are you chosing it or how much?
the answer is no.
you can't become an expert if you aren't allowed to control the parameters.
> The reasons why trucks don't usually have automatic transmissions is that the torque needed to move such a huge mass would destroy nearly every traditional hydrokinetic transmission
that's another point, automatic transmission is more expensive, less robust and increases the cost of the vehicle without adding any other benefit than being 'easier' to operate.
would you fly on a plane where the pilot only knows how to use the autopilot?
that's where safety comes in, when things take more time to master, people tend to become better at them
Manual gear is not stupid, it is simply technically superior (it costs less and lasts more).
That doesn't mean we should have levers and clutches, that's the simplistic view of wannabe futurists, trucks have something much more similar to a semi-automatic (with 10, 12, 13 gears) than a full automatic one.
Truth is car makers need to sell more cars and will gladly make them do all the work "automatically" so people don't have to learn how to do it properly.
If they don't do something now, the 15 years old of today will grow up without cars and in a generation cars would be a thing of the past (that would be great!).
How to make them survive? Well, first of all don't make them useless, make them electric and costly and cover the added cost with people taxes that go directly in car company's pockets.
Secondly make them "easy" and "cool" and "sexy" so that a teenager doesn't have to learn to drive, that's scary and dangerous, like... do you really still practice to learn? what are we, cavemen?
And make them as complex as possible, so that the price won't ever go down and a Renault Zoe will cost as much as a Tesla (a Model 3s cost about 35k, a Zoe around 33k. It's just ridicoulus!).
We live in the era of the iPhones where the promise is that anybody can do what any other people can do, even though there are people that spent their lives learning something and other that did not (I did not, for example).
Of course it is possible when what you can do is dictate by the manufacturer, because "it dangerous out there, think of your old parents! would you give them a smartphone that let them do whatever they want? of course not"
Would you give your children an ICE car?
With manual transmission?
Are you a criminal?
The whole idea that you don't know how to not destroy the planet and the car needs to teach you how to drive responsibly, while the same car has been built by those that profited from destroying the planet's environment, always fascinated me.
How did it become a good idea in people's minds?