Write Your Congressman: Save the Manual

The third pedal is disappearing, and no one in power has said a word. The manual transmission, once a birthright of every licensed citizen, is now offered on a dwindling handful of cars and defended by no one in the halls of government. This will not stand while Drive Observer still goes to press.

Your representative was elected to serve you. Remind your representative that you can row your own gears, and that you intend to keep doing so.

Write today. Be brief, be firm, and be specific. Tell them the manual gearbox is a matter of national character. Demand hearings. Demand the record show that you, a constituent, stood for the clutch when it was unfashionable to stand for anything.

Address your letter to your member of Congress. Open with the words: "I am a driver, and I am writing in defense of the third pedal." Close with: "History is watching the gearbox."

Then mail it. Postage is cheap. Liberty is not.