I’m learning to drive a manual at the moment to get my Taiwanese license. Mostly so I can drive when I visit the UK in the future. I have 3-4 hours a week of actual lessons, but would like to get some practice hours in on the side too.
Are there any realistic (manual) driving simulators around? I’m looking for something where if I fucked up with the clutch or something the car would actually stall, and everything else is as realistic as possible. If the simulator is designed for learner drivers that would be even better but it’s not a requirement.
I guess if I can find a gaming cafe with a driving wheel, gear stick and pedals setup then I could install whatever game I want on their pc such as Horizon 4 or Assetto Corsa and practice on that.
I saw something similar at our driving school, but I think they used it for trucks. And since you’re already there, might as well take driving lessons in a manual car.
He’s trying to test in Taiwan, where the test is done on a manual.
Millions of people in Taiwan learned to drive manuals without a driving simulator, in fact millions around the world did this.
Go to a good, reputable driving school and they will teach what you need to know and they will probably have cars you can practice on.
It’s good to learn to drive a manual, it makes you a better driver (though this is rather debatable in Taiwan), also at least in the states if your car is manual it’s a huge deterrent to car thieves because they’d have to figure out how to drive it away, and most thieves can’t drive a manual.
The UK should have rental cars with automatic shifting available. Because they also drive on the other side of the road and thus you would need to use another hand to shift gears, maybe that would be an option?
My dad said when he tested in Taiwan (back in the 80s) they tested on stick shift, and the test was very hard compared to the US. I don’t know if this is still the case in Taiwan. Back then you used the DMV’s car, not your own.
I did the test here in Taiwan about 8 years ago now at the DMV in Shilin. If you use their cars, you have a choice between manual or automatic, but if you do automatic than you’re only qualified to drive automatic cars. I used the manual car because I learnt to drive manual back in the UK, but you only really need to learn to go from 1st to 3rd gear for one section of the circuit. For the rest of it, I mostly crawled around in 1st gear. The test is not difficult if you’ve had a bit of practice, and you learn next to nothing about actually driving on real roads.
Also keep in mind a driving simulator you find in taiwan will most likely cater to the racing crowd playing racing games, this is a very poor way to learn proper defensive driving.
Unless of course you want to learn to drive like a taiwanese.
I’m like I doubt any manual racing simulator will be realistic feeling of th clutch. But then every car you will drive is very differnt too. Still - won’t help too much.
If you family has manual cars - just sit in in - press th clutch and move the stick for 1 hour through the gears - watch a tutorial on how to hold the stick / how to push it. That’s half the work. Important is push left for 1-2 gear, flat hand push straigt 3-4 gear, and push right for 5-6 gear (if it has 6). If your hand position is right and you got the muscle memory for it - then kinda any manual car isn’t a problem. Even if you have to do it with your left hand as in UK instead of your right hand.
Hand position is the most important - if you just grab the stick with tight grip - it’s not gonna work.
The second part - the foot movement really varies from car to car - and needs to be learnt where the right point is to engange - worn out old cluth will behave very different from a car with little miles. And it always needs to be in proper combination with the gas. Well as a beginner you can start learning to clutch without any gas on a parking lot. I think that is how most teachers teach you. First without gas for 1.st gear only - then with gas and more gears. Starting from standstill is still the hardest. At higher speeds it’s much easier as you don’t have to think about the gas pedal.
But yeah - for most it seeems to be tough to adapt from right hand to left hand. In Cyprus the rental cars at less than 100.000km usually have really worn down clutch because the people renting seem to be having problems with the stick on the wrong side.
