increasingly, companies have been equipping their trucks with automatic transmissions for a variety of reasons. operating a manual transmission requires more skill and attention of the driver, partly due to the unsynchronized transmission found in heavy-duty trucks. companies have found that automatic transmission has many benefits, including higher fuel efficiency, higher driver retention (drivers frustrated by a manual transmission may quit his/her job), lower wear of transmission gears (inexperienced drivers sometimes grind the gears if they do not follow proper shifting techniques), lower driver fatigue, and less accidents (manual transmissions require more attention from the driver, thus increasing the chances for an accident). all of these factors reduce costs for the company.