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DRIVING SASKATCHEWANDERERER STYLE (Episode 3: You are not really a driver if you can't drive a stick)


 (I stole the photo from Facebook.)

 

I learned how to drive on rarely used trails, and across stone free-ravine free fields, in a 1956 International Harvester pickup truck, with an oil bath air cleaner, hot water six cylinder motor, and three on the tree, with an non-synchronized  first gear. The truck also featured a manual choke and a hand throttle, the throttle which was designed to keep the engine revs up during the start, but what also was used as a 1950s version of a horribly dangerous cruise control.  (You needed to release it by hand. Touch the brake? Full speed ahead!  And good luck to you.)

Armstrong (no power) steering. Manual drum brakes. Frost shields on the side and back windows. (Ask Great Grandpa about them. Use a Ouija Board if you must.) My point is that with few comforts provided (or invented) you needed to learn about your vehicle, it's limitations, and, more importantly, it's feel.


My wife has a nice vehicle. It talks. It beeps when you cross a line.  It chirps when you back too close.  It screams "Caution! Unpaved road!" even when you are driving down paved Saskatchewan highways. (Episode 4 of this series will be titled "Why Do Saskatchewan Roads Suck?")  If this car does not drive itself it at least nags you to the point of wanting to jump in the backseat and let A.I. drive us forward to our eventual conclusion.

The problem with her car, and most newer vehicles on the road is that the best part of driving, the feel, has been replaced by sensors and computers.  Yes, we are safer, but are we happier? I'm not, but then I have experience. I know the feeling of power one has after changing a fuel pump on the side of a highway, in a drenching rainstorm.  I know the shame of driving for miles with my emergency brake on. I have driven a million miles without a computer scheduling every bathroom break.  (I have peed on a bush.) I have lived!

 

A fellow who works at an auto shop I deal with has me pull my five speed manual truck inside, because he never learned how to drive one.  At first I was flabbergasted but then I realized that many younger people today do not have the working on a farm background that my generation had, and even if they did, the automatic transmission rules, and the manual is fading away. The old beater yard truck has been replaced by something more modern. (Boring.)  How can you learn to really drive when most of the skilled and fun parts are being done, not by your hand, not by your feel, but by technology.


I have access to a field out here, so my first thought was to use my skill and my truck's old style transmission, to teach a class for all of you youngsters. "Learn To Drive A Stick." And then I realized that to replace a burned out clutch is more money than I could charge for the course, so instead of a massive repair bill for myself I will leave a few pointers for those who may be interested.


- The clutch is that extra pedal to the left. The brake and accelerator are where you normally find them.   Learn this. To mistake the clutch for the brake could be a disaster.

- Know where the gears are, by memory and by feel.  (Remember that word?) Do you want another disaster?  Hit reverse when you are shifting to fourth. Ouch!

- Do not head out to Circle Drive or Ring Road the first time you drive a stick.  Find a large, flat, deserted area to practice. There is a nice football stadium in Regina that we are all paying for. It should work fine.  You can't be more of a disaster than the football team that plays there.

- Rev the motor, let the clutch out slowly. Move forward.  (Do not pop the clutch, unless you are dragging some punk in a Toyota on 8th street.)  I can't teach this part. Practice. Feel.

- Shift by letting off the gas, shoving in the clutch. Slam that shifter like Richard Petty heading for the checkered flag!  Let out the clutch. Go, go go!  (I learned when to shift by sound but you will have a tachometer. Follow the manufacturers recommendations.)

- How to teach downshifting?  It's difficult. All I can tell you is that if your vehicle lugs and stalls you should have downshifted.

- Speaking about stalling, get used to it. Stalling happens to all of us. Practice will lessen the embarrassment. (If you are practicing at that Regina football stadium that we are all paying for try not to practice at half time if you wish to avoid that embarrassment.  And jail.)


- My admission.  I sometimes forget to downshift from third to first at a light, causing lugging, stalling and mega embarrassment when the light changes to green. For me. The guru. Embarrassment. (But at least it's not halftime.)

That's your lesson.

Five cents please.


 

 

 

 


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