'can you drive a stick?'

[misdee]

why is it a big deal on american films? does almost everyone drive automatics over there?

Yes, a "stick shift" is very unusual over there.

Yes! Practically everyone.
We hired a car when we got married in Las Vegas. It was a classic car and the rentals guy did a big spiel about how to drive a stick shift as if it was rocket science.

yes...automatic transmission, not a stick shift in the good ol' U S of A !

Most American cars are automatic. All rental cars are automatic. Plenty of North Americans (e.g. me ) can't drive manual.

well he just said 'a stick' on batman begins. swear he did.

but why is it unusual? i know it takes practise, it took me ages to co-ordinate in my lessons how to drive manual. in fact my instructor suggested i may be better in an automatic, but i wasnt going to get a different car, so perservered.

I was wondering this the other day. Had an automatic courtesy car and HATED it.
My thoughts were:
lots of straight wide roads. Maybe manual gear changes pointless - I mean here you have a bendy twisty road and therefore maybe need to be more on top of what gear you're in/going to be in next.
Fuel consumption. I believe that automatic cars are less economic on fuel consumption so maybe the fact that petrol is cheap in US a factor.
Tradition. Don;t think the car industries in UK and US developed similtaneously this century. So maybe european manufacturers chose to provide manuals, people learnt on manuals, and it became the norm while in America the reverse was true.

I has an American boyfriend a long long time ago and he has an English car (TR7 I think) which he thought was a total novelty because he was 'driving a stick'.