Learning to Drive a Manual in Paris – A Trial by [Almost] Fire

I am 26 years old and I have never truly driven a manual car. I know it's pretty sad but I'm sure I'm not the only one and I hope this story helps others like me and entertains the rest of y'all!

For a little background knowledge, I am not completely divorced from the knowledge of how manual transmission vehicles work. I drove a manual Baja 1000 race-car for about 20 mins when I was a teenager in Mexico and I owned a motorcycle for a year and a half. So I have a basic understanding the concept of a manual transmission and how a clutch works and switching gears as you accelerate and easing into the clutch and gas simultaneously when you start. BUT understanding the basic concepts and actually putting them into practice in real time on real city roads was certainly a bit of a jump.

While I will get to the actual experience of driving a manual car for the first time on the streets of Paris, with narrow roads; unfamiliar signs and lane designations; busses, bikers and pedestrians; general unfamiliarity with the rental car; while navigating a foreign city via google map directions read aloud by my copilot with no active internet connection...first I will explain why we were even in this situation.

When we were scoping out our time in France we planned to start our trip in Paris then visit the Champagne region, make our way south to Bordeaux and finally to Provence/French Riviera. We were planning to take trains for most of our city-to-city and region-to-region travels with a scattering of BlaBlaCars when prudent.

I was looking forward to the relaxed train travels. But when we landed in Amsterdam and started looking at the next couple weeks of travel, we found out that the French rail workers were conducting rolling labor strikes. They were striking for 2 consecutive days every 3/4 days or so for the next month or so. That meant there were very few trains running and the ones that were in operation were exorbitantly priced.

This was not ideal for our travel plans as our trip to Paris and our trip to Reims were both on scheduled strike days. We also read that this would affect regional flight prices. We did not want our flexibility and budget to be at the mercy of the rail worker union. We took a BlaBlaCar to Paris. When we arrived in Paris, we looked at our options: using BlaBlaCar and trains as available or renting a car and traveling on our own schedule and pace. The car rental won that debate as the price was known and not budget breaking, and we both wanted our trip to be fairly free flowing and flexible. Without a car, we would be fairly constrained to visiting larger cities and it would be difficult to do some of the side trips we longed for. Now we were free to see anything and go anywhere we desired.

While I have hinted at our budget a few times in my blog, I have not got into great detail (which I plan to at some point), the short story is we are on a fairly tight budget for this trip. Renting a car came at a reasonable price but it was certainly an unplanned stretch to our budget. This meant that we were looking at renting a budget car, a compact and definitely with a manual transmission. Renting an automatic in France would have almost doubled the cost of the car!

As mentioned at the top, I have never really driven a manual car and certainly not in a city! But I felt confident that my experience with my motorcycle would suffice for the basics and I would just learn as I went. A trail by fire kind of a deal.

A fire it certainly seemed to be just minutes after signing the rental papers. We were stuck on the swirled embankment between the 3rd and second levels of the underground parking lot of the Gard du Nord, with black smoke spewing from the hood of our new Fiat 500 XUV while a line of beeping cars began to form behind us.

(Not my picture and not our car, but this is how I imagine it looked in the moment!)

Just 90 seconds ago it had all seemed OK as I looked over the car, tested out the stick, switching from gear to gear while car was parked to get a feel for the hand movements. I spent a few seconds testing out the catch point of the clutch to feel where it would engage the motor. I felt confident enough to pull out of our parking spot and start my learning journey on the open roads.

I stalled a couple times getting out of the spot but I figured that was normal as a first go and it seemed fine as I drove down the isle to the exit gate before we would ascend 3 levels of a corkscrew like ramp to the street level.

What I didn't realize before I attempted the doomed journey up that first ramp, was I had been, and currently was, trying to shift from a dead stop in neutral straight into 3rd gear. Yes I repeat: from a dead stop, from neutral to third gear, up a ramp!

Now I was not doing this on purpose and never would have attempted if I had known that the gear I imagined to be first gear was in fact the third.

You may ask how one could possible make this mistake and I give you exhibit A below as the main cause:

In my brief introduction to this car I looked down and saw this nicely drawn map of the gears. I assumed that the far left gear was reverse with the one next to it 1st gear. So when I went to pull out of the spot and start up the hill I made sure to put the shifter into the second notch from the left, what I thought was 1st. Low and behold that's not how this works!

There is a secret button you hit to shift into reverse which basically shares the far left notch with 1st gear. So when I thought I was shifting from neutral into 1st, I was actually shifting straight to 3rd!!!

Evidently the car didn't like this and began to get all heated up over my mistake. As I believed I was using the vehicle correctly I kept trying to move once I became stuck and this is when the car started really smoking with various warnings sounding in the car!

At this point I was stuck, unsure if I was damaging the car, holding up other people and seriously doubting if I would be able to do this! I became frozen with panic.

With a little prodding from Alena, I jumped out of the car, ran down the ramp, and asked the guy in the car behind me if he could drive stick and could move my car to the next level out of the way. I don't know if he spoke English or not, but I think he understood the look in my eye and could clearly see and smell the smoke.

He hopped in our car and drove it right up the ramp and parked it for me with no issues. As the angry line of cars drove through my smoke and up the ramp, there we were, sitting in our smoky car, unsure how to drive it, and wondering what the heck to do.

At this point I knew the car wasn't broken because that other guy had made it up the ramp no problem, so it was a ME thing. To make things worse, I didn't even know how to get the vehicle into reverse to back out of the spot he had parked it in. I figured at this point we were in an empty level of the garage and I could practice a bit before giving the ramp another go. But I was pretty afraid of damaging the car and again, no reverse!?!

So I found another stranger who could somewhat understand my English and asked him if he knew how to get the car into reverse. Now I imagine this would be a humbling moment for any person, but it felt extra bad to me in that moment. I literally had to ask someone to show me how to get the car, which I was about to drive across France, into reverse so I could leave the parking garage and drive out into the streets!

After he made a comment on the smoke and the awful burning smell of our car, he showed me the secret reverse button and bam! it all started to become clear. That wasn't first I trying earlier it was third! Now I got this! In my irrational exuberance at learning this key new detail and figuring out where first gear actually was located, I decided to forgo any further practice, at Alena's chagrin, and immediately drive up the ramp and head for our apartment.

In retrospect it was probably not the most prudent thing to do. A bit more practice with the clutch and the gears before venturing out on city roads would have been smart. But I was embarrassed by my mistake and just wanted to get the heck out of there!

Luckily it all turned out fine. I was able to get the car into reverse. Pull out of the parking spot. Put the car into actual first gear this time and drive up the next two ramped levels and exit the garage. Man was it nerve racking and tense though. I was sure I was just going to mess up again and break our car in the first 10 minutes!

We made it to the apartment with me only stalling the car once or twice at a few stop lights. We packed up and drove off for Verdun and Reims, for a total of 3 1/2 hours of driving through Paris, onto the freeways and into little rural towns. It was difficult to get used to hitting the brake and clutch with both feet on sudden stops. And starting on inclines caused anxiety for a while. But I learned fast that day and the days after, with a few stalls every so often but no further smoking or serious errors. Although the smoke smell lingered for a couple of days.

It has now been two full weeks since that terrible incident. Third gear seems to work perfectly fine so no serious damage done. I now feel pretty comfortable driving in busy cities, traffic and starting on hills. And the car now smells of crumbs of the cheese and bread we are constantly eating and not the putrid smoke of dying car parts.

While it all has worked out ok for me, sliding into a manual car and just learning on the fly, I would not recommend this method of learning to any one else! Watch some YouTube videos to learn the basics then get an experienced friend and their old manual car that has a solid clutch and transmission and learn in a flat empty parking lot like everyone else!

Those moments of being stuck on that ramp, with the car smoking and people behind me honking was one of the most embarrassing and stressful in my life. But I was able to deal with it, learn from it and move on. Now I am on an amazing road trip through France with my love and we have greatly enjoyed the freedom having our own car allows: random picnics, wine tastings, hikes and easy shopping.

One thing should be noted is that Alena was pretty darn patient through experiment/experience. She doesn't know how to drive stick and did not feel comfortable attempting to learn in this extreme scenario, so all she could do was sit and watch me struggle through. She did a great job not panicking too much in the smoke incident and was pretty supportive of my efforts once we figured out reverse and first and third and all that. She did make me watch a YouTube video on how to drive a manual before she would allow us to leave our Paris apartment. And still, the few times I have stalled or over-rev the engine, she does yelp out in terror. I think she is still worried about me breaking the car!

Overall our car experience has been a positive part of our trip, but those first few minutes were quite concerning and frankly dreadful. In the end we are having the experience we wanted in France and I learned a valuable new skill. Learning to drive a manual car in Paris will be an experience I surely will never forget!