Okay so the other morning I had to drive to an interview that was about 40 minutes away. Now I was planning on taking my car of course but then we got this ridiculous cold spell that left an INSANE amount of ice all over my windshield. The night before the interview I tried to get the ice off so that I could drive the next morning. Unfortunately, a combination of negative temperatures and my ignorance of the ice claws on the scraper thingy caused that whole endeavor to be a FAIL...
SO...I had to drive the 97 Ford Explorer...AUTOMATIC...who had been cleaned off (we gave it some exercise to the store earlier the previous day)...at least it was the v8 version...nah still boring
That 40 minute drive in the automatic gave me a HUGE influx of blogging topics so THANKS 97 EXPLORER!
Which brings me to my point...The 5 things I don't get about Automatic vehicles...
1. HOW do you crazy automatic transmission drivers maintain speed? Maybe newer automatics are better at this (judging from the way you drive though I highly doubt this...going 75-80-60-65-80-60 over and over again IS REALLY IRRITATING). All I gotta say is THANK GOD FOR CRUISE CONTROL! NOW USE IT ON THE HIGHWAY PLEASE!
2. Either everyones speedometer is off by 3-5 mph or the Explorer's magically fixed itself in the month it sat stationary in front of the house. I am thinking that this might have just been the fact that it was 9am and you guys all didn't want to get to work so you were dragging your feet. But I have tested the theory that the Explorer is 3 mph off so when I am going 68 (its really 65) and you people were pretty much sitting still the way I was passing you...and the speed limit was 65!
3. Really...HOW HARD IS IT TO PAY ATTENTION TO DRIVING WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE A CLUTCH!?!!???? All you have to do is stay between the lines and keep a steady pressure on your gas pedal (thats the one on the right everyone, just clearing that up if in case you were confused), and use your turn signal as needed. So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE look before you change lanes and maintain your speed its not hard! And hey you know that button/lever/knob that says "cruise" its REALLY cool! All you do is press it and then hit "set" and BAM your speed is maintained and now you are down to two tasks! Stay between the lines and using your turn signals. AMAZING!
4. Getting on the highway with an Automatic is INCREDIBLY BORING! I love getting on the highway with my 6-speed manual! Its AMAZING! SO SO much fun to down shift and fly onto the ramp and then turn my signal on and fly onto the highway AT SPEED! Driving an automatic is like "please please downshift I'm slowing down to make this corner to get on the ramp COME ON DOWNSHIFT! Okay whew! now can you go faster when I press the little pedal on the right please?" -.- SO SO boring...also a lot of you haven't grasped the concept of getting on the highway at speed -.- see Driving word of the Month: Commit
5. Where's the fun? Driving an automatic is SO boring...it takes all of the fun out of driving...
