Corners

Curious if anyone has ever bought a Mazda5 and regretted not getting the full sized minivan due to size. I'm currently a US expat and will be moving back to the US next year. Living here overseas I've come to appreciate all the pros of having a smaller car. Day in and day out, the smaller footprint is just easier to live with. However, before we moved last year, we had a Toyota Sienna. We really liked that car. However, I've been watching the prices of these vehicles go up and up and up over the last several years. Looks like now to buy a new Sienna with any sort of basic options you're looking at $30,000+. The top of the line Mazda5 GT can be had for $22,000 OTD with leather and everything (like the leather with the kids).

For everyone's information, we are a family of 4 (kids 2 and 6) with a medium large dog (~60 lbs). 95% of the time, it's just the 4 of us. Sometimes we have the inlaws stay with us, so occasionally, we'd have 6 in the car during their visit. We also take several 3 hour trips to the family lake house during the summer with the the 4 of us, luggage, and the dog in the car. Would we fit?

What do you think? Think we'll miss the size?

The only correct answer is, "Yes". Barring some sort of medical condition, requiring new drivers to learn and take their driving tests in a manual transmission has many benefits:

1) Decreased decreased driving. You can't talk or text while you're shifting. You have to pay attention to what's going on with the car. Automatics have made driving so boring and numb that your natural tendency is to think about other things you can do with your time instead of driving. Automatics facilitate distracted driving.

2) Increased automobile awareness. People who know how to operate a manual transmission have a better understanding of how a car operates. Drivers today are becoming so removed from the driving experience that they're basically a passenger in their own vehicle.

3) Better fuel economy.

4) More vehicle operation flexibility. If your teen is out at a party and their driver, who happens to be driving a stick, gets drunk, your responsible kid can safely driver their car home.

Basically, if you are too uncoordinated to drive a manual transmission equipped vehicle, you should not be driving in the first place. Placing this requirement as a mandatory hurdle to cross will greatly increase driver awareness and skill-set. It's time we get serious about driving in the USA.

And then turn around and complain about fuel prices as if there's nothing they can do about it?

Where's the public outrage? Where's the media circus? Where's Al-Sharpton? Where's Obama?

http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpp/news/crime/taco-be...