[HPsquared]

One major safety benefit of a manual is that some conscious or at least coordinated action is needed to get the car going.

Compare to an automatic or especially electric car, which will creep forward by itself and can accelerate strongly with an absent-minded prod of the accelerator.

These have much greater risk of unintended acceleration from a stop, which is the cause of a lot of accidents (mixing up the pedals, basically). Ironically in this way the manual car is more 'idiot-proof'.

[LorenPechtel]

And a manual is a higher barrier to a incompetent driver. A little kid isn't likely to get the manual to do anything--probably can't even start it. (Many have a safety that won't engage the starter without the clutch being pushed.)

I don't think it's an adequate reason to keep them, though. I exclusively owned manuals until 2013, at that point I found my objections with automatics no longer applied and no suitable manual existed--all were either bare-bones or sporty.

[pathikrit]

Teslas have creep off by default.