Free Republic

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado woman’s attempt to steal a pickup truck — shortly after she was released from jail on a car theft charge — was thwarted not by officers, nor the truck’s owners, but by her inability to drive a stick shift, Boulder Police said. The woman had been released from jail on May 3 after being accused of stealing a car a day earlier, and walked down the road until she spotted a pickup truck with the keys inside. She then started the pickup, but apparently discovered she couldn’t manage the manual transmission, so she got...

A pair of would-be teenaged carjackers trying to flee with a stolen car were foiled by old-school machinery: a stick shift. Detectives in Montgomery County, Maryland, say that the two teens — a 16-year-old from Rockville and a 17-year-old from Washington, D.C. — have been arrested for a “strong-arm carjacking” at a gas station in Germantown, around 25 miles northwest of the nation’s capital. Surveillance footage shows the young suspects approaching a blue car shortly after the presumed owner gets inside. The driver is forcibly yanked from the car and is seen quickly walking away as the teens get inside...

Two teens who carjacked a man at a gas station in Germantown, Maryland were unable to drive away because they didn't know how to operate the car's manual transmission, police say. A 16-year-old from Rockville and a 17-year-old from Washington, D.C. were arrested after the carjacking on Saturday at the Sunoco gas station on Frederick Road, Montgomery County police said. A man had just finished pumping gas and was getting into his car when he saw the two teens running toward him, police said. The teens then forced his door open, grabbed him and demanded his keys, which he handed...

Once upon a time, the manual transmission was the default transmission choice for a pickup truck. The automatic was a luxury option that robbed trucks of both power and mpg. But the final full-size pickup truck with the manual transmission (the 2018 Cummins-powered Ram) has come and gone. So who is to blame for the death of the manual transmission pickup truck? The truth is that increased engine torque, government regulations, and the capabilities of the average driver are all partially responsible. But at the end of the day, we killed the manual truck; automakers don’t offer manual transmission full-size...

A Ford GT owner in Boca Raton, Florida crashed his recently purchased supercar into a tree Friday evening because he was "unfamiliar with how to drive stick shift," police say. The driver, 50-year-old Robert J. Guarini, told cops he lost control after downshifting while leaving his housing development at around 6 p.m, a police report says. This led to a head-on collision with a palm tree. Guarini then told a nearby security worker that he did not have his phone and needed a ride back to his house, where he spoke to authorities via landline after leaving the vehicle unattended,...

Only around 18% of American drivers can handle a manual transmission, according to U.S. News and World Report. You know: the clutch pedal and the stick shift—three on the tree, four on the floor or, I don’t know, five to drive maybe. Different gears, manually engaged. Turns out that “basically” isn’t the same as “actually.” When my father’s Oldsmobile died this month, my family replaced it as the backup car with a used Chevy. Since I’m the backup driver, I climbed in, stepped on the clutch, started the car, stepped off the clutch. The engine promptly stalled. Only by grinding...

Think the manual transmission is a dying breed? Guess what? You're right. Sales of electric cars recently surpassed those with three pedals. And since earlier this year, when we last revised this list, several stick-shift-equipped models have been dropped from the U.S. market, either because the option or the entire model line has been discontinued. Most notably, the Cadillac ATS-V is gone, and Jaguar no longer offers a six-speed for its rowdy F-type. But here's the good news. There are more than 30 cars available in the U.S. that come with a manual gearbox. (A handful of sport-utes come with...

Thieves attempt carjacking, but can’t get away in a stick shift SEATTLE – A 70 year old woman is stopped by three young men with a gun right outside her Seattle home. They got her keys, but they didn’t get away with her car. That’s because when the would-be thieves got in Nancy Fredrickson’s car, they discovered it was a stick shift. None of them knew how to drive a manual, so they ended up ditching the car and running away. Nancy Fredrickson had just returned home yesterday afternoon, after buying some things at a garage sale. She was getting...

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...

Per Foxnews! A naked man has hijacked a schoolbus in Doraville Georgia. Some Semi Truck Drivers heard the call over the intercom and forced the bus to crash! No details on injuries yet!