Fadi Nabil, Egyptian, Marketing Supervisor
“I personally love manual cars but am currently driving an automatic. The reasons I love manual:
1) Driving with gears gives you greater control. This means you are more in tune with your car, which also makes you a better driver.
2) A manual has a longer lifespan than an automatic.
3) If you know how to use a manual, you have more options while driving as you constantly need to gear up and down, which makes it a more interesting and fun experience.”
Kirstin Daly, Australian, HR Professional
“To be fair, I’ve only ever driven an automatic car and I absolutely enjoy it. Even if I did have the choice skills-wise, I’m pretty certain I would always choose to drive an automatic.
My reasons for choosing it are:
1) For me, it’s all about the ride and taking the focus away from the actual work of driving — it really is more about keeping your eyes on the road and just enjoying the scenery.
2) I’m also a minimalist — the fewer the steps involved in getting to the end result, the better. It’s also so much easier not worrying about the word clutch — unless of course it has anything to do with a handbag!
3) Safety-wise, automatic cars also win over manual, in my opinion. I mean, who really wants to worry about parallel parking or sliding downhill on an incline with a manual gear, as if this wasn’t hard enough. I am definitely pro-automatic cars.”
Omar Kazim, Emirati-Scottish, Aerospace Engineer
“There are good points about both manual and automatic cars, so for me it’s a tough choice. A manual car is a lot more fun to drive in an open, free road. You feel like you’re more in control of the car. But an automatic has several advantages over a manual, especially in the UAE:
1) It’s much less hassle to operate an automatic when you’re sitting in one of the UAE’s infamous traffic jams.
2) It’s easier to drive because there’s no clutch or gears, and it might even last longer than a manual, which is heavy on the clutch in traffic.
3) I think it’s safer because you can concentrate more on the road. For these reasons, I’d have to say I prefer driving an automatic in the city.
