Tag: Driving

Should Teenagers Drive a Manual or Automatic Transmission

By: Stirling Tindal

          A question that not too many people think about today is “Should teenagers drive a manual or an automatic transmission?”. Most cars nowadays are automatic; however you can get some cars that are left with the manual transmission. I drive a stick shift Nissan frontier and I believe that a manual car will always be better than an automatic.

          When I first learned to drive, my dad taught me in a manual jeep wrangler. It was very challenging to learn at first for me. I may have stalled out at least 300 times before I got the hang of it. After I figured out that you have to let off the clutch slowly and let it start driving for you very slowly was when I finally figured it out. I loved changing veers while driving, it made me feel like I was a professional race car driver. I love it so much that my dad got my truck as manual as well.

          I’ve learned many beneficial habits from using a manual for so long that I will keep with me for a long time while driving. When you have to change gears every so often you have no time to be on your phone. A manual is a big factor in keeping people off of their phones while driving and keeping them focused on the road. Another habit I have picked up is that I continually check my RPMs while driving. I always have to know my RPMs so that I can change gears at the correct time and not waste gas. When driving an automatic you wouldn’t have to worry about your RPMs and may not notice if something is wrong. Something else I love about driving a manual is the control of your vehicle that you have. Being able to change gears to what you want can make traversing rough and muddy roads much more simple than in an automatic.

          A manual really had no negatives for teenagers. They can only make them more aware of what they are doing. I truly believe that if everyone drove a manual transmission, the roads would be much more safe than they are now.

Why Driving 378 Everyday is a Nightmare!

By: Joseph Bauman

Living far away from Sumter and school has many downsides, but nothing is worse than making the drive to Sumter and back everyday. Something must be clearly wrong with driving classes because no one can drive on an open road. I’m not going to act perfect and say I always drive like how the law expects me to, but I can not fathom the reasons people drive like they do. In November, I had to stop in a long line of traffic because some person was going twenty mph on their tractor on a main road resulting in the entire left lane being backed up. In December of last year, somebody was going so fast that they almost caused two accidents within three minutes, still not slowing down after both. Even worse than the drivers is the road itself, because it is littered with bumps and holes that make every drive bumpy and overall unpleasant. Going over the bridge to go into Columbia is worse because people are racing each other to be in the left lane ahead of others even if there is only one person in the lane. People are incapable of driving regularly, regardless of traffic and weather conditions.