Personal opinion if you can't ride I mean drive stick your not a real trucker

Skill & experience certainly comes into play and why autos make for better new truck drivers. Less crap to manage/fight. I see it nightly. Farmers/Truckers of ten plus years refuse to back their manuals into tight spots in our "yard." SO easy a newb in an auto can do it, lol. I like being able to defensively control my little bubble around me, i dont need more reaction lag as the tractor/trailer has plenty built in.

That being said, autos on ice are terrible. No way around it from my 1st winter. You're not a real trucker if you didn't throw chains dozens of times.
Oh wait the manual drivers chained in the same scenarios.
Only thing i witnessed was the rev limiter auto shifting gears even in manual mode to protect the equipment. Why would any mechanic or owner want to override that in the programming? So in essence you can blow your manual up easier just trying to get to the apex of that hill.... just 2 more feet..... almost there.... **poof**

One thing i have discovered not to be a Lurch McGurch in an auto from a stop is resume cruise in certain trucks. The Macks and Volvos i have driven don't seem to care if you're over 25mph like a car.

 

I disagree a bit with the chains part. I got stuck in a flat, plowed parking lot last winter, full lockers and all 8 just spun. The autoshift was pretty quick to lay the torque down. Just rest your foot on the throttle and it'd engage the clutch. I am fairly certain with a manual I could have feathered the clutch and got it rolling without too much trouble. Instead I had to go toss a chain on. Not the end of the world though.

 

I must be a real trucker, my paycheck clears every week!

 

The Allison automatic is just like a car auto. It has a torque converter and you get instantaneous acceleration when you hit the pedal. It holds the RPMs at peak even when shifting gears so there is no lull in acceleration.

Company I used to work for had a few Allisons in the fleet, but they were older trucks and all the new trucks were the usual lazy automated manual.

I don't know why they stopped buying those.

 

Get out to the left coast very much? Stop by our place sometime. We have a few 18speeds and the rest are all 5&4s and 6&4s.
Finding good drivers who can run two sticks isn't easy but there are still enough guys around that are teachable to make it worthwhile.
Granted, most of our drivers are older and they're used to using two sticks but I doubt seriously if we'll ever run automatics. We tried one on demo and the factory rep said "see if you can burn it up." We did. He wasn't happy with the tow bill.
In your big city or flat land and freeway driving an auto definitely makes sense. They just don't work well for us.

 

Never saw such Display/Presentation.
Wonderful, Thanks!!

 

I wouldn't mind learning to shift a 5x4.

I've had the privellege of driving an old freight truck from the 30s. Those guys were truckers back then.

 

I drive a manual but didn’t mind auto because truck didn’t have company restrictions.. it accelerated as quick you could smoke a manual from the lights if you chose to.. most are set up to accelerate c amount of mph per second .. 4 way locks prevent the getting stuck issues if you lock them in when you park . Even if they unlock when you shut truck off the splines are lined up so they lock easy in the morning…

 

I thought california would not let you run old equipment like that

 

California regulates engine emissions. Transmissions have nothing to do with that.