I drive a stick. I prefer it as it seems to keep me concentrated on the road. I go into auto pilot during most any activity I do on a regular basis so working the transmission at regular intervals distracts me enough from thinking about tying knots with loops in them, writing a TV pilot, driving to the bookstore later or whatever stupid thing my brain is sharing foreground processing with. I can auto pilot through acceleration, but when it comes to everyday traffic, standard transmission keeps me focused enough listening to engine noise to react. My first car was a '66 Volkswagen and I learned when to shift based on the specific weird noise each gear in that piece of shit made. Even a quiet, modern engine makes some noise when the rpms rise.

It is not dying because of every country in the world besides America. I drive a car designed for the world market and the automatic they dropped in it for the US apparently makes it accelerate like a Rascal scooter. But yeah, in America a lot of people don't even know what it is. But a lot of Americans also can't steal my car.