this isn't supposed to be the hard part about driving

[cellio]

Every time I drive Dani's car (a rare occurrence) I am reminded that driving an automatic transmission requires specific skills that I apparently haven't learned. I assume there's a trick to accelerating -- that you can regulate the gas flow (via the gas pedal) to kick the gears in when you want them to -- but I'm afraid I will be forever reaching for the clutch pedal and shifter while driving. :-) This has happened with multiple cars, so it's probably me and not the car.

(We're going to his company's winter party after work, I'd rather he drive home in the dark with the predicted sleet, and he's not cleared for my manual transmission. So since he takes the bus to work anyway, I just took his car today.)

Comments

[cellio]

In normal driving I don't bother trying to flip the gears myself

I didn't set out to either. This morning I started toward a mild hill from a dead stop, so I stepped on the gas and the car unexpectedly said "err, hang on a sec and I'll get back to you, ok? gotta talk to the hamsters". Or something. So at that point I decided there might be nuance beyond "press gas to go". I'm not sure what was going on there.

And yes, in bad weather I know there are other options; I wasn't even dealing with those complications.