Manual Transmission Saves the Day--Again!

Now here's one of the reasons why we love manual cars--they stop car thieves dead on their tracks. This has happened not once, not twice, but thousands of times already. And yes, the real hero of the story here is the ever-dependable manual transmission.

Car thieves in the making

Case in point: Nashville police released a press release stating that they've arrested two teenagers who attempted to carjack two women while they were in their cars on August 1.

According to the police's statement, "young men" who were 15 and 17, tried to carjack two women on the night of August 1 and failed in both attempts. The first was on a woman inside her vehicle at a parking garage. They ran up to the car, "one on each side," and "yelled for her to get out" before they tried to forcibly remove her from her car.

The woman honked the horn and yelled, prompting the two to run off, the release said.

The teens' second attempt was on a woman who had just parked her vehicle at the parking lot of a supermarket. The victim was headed straight to the store when one of the teens snatched the car key from out of her hand.

Both teens then went inside her vehicle, but failed to start the engine.

"After a few seconds, they exited the car and fled on foot, apparently unable to drive a manual transmission," the press release explained.

"The Stick-Shift Trap"

This scenario has happened so many times now that we're created a name just for it: "The Stick-Shift Trap."

It's when an auto thief successfully overcomes the first hurdle of getting inside the car, only to realize that the next hurdle is operating a vehicle with three pedals in it. The problem here is that he doesn't know what the heck to do with it, so off he goes, downtrodden and frustrated over his apparent inability to operate a manual.

The moral of the story here: get yourself a manual transmission vehicle. You never know when another unlikely "victim" will fall straight into "The Stick-Shift Trap."