Once sight common in the UK, but rarely seen here in the US are Driving School cars. Apparently, most Americans learn to drive at school; “Drivers’ Ed” is a core part of the school curriculum. You do not see cars with driving school names moving around the streets of US towns. I had noticed their absence until I saw one a few days ago and realized that it was the first I was aware of having seen since moving here in July last year.
In the UK driving schools tend to use Vauxhall Corsas and similar vehicles; some may go as large as a Ford Focus. The driving school car I saw was a Ford Mustang; a sports coupe. I can’t imagine any UK instructor selecting a car with a 4.0 litre engine producing over 200 horsepower as the ideal vehicle for someone learning to drive.
I just learned to drive in a Pontiac Sunfire. A difficult car to start in as the gas is extremely touchy, so I was very jerky for my first few weeks. But it has a great turn radius, so three point turns and u-turns were easy.
I was pulling out the other day and was waiting for a car to crawl by slowly when I realized it was a teenaged girl at the wheel and a middle aged man beside her, and suddenly I was a little more sympathetic. I was really glad I didn’t have L plates when I started out though; drivers here are pretty nasty and impatient and I don’t see them being particularly sympathetic to anyone they know is learning.
Do Americans still mainly learn automatic gearing, or have they moved over to stick-shift?
Stick shift is still an exception, auto shifts are the rule.
I have only seen a couple of manual cars since I arrived, one was a flat bed truck that my brother-in-law used and the other was a Ford Mustang that a work colleague owns.
My car does have a manual override, but it is steering wheel mounted and does not require a clutch.
Of course all of this combined with A/C in every car worsen the MPG.