Posted on 01/29/2013 4:41:10 PM PST by grundle
An attempted stickup was confounded by a car’s stick shift, when would-be carjackers failed to understand the mechanics behind a manual transmission.
Randolph Bean tells WOFL FOX 35 that two men attempted to steal his 2002 yellow Corvette at gunpoint outside an Orlando hospital, but they ended up running away after they couldn’t figure out how to drive his car.
"They apparently couldn't start it,” Bean 51, is quoted as saying in a police report. “I had to tell him four different times to push in the clutch, because it's a standard transmission."
After several failed attempts, the thieves eventually fled the scene.
“My first thought was I guess we don't have driver's ed. in school anymore, because no one knows how to drive a stick. And my second thing was, don't shoot me because you can't start the car,” Bean said. “I'm trying to help you out here, you know. Thankfully they didn't."
However, the foiled carjackers did not leave entirely empty-handed. "They got away with my phone, they got my keys, they got my wallet," Randolph told the Fox affiliate.
Still, Randolph was pretty forgiving when asked what message he had for the “handsome young men, who did not look like car thieves.”
“Guys, turn your life around. You guys have got a lot going for you,” he said. “Thank you for not taking my life for something silly as a car.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Short version of a true story: I stole a Jeep because the guys who were trying to steal it couldn’t drive three on the tree.
A couple decades ago, when I took my youngest in for her driver’s test, the female DPS testing-officer chewed me out for making my daughter take her test in a manual transmission vehicle.
That surprised me. You’d think they would want drivers to be able to drive a thinking person’s car. ;)
Once upon a time before I escaped the greatest Soviet of Chicago and Cook County Illinois, and moved to Georgia, I worked there as an Illinois state policeman in the Chicago area. My partner and I received a flash message over the Illinois State police emergency radio network advising of a carjacking in Greektown, a sub community at the University of Illinois medical Center in Chicago. Moments later we saw a car that fit the description jerking and bucking down the street at low speed with frustrated drivers honking their horns at it and passing in irritation. It was this unusual set of circumstances that attracted our attention to it in the first place.
We executed a felony stop on the car, detained the three passengers and the driver, and quickly determined that they were in fact the criminal miscreants described in the flash message. When we interrogated the suspects we discovered that the driver admitted he could not drive a manual transmission car (the hijacked Honda had a five speed manual transmission) but that he had always wanted to try to drive one, and figured this would be a good time for him to learn.
Even more interesting was that one of the crew was a duly licensed Class D. 18 wheel truck driver who was quite capable of driving the car, but his mastermind boss wouldn’t let him.
I got to admit that we coppers wouldn’t get so many of these idiots if they just weren’t so damn stupid.
LOL,
Reminds me of an old joke.
Street guy in a zoot suite walks into the dealership. Likes the Thunderbird in the window. Salesman throws him the keys and says: “take ‘er out for a spin, and remember, its an Automatic!” (for the uninformed, old power trans were L=low, D=drive, R=reverse)
Zoot suite drives off. An hour later, the guy’s not back, salesman gets worried. Just then zoot suite walks through the front door looking all raggedy with the steering wheel around his neck. Salesguy screams: “what the hell happened?”
Zoot suite says: “Whellpp, I puts her in Lunge, and she gits up to round 40, then I puts her in Drag, and she gits up to round 70, then I puts that damn thing in Race, and there waz just gears all over the place!”
Keep Obama in automatic you know?
Most everybody drives automatics. Why bring race into it?
A woman broke into our house about 10 years ago while we were on vacation. We got a call while we were in Japan that someone had left our stolen car in another part of Phoenix. After we got back, we got a call about the other car, which was also gone. The female house invader — a crack user looking for a place to sleep — had tried to take my stick-shift Beetle out for a drive. By the time she had gone a half mile she had ruined the transmission — to the tune of $1800 — and she had someone help push the car into a church parking lot. After a few days we got a call from the church letting us know that the car was there.
What car rental companies have cars with sticks?
I haven't found one yet.
I greatly prefer sticks, but since I typically buy used, I usually end up with automatics - there just aren’t that many sticks out there.
I drive my cars to at least 150k, and I’ve had to rebuild the trans on every automatic car I’ve owned at least once. The last one, I rebuilt preemptively when I bought it. I like working on cars, but I just don’t find much joy on working on automatic transmissions - so much that can go wrong on assembly, and getting them in and out of a modern car is a ginormous PITA. Engines are more fun, at least for me.
Next car (or truck) is going to be a stick. I’ll pay extra or wait until I find the right vehicle if I have to.
Most fun stick I ever drove was a big old ford dump truck. Probably mid 60s. I drove it in the late 80s at my first job. Had what seemed like a three foot stick and a two foot throw, plus a two speed rear. The seat was sprung and bounced no matter how smooth you shifted, and the air brakes were touchy. Was like an amusement park ride to drive, and I was the only one who could drive it with any degree of smoothness. Fun times.
My first car, three on the tree.
I can’t even imagine these newer generation idiots trying to steal a truck with a 15 speed tranny, let alone an old 5x9 dinosaur!
Same here. Both my son and daughter learned on a stick and are quite good at it. I have never owned anything but a stick shift; trucks, Jeeps, etc.
I haven’t owned an automatic since 1979.
So far the new technology has proved fool proof and the NTSB is thinking of making it mandatory in all vehicles along with a rule that all new vehicles be painted black...
Heck! Even an old 10 speed Spicer would have them drooling with frustration!
I learned to drive a stick in a 1964 Beetle. Good part about it was, you learned how to shift properly because if you messed up, the little 50 hp 4-cylinder conked out on you. I learned fast on hills! :-)
I haven't found one yet.
Presuming you are referring to USA, it was 1982
Weird thing: I can still vizualize how those gear shifts looked, but my mind persists in placing them not where I know they were, but in the proper place, under my left hand
“Bean describes both carjackers as black males between 17 and 25 years old. “
And I learned on a column shift, back then most everyone did.
I figure while they're busy trying to figure it out I'll have time to produce my fire stick and surprise them.
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