Stick shifts have been disappearing over decades in the U.S., but still seem to be hanging on better abroad, at least from my experience.
I learned to drive on a stick, but rarely drive one nowadays.
What have you been seeing? What’s your experience?
Sharing a gift article from the Washington Post:
(The Washington Post gift article required an email login, so the active link was removed and a free-of-charge CNN article was added.)
Automatics are becoming more and more popular in Europe, not just because the take up of EVs is >3 times greater in Europe. I don’t see any real advantages or benefits to manual gearboxes, they’re for the petrol heads and die hards.
I like manuals because it keeps my mind focused on driving. Less chance for me to start dozing off. However, very hilly towns with traffic lights at the peak of a steep hill, always get me a little nervous. Especially when the person behind me is right on my bumper.
I also learned on a manual. I stayed with that until my most recent car purchase. There were just so few available. I just checked and manuals are predicted to be essentially extinct in Canada in the 2030s.
I have driven most shifts. I have had an EV now for quite a few years. Now I break out in a sweat if I have to drive anything that is fossil fueled with gears 
There’s an increase of automatic transmission in Europe but mostly due to hybrid and electric cars.
I’ve driven manual transmission cars for over four decades and I now have a hybrid, have had it for over 5 years now and the funny thing is stick gears are so embedded in my brain that when I drive a manual transmission car it comes naturally but when I get back to my automatic car my hand still wants to change gear for a while.
Hiring card in Europe autos seem to be less common and more expensive. We had a manual booked in Italy and my husband was most amused when the hire company offered an upgrade and asked if he could drive an auto 
Yes, they’re less common and more expensive. At least in my experience. I think it’s gradually changing.
It’s funny that I also got upgraded to an automatic in Italy (Sardinia). They didn’t ask if I could drive it, though 
I’ve only driven automatics a couple of times, when I’ve hired cars in America. I like driving a manual, I feel more in control and I enjoy driving a car, I don’t want it to drive me.
In the U.S., sometimes folks who own stick shifts are met with valet workers who don’t know how to drive them, because they’re often younger folks who learned on automatics, since they’re prevalent. 
@Nofurbabies don’t get a new car then, they all seem to want to drive themselves these days. Had a friend whose car wouldn’t let her drive out of a parking spot as it deemed another car was too close to her .
I’ve seen signs in the valet section for restaurants that said No Manual Transmission.
Wow!
I have always welcomed evolution and change but does it have to be associated with exclusion?
Their employees don’t know how to drive a stick, which is becoming increasingly common, since young folks are learning on automatics.
I understand that.
I was just expressing a wish. I would just wish employers were willing to attend a wider range of customers and either hire or train a few employees to drive manual. It doesn’t take a master’s degree.
Similarly, there are some street parking spaces, I found one in front of a museum in Seattle, where you can’t park if you don’t have the app to pay. That means some people are excluded from using those parking spaces and perhaps visiting the museum.
My complaint is that when something is
It tends to substitute and exclude other alternatives, reducing people’s choices and, what’s worse, accessibility.
Given how stick shifts are dwindling, it’s easy to understand why employers wouldn’t bother. The few owners of stick shifts can always park their own cars. Not having valet parking, shrug.
Progress marches on, as does the knowhow needed to manage life. Like where does it end? Should we have slowed progress so that people can still ride horses or drive wagons in cities if they didn’t learn to drive, for instance?
I don’t think I said anything that suggested that. In fact, what I said is
I don’t think it necessarily has
I’ll admit that not having access to valet parking doesn’t bother me in the least. Anyway I drive a hybrid, not a stick gear or a horse wagon !
I was not talking about myself, I am fortunate to have had access to higher education and technology early on but there are lots of people who don’t have that privilege and are excluded from lots of benefits which can only be accessed online, through specific apps that are not compatible with all kind of devices.
For example, hybrid and electric vehicles are subsidised by the state in some countries. To apply for this subsidy, I had to do it online. It took me quite a while to download and update the necessary tools but I was able to do it myself, while other people had to pay someone to do it.
Realistically, resources are always going to be traded off as part of progress/evolution, so it’s not a possibility to include all choices. For instance, want car lanes, bus lanes, bike lanes, then no room for horses. That’s just a starker case.
With parking meters, the adapting of apps means no one is going to be walking around collecting change from meters any longer. The intent is to cut labor costs/raise revenue.
Yes, that means folks who can’t adapt to technology will be left behind. That’s because societies typically look for the good of the many over the few.
Automakers won’t keep making manual cars, because of declining demand, as well as technological advances, whether in hybrids or EVs. They won’t, because profitability/resources are, again, leading to decisions. Same thing with valet parking increasingly leaving out manual cars. What business wants to train anyone to serve a shrinking market? That would be illogical.
Being from England I have never heard the term stick shift before. Always known as manual transmission or a car with gears. I have only ever driven and owned a manual car with gears. My present car is a manual gear change. More than happy with it. : -)
Yes, and in the U.S., we often shorten that to “driving a stick.”