UK driving instructors shift to automatic cars in industry move from manual

Mirror, signal, manoeuvre … but getting to grips with a manual gearshift could soon be a lesson of the past. Photograph: Tom Wood/Alamy

For many teenagers, it feels like the first taste of true adulthood: sinking the clutch to the floor, coaxing the gearstick into first and lurching into motion.

But soon, such a milestone could seem as archaic as travelling by horse and cart.