David Allan-Brown Driving School

Do you want to learn Manual or Automatic? If Manual then why?

There are many benefits to learning Automatic;

In an Automatic, you cannot stall the car, it won't roll back and, the car decides the best gear to be in, not you.

Nowadays in busy towns and cities you will find yourself stuck in traffic jams more often, driving an automatic in heavy traffic means that you don't have to keep finding the biting point, changing from 1st gear to 2nd then back to 1st again, rolling back, possibly stalling. In an automatic the car just glides along smoothly and you can control the car at walking pace using only the footbrake to keep the car in control, a lot less stressful and , you will arrive at your destination a lot more relaxed.

There are myths about automatic cars having more expensive insurance, this is not strictly true, the larger SUV style electric cars are more expensive to insure due to their size, a medium or smaller automatic is no different in cost to insure than its manual equivalent.

"If I learn auto then people might think that I have a learning issue"! 

That is definitely not the case, the government are planning to ban the sale of new fuelled cars in 5 years time, They will only allow the sale of new electric cars which are all Automatic so we may not have a choice soon.

Of course learning in a manual car means that when you pass your test you can drive both manual and automatic, when you pass in an automatic then you can only drive automatic (If, after you have passed you then decide that you want to drive manual then you just have to retake the test in a manual).

So, if you do decide to go manual and pass your test, you will then probably go and purchase a manual car, drive it for a few years then, when you look for your next car, you will most likely find that you will be having to purchase an automatic car due to the decreasing availability of manual cars. It's something to think about...

It's not all about the driving, We also offer Theory Test preparation and planning, And, after you have passed your driving test we can offer additional lessons, for example, Pass Plus, Motorway Driving, Night Time Driving, Brushing up on specific skills etc, and, offer very helpful advice on getting the right first car for you.