to get your car through the traffic, hence reducing physical effort. This specially helps when you are driving back home after long office hours.

[IshaanIan]

In my personal experience what makes a car calming to drive is the interior layout and dashboard design; if the car has a high dashboard and waistline that cossets the driver, they tend to drive in a calmer fashion whereas if the dashboard and waistline are low lending better visibility, the driver tends to be more “aggressive” as they can more confidently place the car into gaps that exist in traffic.