Is 1 Hour Enough For Automatic Drivers To Learn Stick Shift? The AA Thinks So

Manual-shift cars are a dying breed, even in Europe, so more drivers are choosing to take their test in an automatic. That’s despite regulations meaning they’re then forbidden from driving manual cars unless they take the entire test again in a stick-equipped car.

But now the UK’s leading driver’s association is suggesting auto drivers should be able to convert their license after a simple one-hour test drive. That’s the idea being championed by the AA, whose president Edmund King argues the current system is unfair to drivers who, after taking their auto-only test, find their are unforeseen occasions when they need to be able to jump in a manual.

Related: One Driver Took 128 Tests And Still Can’t Get A License

“Most drivers of automatic cars quickly develop good road skills, so it doesn’t make sense to force them to spend months overcoming the driving test backlog just to borrow a manual car,” King told The Daily Telegraph.

One Hour, One Instructor

Rather than sitting another full driving test, King suggests drivers would complete a one hour conversion lesson with a qualified instructor before gaining manual driving entitlement. It would give drivers the chance to learn clutch control, gear changes, hill starts, and other manual specific skills without clogging up an already overstretched system that forces learners to wait months for a test slot.

The British government isn’t convinced. A Department for Transport spokesperson told The Telegraph there are currently no plans to change the rules, maintaining that anyone wanting to drive a manual must still pass a manual driving test.

UK’s Rule Is the Norm

Britain isn’t unusual here. Much of Europe, along with Australia, Japan and China, uses similar licensing rules, meaning passing your test in an automatic restricts you to autos unless you later qualify in a manual. North America, however, takes a very different approach.

In both the United States and Canada, a standard passenger car license generally lets you drive either transmission regardless of which type of car you used for your driving test. You could pass in an automatic one day and legally drive a stick shift the next, even with zero manual experience.

Is Britain’s current system unnecessarily bureaucratic, or is North America’s approach a little too relaxed? A short conversion course feels like a sensible middle ground. It acknowledges that operating a manual gearbox is a skill worth teaching, but also recognizes that someone who has already proved they can drive safely probably doesn’t need to repeat an entire driving test just to learn how to use a clutch.

What do you think? Would a one hour conversion lesson be enough, or should manual drivers still have to pass a full second test? And if you’re in the US or Canada, should automatic only test passers face the same restrictions as drivers in Britain?

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