Posted on 07/19/2019 12:03:52 PM PDT by C19fan
A man was arrested in Florida after sheriff's deputies say he tried to steal a car from an elderly man in Orlando.
The reason he was unsuccessful? He didn't appear to know how to drive a stick shift, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
The incident occurred Tuesday when an elderly man left his car running with the keys in the ignition while he was putting his walker into the trunk.
According to the sheriff's office, a man, later identified as 25-year-old Jaylen Alexander, allegedly attacked the elderly man, slamming the hood of the trunk on his chest and his walker.
(Excerpt) Read more at myfox8.com ...
Imagine renting a car in the UK with a five speed stick and right hand drive.
I ran into a business owner a while back who only manual transmissions on his fleet trucks because they didn’t get messed with too much.
Realistically, most people can’t drive stick, or if they can aren’t especially good at it. In my experience just as many millennials as anyone else can drive stick — that is to say, a small number.
From the looks of him, it’s surprising he even knows what a car is.
When I was a state copper working in Cook County I was in Chicago in the Greektown restaurant area when my partner and I monitored a Chicago Police Dept flash message about a car jacking that had just occurred in the area within the last few minutes.
Just moments after we made note of it, we heard cars honking at a late model import that was moving slowly in the left lane, jerking and stopping as other cars swerved around it. Since it matched the description of the suspect vehicle, we made a felony stop, detained three suspects who had two pistols in the car, and notified CPD Tactical officers to meet us at the scene.
These suspects were subsequently identified as the offenders in the car jacking, and the reason for the erratic driving that had captured our attention was the fact that the ringleader driver couldn’t operate the 5 speed manual transmission in it very well. One of his accomplices was an 18 wheel truck driver who was entirely capable of driving it, but the boss said that he had always wanted to drive a stick shift and this would be his first chance, so he ordered his buddy to stand down and took the wheel himself.
As a result of this experience, my 2010 Hummer H3 has a 5 speed manual trans.
We wouldn’t catch so many of these clowns if so many weren’t so damn stupid.
And put a stick through the floor just for the hell of it. Just to really confuse them.
I'm 72 years old and never had an automatic transmission in my cars or trucks.
I bought my current truck after watching it for over a year online drop in price by almost $10,000.
I finally drove across Phoenix to the dealership to see it and find out why it hadn't sold and the price had dropped so far.
The salesman told me a lot of people were interested until they found out it was a stick shift. Nobody knows how to drive a standard transmission nowadays he said.
I negotiated the price down another $2,000 and drove home with it. A $20,000 truck for only $9800. A steal.
All because it was a stick shift. Sweet.
I have a stick shift in my very nice low rider s-15 I just bought- I had to get a car RIGHT NOW and the only one other for the money I had had a pool of oil on the cement under the motor. The trucklet also has a separate ignition cutout switch that is not obvious. No one is going to steal it without pulling it up on a flatbed. It is mechanically perfect and looks nice and I never had a car with working AC before. Those shocks are requiring some fortitude and inurement, though.
Or one of those old Mack dump trucks with 2 separate shift levers.
My dad worked in a quarry in the 50's and he said the drivers of a certain ethnicity could sling those gears like a Stradivarius.
A friend of mine who is a millennial intentionally bought a stick shift car for the very reason that it would be hard to steal. Smart kid.
Thieves should have no problem with the new C8 Corvette.
We have a cattle farm now with two diesel tractors. Neither of us needed any training to drive them.
My truck is over ten years old now and pretty beat up from the cows and the Florida climate. It looks pretty rough.
But I never lock it when I go to town or the big city because I know the chances of someone stealing it are slim to none. Because of the stick shift.
I don't know what this "patch" is you speak of. Can you explain in English, please?
This exact situation is why I specifically bought my Challenger SRT with a manual.
Was on a ski lift once with a judge who told me his favorite cases were failed bank robberies because they always involved some sort of hilarious stupidity - like the guy who robbed a bank during lunch hour next to FBI HQs in Philly on FBI pay day (back when you had to cash your paycheck). He pulled a gun and then fifty bank clients pulled guns.
I learned to drive a stick when we talked my Mom into getting a new ‘69 Camaro. If you weren’t smooth on the stats, you could almost bounce the front ene in the air.
My first pickup was a used ‘67 Chevy C10 fleetside V8 with 3 on the tree. Nice truck.
The fact that so many people including most young people don’t know how to drive a stick says a lot for our society. You’ve got to be pretty lame if you don’t know how. Even my wife can drive a stick shift.
I really wanna try right hand drive shifting. May be my only reason to even leave the US.
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