This evening I'm walking along a street in Rota Spain and I started to notice that all the vehicles have manual transmissions. So I started counting how many had manual transmissions and how many had automatic transmissions. When I got back to the hotel I counted 128 total cars. Guess how many had Automatic transmissions....3!!! Yes, only 3 out of the 128. Have we become so lazy in America that we would probably have 125 out of 128 vehicles with automatics??? The 3 with the autos were 1 big Audi, 1 larger utility truck, and a Ford Escort. Every BMW (at least 15 of them) had sticks. What is your opinion as to why Americans have to have an automatic? The excuse of city traffic and hills won't fly as the hills and traffic here are pretty bad too. And, if some of you have the X5 with the 3.0 and an automatic, why did you choose an automatic instead of the manual?