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Comment by ummonk | Hacker News Reader

It isn’t that manual is bad at stop and go traffic. It is that adaptive cruise control is really great at it, and adaptive cruise control is only available on automatics.

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My manual VW Golf would like to have a word with you.

I don't drive in stop-start traffic, so I don't know how well it would work, but my manual VW Golf MK VII has adaptive cruise control. If you need to shift up or down, you just do so and cruise control re-engages.

I'm pretty much always in 6th gear when I've got ACC enabled.

European cars have cruise control on manuals.

They said "adaptive cruise control". That's where the car will speed up or slow down based on the traffic around you automatically. Sort of like self driving but not nearly as demanding.

Obviously manuals have had normal cruise control for decades.

I live in the UK, manual cars have had adaptive cruise control here for some time.

So as the parent comment said, you can go to 0 and back up to 60 with no clutch/shift engagement whatsoever?

Yes, but there are also adaptive cruise controls with manual gearbox, and it's a useful combination in highway traffic. Or even in suburban roads: I don't have it, but I use regular cruise control quite a lot on roads that have traffic lights every 1-2 km, and the speed of traffic varies between 40-70 km/h.

No, adaptive cruise control where the car changes speed based on the car in front is also present on manuals. It only works above certain speeds though.

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