It was a Wrangler! At that time in my life I probably would have been so judgy about someone who drove a Jeep Cherokee. At that time, Cherokees were known for breaking down all the time. I may have judged them for picking a vehicle known to be unreliable and infer that he must be an uber-impractical person. But that's where I think I've learned: I've gotta stop 'extrapolating' so much just from one thing.

The last time I checked, only about 6% of cars in the U.S. are stick. Perhaps plenty of Americans would drive stick if they were available (I would), but they're just not available. So I think there are other reasons Americans don't drive stick, not just laziness. And I wouldn't want to think any country is 'inferior' just because they don't do what all the other countries do. But you just prompted me to Google why Americans don't drive stick shift and Europeans tend to drive stick. One source pointed out that Americans are prone to multi-task (e.g., eating, organizing logistics on phone, work call on phone) while driving so automatic frees us up to do that, whereas Europeans don't tend to do that. So...it's almost like the opposite of laziness--we're trying to achieve and accomplish so much that we want to put less conscious effort into driving so we can put that effort elsewhere. Just another viewpoint on the topic about 'why' Americans do that which doesn't seem to be about laziness.