Lead footing is a phenomenon exclusive to automatics. Basically, you are on a 35mph road maybe, you lead foot some, the car shifts from third to the overdrive gear, now you are going like 45 or 50mph with the engine barely making any noise, you thinking this is just fine. On a manual, you'd know if you were in third and went to 50mph—the engine would be howling at another couple thousand rpm depending on the car. Going into your overdrive gear would require a conscious effort to shift into it.
That‘s just silly - I drive my (manually shifted) car basically solely in the highest gear in non-city traffic and have the same effect. Nothing to do with automatic, but with powerful cars.
There was some speculation that because they shift gears manually, they have to pay more attention to the road and can't do things like drink coffees while driving. They also enjoy driving a lot more than we do.
I wonder if other technology would have a similar effect of ultimately making driving less safe and enjoyable. I've never driven a super-modern car, but I do know that I zone out a bit when cruise control is on...
It is no problem at all to drink coffee or even eat while driving a manual car, so no idea where this comes from ;)