I think Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in one of his books, that in general, drivers of manual transmission cars get in fewer accidents because they simply can't do some of the things that those driving automatic transmission cars take for granted.
e.g. eating and drinking, putting on makeup, etc.
wrt "the feel of the road", I think much of that is already lost with drive-by-wire technology. I haven't really had that feeling since I sat in a friend's old 90's civic and stepped on the throttle. You can get a little closer with Mazda tiptronic, but it's basically like "playing cars" instead of driving a car.
e.g. eating and drinking, putting on makeup, etc.
wrt "the feel of the road", I think much of that is already lost with drive-by-wire technology. I haven't really had that feeling since I sat in a friend's old 90's civic and stepped on the throttle. You can get a little closer with Mazda tiptronic, but it's basically like "playing cars" instead of driving a car.