Automatic or Manual?

It’s a question we are often asked by learners and their parents. Should we go for an automatic or manual licence? The simple answer is that it is not a case of one shoe fits all. We’ve come up with a number of thoughts that can be considered when making this decision.

Driving Options

For some people, there is a decision that is made from an early stage that an automatic licence is all they will ever need. For many this is true. However, we have many clients every year contacting us to assist in upgrading from an automatic licence to a manual one. While this is not normally a difficult process – many clients in this position feel comfortable with their general driving and learning the gears is not as challenging as first thought – it is still an expense in time and money which leaves most wishing they’d just gotten the manual licence first time. If there is any probability that a manual licence could be needed for a job or even just driving a friend’s car home after a night out, then our advice is always to consider getting the licence that gives you the most driving options. That is, the manual licence.

Pathways to a Manual Licence

Let’s consider some pathways towards achieving a manual licence. Firstly, is there a manual car to practice on at home? If the answer is yes, it is definitely worth thinking about starting with manual lessons. This way, the learner has the opportunity to learn good manual driving habits right from the start. It might take a little longer to get to a point where the learner can drive to school or the shops, but this will provide a greater learning benefit in the long run.

If there is only an automatic car for the learner to gain their hours on, a couple of auto lessons at the start will allow the learner to get to a point where they can drive with Mum and/or Dad to get their driving confidence up. Manual lessons at this stage can be worthwhile, but the inability to practice between lessons increases the number of lessons required (which also increases the cost). Saving manual lessons for closer to the finish of the learner period will help gain momentum in manual driving leading up to the test.

Some families are lucky enough to have both automatic and manual cars available for the learner. In this situation, there is no right or wrong answer. Some prefer to do up to 50 hours in the auto building up a learner’s road craft skills, then switch to the manual. Others go into the manual car at the start so a learner does not get too comfortable driving an automatic, which could lead to anxiety about switching to a manual car later on.

Manual & Automatic Car Driving Lessons

Whether it be manual or auto, Emmaus Driver Training has the vehicles and the trainers to support you whichever way you decide to go.

If you’d like to know more about this blog or any aspect of our training, contact us for further information.

So, you’ve just turned 16, popped down to the transport department and passed your learner licence test. Congratulations!!  Now what?!

Many of our customers are quite apprehensive about their first driving lesson. A common fear is “what if I crash the car?” or “what if I can’t do what they expect me to be able to do?”  We realise that although the trainer has delivered a “lesson one” hundreds of times, it’s the first time for our customer.

In a Manual Car

For a manual car, lesson one is all about allowing a beginner driver to learn and experience how the mechanics of the car work through explanation, demonstration and “having a go.” We take the learner to a quiet, flat road and explain, with the assistance of diagrams, how the clutch, accelerator and brake interact with each other to get a car moving and stopping. We encourage learners to spend time feeling where the “friction point” of the clutch is without using the accelerator at all. Bit by bit, we introduce the accelerator on take offs, how to change gears, how to do hill starts and in most cases, we begin an introduction to using a System of Vehicle Control which drivers use as best practice for approaching intersections.  Again, this is all done in a quiet area away from traffic and complex road situations.  Our goal is for a beginner driver to come home knowing how to “drive a car” even if they haven’t yet mastered the skill. Other concepts such as learning how controls such as wipers, headlights, air controls etc are a part of our overall program. However, we prefer to focus on basic vehicle operation skills in the first lesson to inspire our learners to feel that driving a manual car is not beyond them.

In an Automatic Car

For an automatic car, it’s obviously easier for a beginner driver to learn the basic vehicle operation skills.  The accelerator makes the car go faster and the brake slows the car down. Our focus shifts to working with the learner on “feeling” the pedals to achieve a soft and gentle transition through speeding up and slowing down.  We also work on correct steering and vision techniques for left turns and right turns to achieve the most effective turning positions when cornering.  Once again, this is done in quiet streets away from other traffic to ensure our customer is not distracted or intimidated by other road users. If the learner demonstrates enough competence and confidence to drive the car home at the end of the lesson, we encourage this to happen to enhance the sense of achievement.

Prior Experience

Of course, many of our lesson one customers already have some driving experience. Rather than forcing them to sit through explanations of things they may already know, we work with the customer to explore the things they can already do well and identify the areas that require teaching and improvement.  We always like to provide the reasoning behind why one particular driving technique might work better than another and allow the learner the opportunity to try a variety of options to discover a system that works for them within the expectations of a driving assessment.  Getting a car moving on an uphill slope is an example of this.

Dual Controls

It is most important to remember that we have dual control pedals (clutch (for manual cars), accelerator and brake) installed in all of our training vehicles. With the exception of steering and indicating, we can (and often do) fully operate the car from the passenger side. Some of our more nervous learners enjoy their first experience behind the wheel to simply be steering to get a feel for how the steering wheel impacts on turning the car. It is also not uncommon for a customer to ask for a family member to come along as well as an observer.  This practice is most definitely encouraged by us as it helps to provide a consistency for the learner between lessons.

If you’d like to know more about this blog or any aspect of our training, contact us for further information.