"How to Drive a Stick-Shift"

Can you give me step by step instructions on how to drive a stick shift car?

The only way you can learn how to drive a stick is to get a feel for the gears, and unfortunately, every car has a different height that the clutch engages at, but i will do my best:

In an automatic car there are two pedals: brake (left) and gas (right).. and hopefully you only use your right foot for each since you should only need to do one at a time.

In a manual car, there are three pedals: CLUTCH (left), brake (middle), and gas (right). Same as an automatic, you should use your right foot for brake and gas as normal. The part that gets tricky is pressing in the clutch at the same time you are engaging the gears (especially into first gear).

Two things to keep in mind: depressing the clutch disengages the gear from the gas, which means you can floor the gas and all you will hear is engine noise because the gear is not engaged. So, this is pretty much the equivalent of being in neutral (the shift-stick being in the middle area instead of forward/back in 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th).

With the clutch to the floor, you can safely engage the first gear (shift-stick should be forward left) then, to get the car moving, you need to SLOWLY press on the gas while lifting your foot off the clutch. It's like a pass-the-baton game that will make the car jerk and grind if you get it wrong. Work on making the transition as smooth as possible-- the result should be your left foot coming completely off the clutch and your right foot using the gas as you normally would in an automatic. don't feel bad if you stall out (which you will). Just turn the car off and start it up again (WITH THE STICK IN NEUTRAL and your foot on the clutch!)

Once you have this down, you're ready to accelerate one gear at a time. If you imagine each gear as a MPH, you'll have a general idea of which gear you should be in and when. So once you're sailing along at 10mph, it's time to ease off the gas, push the clutch to the floor, move the stick straight back to second gear, and take the clutch back out, then give it more gas. Simple as that. 2nd gear (about 20mph-30mph), 3rd gear (30-40), and 5th gear for highway driving. When the RPM's get too high, the car will get really loud and you'll know it's time to change to a higher gear.

Don't leave the car in gear when you park, don't use the low gears to slow yourself down, don't text on your phone while driving.

***TheGivingTree