Starting (nearly) from scratch: learning how to drive stick shift in Germany
After passing her test in Canada with an automatic car, The Local’s Shelley Pascual had no idea what she was letting herself in for when she jumped into an Auto in Deutschland and found herself confronted with a gear stick.
This article is available to Members of The Local. Read more Membership Exclusives here.
In countries such as the US and Canada, automatic cars are much, much more common than manuals. When I was in driving school over a decade ago, I didn’t even know there was an option to learn how to drive using gears.
If you are one of the select few who can operate a manual vehicle, others tend to be in awe of you. Even today there are only a handful of friends and family I know who possess the valuable skill.
Young Drivers of Canada, the biggest driving training organization across the country with 140 locations, stopped offering their manual transmission lessons in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in 2013. This is despite the fact that the GTA is Canada’s most populous metropolitan area with over six million inhabitants.
Looking back, I wish I had learned at 16 how to drive a manual car rather than an automatic. But how was I to know I’d end up moving to Germany years later - a country where about 80 percent of the new cars have a gear stick?
If I had known then that it’s way easier to switch from manual to automatic than the other way around, I would have saved two years of my life.
Sucking it up and learning once and for all
When I relocated to the city of Braunschweig in 2012, I was delighted yet bewildered when I found out I could easily exchange my Canadian driving licence for a German one without having to complete any tests - even though I hadn’t the slightest clue how to operate the majority of the cars in the country (bizarre, I know).
FOR MEMBERS: What you need to know about German driving licences
Friends from countries like the UK and Germany would only chuckle when I told them about my predicament. But I couldn’t change the hands of time. And I knew at that point if I ever stood a chance of driving in Deutschland, it would mean I’d have to suck it up and learn how to operate a stick shift automobile once and for all.
My partner and I didn’t have our own car, but we did have access to his family’s wheels whenever we visited them. The only issue for me was - you guessed it - the car was a manual vehicle, meaning I didn't know how to drive it.
But much like my vigour for learning German, I was determined to learn how to operate the family’s Kleinwagen. Still, it took me about two years before I could say I properly achieved this feat.
To be fair, I could have probably learned stick shift in a few months. But since there was no rush for me to learn, and I didn’t want to cough up loads of cash for the lessons, I chose instead to learn the freestyle way and practise whenever visiting my in-laws.
Shelley decided against taking lessons at a driving school. Photo: DPA
The biggest hurdle by far was getting out of first gear. Adding another foot to the mix felt like the most unnatural thing to me.
We would go out to practise in empty parking lots, and over and over again I’d lament the fact that my right foot just couldn’t get in sync with my left foot when it came to getting into first gear. For months I pressed much too hard on the accelerator while failing to find the clutch. Over and over again the car jolted and stalled.
During these first few practice sessions there were times when I thought I’d pack it all in, vowing that I’d never buy myself an automatic. Slowly but surely though, I managed to get my feet to coordinate with one another and the shuddering stalls became ever less frequent.
Each time we visited my in-laws I had the chance to practise, which isn’t to say I improved bit by bit. Sometimes I’d make lots of progress, such as getting onto a country road without making any glaring mistakes, only to feel I’d unlearned everything a few months later.
The autobahn was less scary than I anticipated
Soon enough though I was able to drive on city roads comfortably and decided it was time to try out the autobahn. When I finally got onto the highway, I was surprised to find it was actually less scary than I had anticipated.
Having learned to speed up in the ramp during my driving school days, I did the same while driving the Kleinwagen by switching directly from third gear to fifth gear.
And once I was on the autobahn, aside from the lack of a speed limit in certain sections, and the rule that cars can only overtake on the left, I found it very similar to driving on Canadian highways.
On highways in Canada the speed limit is usually 120 km/hr and it’s common for cars to overtake on both sides (something I’ve come to despise, as the German rule which states cars can only overtake on the left makes much more sense for the flow of traffic).
SEE ALSO: Six reasons why I never want to drive on the autobahn again
Reaching a milestone
It must have been sometime in 2014 when I unwittingly reached a milestone in my drawn out process of learning how to drive stick shift. While I felt fine for the most part driving manual vehicles, the only passenger I’d ever had was my partner.
The memory is vivid in my mind: we were at a friend's house and all wanted to go out for drinks, but no one wanted to be the designated driver. After a bit of nudging I was eventually talked into being the one who would refrain from drinking any alcohol that night.
Photo: DPA
On the outside I appeared cool, calm and collected. But on the inside I was terrified at the thought of being responsible for the lives of four other people.
In the end I had worried the entire night for nothing, as the drive home went smoothly. Needless to say, it boosted my confidence and the handful of times after that when I had passengers, I became more and more at ease.
What also helped me become a more confident stick driver was the fact that after I arrived in Germany I also learned to drive a manual transmission moped. I’d tell myself, "if I can drive a two-wheeler without a metal shell protecting me from the dangers of German streets, surely I can manage a four-wheeler with a shell."
SEE ALSO: Here’s a little-known East German vehicle that’s actually amazing
Nowadays I still don’t own a car, meaning it’s not often I find myself driving at all. When I visited family in Toronto last Easter, I rented a car for about a week which was (sorry, not sorry) automatic.
Nevertheless I have plans to buy a Kleinwagen of my own in the near future. And I’ve decided it will be of the stick shift variety.
I want to do this not because it will be better for fuel consumption or that I’ll have more control over the vehicle, but because I don't want to take the easy way out.
While I’m now fine in pretty much all road situations on German streets and highways regardless of a vehicle’s transmission, if you asked me to parallel park on a slope with a manual car, I’d still find myself in a bit of a pickle.
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This article is available to Members of The Local. Read more Membership Exclusives here.
In countries such as the US and Canada, automatic cars are much, much more common than manuals. When I was in driving school over a decade ago, I didn’t even know there was an option to learn how to drive using gears.
If you are one of the select few who can operate a manual vehicle, others tend to be in awe of you. Even today there are only a handful of friends and family I know who possess the valuable skill.
Young Drivers of Canada, the biggest driving training organization across the country with 140 locations, stopped offering their manual transmission lessons in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in 2013. This is despite the fact that the GTA is Canada’s most populous metropolitan area with over six million inhabitants.
Looking back, I wish I had learned at 16 how to drive a manual car rather than an automatic. But how was I to know I’d end up moving to Germany years later - a country where about 80 percent of the new cars have a gear stick?
If I had known then that it’s way easier to switch from manual to automatic than the other way around, I would have saved two years of my life.
Sucking it up and learning once and for all
When I relocated to the city of Braunschweig in 2012, I was delighted yet bewildered when I found out I could easily exchange my Canadian driving licence for a German one without having to complete any tests - even though I hadn’t the slightest clue how to operate the majority of the cars in the country (bizarre, I know).
FOR MEMBERS: What you need to know about German driving licences
Friends from countries like the UK and Germany would only chuckle when I told them about my predicament. But I couldn’t change the hands of time. And I knew at that point if I ever stood a chance of driving in Deutschland, it would mean I’d have to suck it up and learn how to operate a stick shift automobile once and for all.
My partner and I didn’t have our own car, but we did have access to his family’s wheels whenever we visited them. The only issue for me was - you guessed it - the car was a manual vehicle, meaning I didn't know how to drive it.
But much like my vigour for learning German, I was determined to learn how to operate the family’s Kleinwagen. Still, it took me about two years before I could say I properly achieved this feat.
To be fair, I could have probably learned stick shift in a few months. But since there was no rush for me to learn, and I didn’t want to cough up loads of cash for the lessons, I chose instead to learn the freestyle way and practise whenever visiting my in-laws.
Shelley decided against taking lessons at a driving school. Photo: DPA
The biggest hurdle by far was getting out of first gear. Adding another foot to the mix felt like the most unnatural thing to me.
We would go out to practise in empty parking lots, and over and over again I’d lament the fact that my right foot just couldn’t get in sync with my left foot when it came to getting into first gear. For months I pressed much too hard on the accelerator while failing to find the clutch. Over and over again the car jolted and stalled.
During these first few practice sessions there were times when I thought I’d pack it all in, vowing that I’d never buy myself an automatic. Slowly but surely though, I managed to get my feet to coordinate with one another and the shuddering stalls became ever less frequent.
Each time we visited my in-laws I had the chance to practise, which isn’t to say I improved bit by bit. Sometimes I’d make lots of progress, such as getting onto a country road without making any glaring mistakes, only to feel I’d unlearned everything a few months later.
The autobahn was less scary than I anticipated
Soon enough though I was able to drive on city roads comfortably and decided it was time to try out the autobahn. When I finally got onto the highway, I was surprised to find it was actually less scary than I had anticipated.
Having learned to speed up in the ramp during my driving school days, I did the same while driving the Kleinwagen by switching directly from third gear to fifth gear.
And once I was on the autobahn, aside from the lack of a speed limit in certain sections, and the rule that cars can only overtake on the left, I found it very similar to driving on Canadian highways.
On highways in Canada the speed limit is usually 120 km/hr and it’s common for cars to overtake on both sides (something I’ve come to despise, as the German rule which states cars can only overtake on the left makes much more sense for the flow of traffic).
SEE ALSO: Six reasons why I never want to drive on the autobahn again
Reaching a milestone
It must have been sometime in 2014 when I unwittingly reached a milestone in my drawn out process of learning how to drive stick shift. While I felt fine for the most part driving manual vehicles, the only passenger I’d ever had was my partner.
The memory is vivid in my mind: we were at a friend's house and all wanted to go out for drinks, but no one wanted to be the designated driver. After a bit of nudging I was eventually talked into being the one who would refrain from drinking any alcohol that night.
On the outside I appeared cool, calm and collected. But on the inside I was terrified at the thought of being responsible for the lives of four other people.
In the end I had worried the entire night for nothing, as the drive home went smoothly. Needless to say, it boosted my confidence and the handful of times after that when I had passengers, I became more and more at ease.
What also helped me become a more confident stick driver was the fact that after I arrived in Germany I also learned to drive a manual transmission moped. I’d tell myself, "if I can drive a two-wheeler without a metal shell protecting me from the dangers of German streets, surely I can manage a four-wheeler with a shell."
SEE ALSO: Here’s a little-known East German vehicle that’s actually amazing
Nowadays I still don’t own a car, meaning it’s not often I find myself driving at all. When I visited family in Toronto last Easter, I rented a car for about a week which was (sorry, not sorry) automatic.
Nevertheless I have plans to buy a Kleinwagen of my own in the near future. And I’ve decided it will be of the stick shift variety.
I want to do this not because it will be better for fuel consumption or that I’ll have more control over the vehicle, but because I don't want to take the easy way out.
While I’m now fine in pretty much all road situations on German streets and highways regardless of a vehicle’s transmission, if you asked me to parallel park on a slope with a manual car, I’d still find myself in a bit of a pickle.
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