Manuel Car Driving

For many drivers, learning to drive a stick shift is similar to learning to ride a bicycle; at first the task seems impossible, but after you acquire the skill you will never struggle again. The following directions will provide a basic guideline for your first few attempts at driving a car with a manual transmission.

Work on level ground, preferable in a parking lot or a road with few vehicles;

• Turn off the vehicle and roll down your window;

• The pedals from right to left are: accelerator, brake and clutch or C, B, A.

• The clutch engages and dis-engages the motor and transmission

• Depress the clutch pedal, and locate the gears in the transmission. When the transmission is in neutral the selector will move side-to-side. Know that the selector rests between the middle gears;

• Put the transmission into 1st gear - to the left and up. Isolate the clutch. In other words, use just the clutch to get the vehicle going;

• The friction point (biting point) is where the clutch engages the drive train and the vehicle begins to move;

• Learn where the friction point (biting point) is by both feeling the vehicle and watching the tachometer;

• To learn where the friction (biting point) is, apply the parking brake and release the clutch slowly. Push the clutch back in when you see the tachometer dip and feel the feel want to move forward.

• After you've practiced with the parking brake applied, release the parking brake and allow the vehicle to move forward without applying the accelerator.

• Control the clutch through the friction point to prevent stalling;

• After you've confidently located the friction (biting) point and can move the vehicle forward without stalling the engine, move to lesson two which combines the clutch and the accelerator.