Learning How To Drive a Manual Car

A few years ago during the lockdown, after wasting several months at home doing nothing, I decided to learn how to drive and so I told my dad who then agreed to teach me. His car uses manual gear/transmission and it is widely believed that learning with manual is best as it would make you able to drive both manual and automatic.

I was so happy when he agreed to teach me and I was already imagining myself driving to various locations and events.

Soon, the lessons began, it proved to not be as straightforward as it should have been, mainly because of one aspect; clutch engagement.
Simply put, clutch engagement (for those that can't drive/ can't drive manual) is finding the balance between clutch and acceleration for the car to start moving.

For you to be able to move your manual car, you must master clutch engagement. As a learner, you may luckily get it sometimes and fail sometimes which is tricky and could even be demoralising.

For me it got to a point my dad became impatient with me and even said I would end up spoiling his car so he took me to a driving school to perfect what I already learnt from him.

On getting to the driving school, I showed them that I was not a novice but sometimes clutch engagement would still rear it's ugly head and ruin my shine.

After the lockdown period, I came back to school and occasionally when a driver is required for one school activity or the other, I would volunteer. Until one day...

That fateful, I was called to drive a bus in school but I was informed earlier that the battery is not in good condition which meant that it needs to be pushed to start.
This also means that if clutch engagement fails, I would constantly need people to push the bus for me.

Now let me explain something, for each time you fail clutch engagement, the car would go off and you will have to start the ignition again. So for a bus whose battery is bad, if you failed, you will need to be pushed again inorder to restart. Tricky right?

After they pushed the bus for me and I took off, shortly after, I made a mistake and the engine went off. I had to call them again to push it for me. That was when it dawned on me that if I left the school compound and developed same issue, I would be in trouble.

That was when I mastered clutch engagement. Because I knew what awaited me if I failed😁

Since that day till now, I can drive for several hours without the engine going off. The power of necessity.
My clutch engagement became so good that I even began to teach some friends how to drive manual and they learnt it.
It may not be the hardest thing I have learnt but it was a big ask at the time.