I recommended an automatic to one of my customers, an elderly lady (I'd guess late 60's). At the time she had a hyundai tuscon with manual gearbox. She tried an auto version and liked it so much she traded in her car immediately!. That was about 4 years ago, and she now enjoys driving much more than she used to.

I'm 70, been driving automatics virtually full-time for 25 years - it's never occurred to me that "left-foot braking" is for anyone other than rally drivers who need/want to keep the power on while braking - although I am aware that HJ and one or two other places recommend it.

In an emergency situation, ordinary drivers either act instinctively or don't act at all - after 500,000 miles driving, my instinct is to right-foot brake without having to think about it - changing over would be a recipe for disaster.

That advice should be qualified, yes by all means have an automatic but not some half way there thing with one or more standard electrically controlled clutches, at maneuvering speeds these things are the work of the devil.

Something with a hydraulic torque converter with infintitely variable control, plus they're miles more reliable quite apart from making driving easy.

I've never got the LFB thing, i've used the technique a handful of times under extreme maneuvers on car transporters, it might have helped a fraction, but no normal driver parking their car is going to have to be inch precise on extreme angles or risk a wrecked bonnet or roof from overhead steelwork, i wouldn't be tempted to use it on the road.

This old chestnut is so old it's got whiskers on it.

A manual gearbox car comes in one version, and one version only.

A clutch pedal and a gear lever and a throttle.

To my knowledge, there aren't any variations on that theme.

Master that combination, take your test, get your licence, and you are also qualified to drive any car with any insane manifestation of an automatic gearbox that any designer dreams up, ie anything that doesn't have a clutch pedal,. according to the DVSA (DeVious Standards Agency) who administer driving tests in the UK.

The two systems are totally different.

The manual system doesn't vary from Twickenham to Timbuctoo to Tomsk.

The automatic system has so many different variants today that manual licence holders who want to drive a two-pedal automatic should be required to have taken some sort of conversion course of a couple of hours with a qualified instructor, to learn how to do it properly and safely and get signed off at the end of it- and yes, that would include left-foot braking if necessary, when parking and slow speed manoevering.- because that's what I used to teach when I was an instructor - manual and automatic.

Edited by focussed on 10/12/2017 at 16:42

Far from being a "point and go" option, driving an auto can present all manner of unexpected problems, particularly if you're cracking on a bit and set in your ways. My missus hitting the brake in our Meriva with Easytronic, thinking it was the clutch and nearly putting us both through the windscreen, for example.

Creep is one manifestation of the auto that might sneak up on you. Having a car that to some extent drives itself at low speeds could prove to be an issue, at least at first, though unlikely to result in the horror stories we hear about when someone goes into R instead of D, or t'other way round.

I recall the example of a lady who used to visit a shop close to where we once lived. Elderly lady, clearly independent but very conservative with her manual box. She would come out of the shop, get back into her car, put the poor long suffering old Fiat into first gear and stay there till she disappeared from view but not from earshot, the engine screeching into the distance and begging for second. Ideal candidate for an auto, I suppose.

Edited by argybargy on 11/12/2017 at 10:04