Should I Learn to drive in an Automatic?

Automatic or Manual? The choice is yours! This video looks at some reasons you may want to choose automatic, hybrid or electric.

Automatic, Hybrid or Electric. When should this be your choice for learning to drive?

Hi everybody this is Sean here from PassFirstTime.ie Ireland's online driving school, quick video and this is a question a student asked me today and it's getting to be a more popular question as time goes on and that is should i learn to drive and do my test in an automatic car? And like a lot of other questions around the driving test it really is a decision for yourself and everybody's answer is going to be very different on this so while i'll give you my thoughts on this remember like everything i tell you about driving it there are a variety of answers none are particularly right or wrong it all depends on yourself and your circumstances and how you feel about driving.

So automatic driving lessons, now there is no doubt that automatics and hybrids are the way of the future, we will all probably be driving hybrids and electric cars in the future and that's probably not that far away to be honest. So a lot of people now are looking at the automatic alternative, i suppose when you're learning to drive and ask themselves will they take that particular route, now there is no doubt the automatic route is much much easier because you have no clutch you have no gears, you have a gas pedal and you have a brake and that is it so it does make the physical driving a lot easier.

What it does as well for people who are a bit anxious driving who suffer from driving anxiety is it takes a lot of it nearly halves i would think the amount of anxiety you have because you have way more time to think about the roundabout in front of you or to think about the junction and what you need to do as opposed to thinking about what gear you're in and do you need to press up or down the clutch into you to change gears so it takes a lot of that out and for people who are finding driving very challenging and automatic can be a fantastic alternative the other reason for automatic is that in a i like i say in probably a short couple of years most of us will be driving automatics i mean i have young pupils already who are deciding to go the automatic route because their mom and dad's boat drive hybrids at home and they reckon they will have no reason to drive a manual car in the future.

If that's you and you're happy with the automatic route then absolutely brilliant go with it i would say 110%, there's no doubt in ireland though that for the immediate future the amount of manual cars will still exceed automatics, so there will still be a majority of people driving manual cars as opposed to automatics but is it the way of the future yes it probably is, and to the best of my knowledge they are going to stop making manual cars somewhere around 2030 which is not that far away you won't be able to buy new manual cars apparently and it's just like diesel is going, as well you i'm driving a Ford diesel at the moment for the driving school uh and i can't buy another four diesel in this model because they don't make them anymore so manual and diesel & petrol are being phased out over the next couple of years and that might affect your decision as to whether you drive an automatic or not but i think the main one for now is for people who find driving challenging and find learning to drive very challenging the automatic is a very very um what's the word i'm looking for realistic i suppose alternative.

Now up until the last year or two most people would have said you needed a manual because the vast majority of cars in ireland are manual and it was going to stay that way for a long time but that is changing and it is changing very quickly so if you're thinking about automatic you have a chat with your driving instructor they will give you advice on whether they feel it would be a suitable alternative for you or not, so the best of luck with it and if you have any questions on automatic or hybrid cars or driving please put them in the comments below we'll answer them and we will definitely be looking at the whole automatic driving in coming videos, that's it for now safe motoring to you if you have a driving test coming up uh check out our a to z of the driving test our online course at passfirsttime.ie which hopefully will help you get over the line and pass the test first time, that's it for for now uh safe motoring and i'll see you in the next video.

Categories: Student Questions