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Stick shift driving...

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Only time I've 'driven' an auto was a rental while holidaying in the States.
 
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It's now firmly established that a car's best theft deterrent isn't an alarm or LoJack or electrified door handles . It's a manual transmission . And the latest proof of its mystical crime fighting abilities comes in the form of an attempted kidnapping foiled by the noble stick shift.
According to the AP, Demetri Nelson broke into the home of a 53-year-old woman, demanded money, and then told her to get into the trunk of her car.
He planned to drive her to another house, but Nelson's plot was derailed when he got behind the wheel and was confronted with the most terrifying thing to a doltish 27-year-old criminal: a third pedal and a pole protruding from the floor.
The attempted kidnappee used the emergency trunk release to escape, as – we imagine – Nelson stalled and grinded his way out of the driveway.
He was caught several hours later with the victim's keys in his pocket, because there's a direct correlation between driving manual and criminal intelligence.

https://jalopnik.com/kidnapper-cant-kidnap-because-he-cant-drive-stick-1697863848
 
Having said that, I've had a stick shift car stolen, five years ago now I think, my worthless 1989 Camry stick shift, probably $100...
 
I'm another who has driven manual gearbox cars nearly exclusively for almost fifty years. The automagic cars are ones Herself has had.

In my opinion Florida legislation to outlaw all slushboxes and all air conditioning would be wonderful. It'd clear out the riff-raff and make room for the rest of us. :smirk: :devilgrin:
 
My old Ford Ranger has a 5 spd. stick shift and when I had to fly out for a few days, at the airport, I could pull the shift lever out and stuff it behind the seat! Funny, it never got stolen! That was my airport vehicle. :highly_amused:
 
For me if I have to drive an auto for some reason I find my left foot searching for the clutch and my right hand slapping the air for a stick it's such an automatic thing I don't even thing to do it.
 
Stick shifts are now considered anti-theft devices and as such should warrant a decrease in insurance rates. Not mentioning a button or floor starter. Wait a minute, doesn't the new Lexus have a 'button' start? Billed as a new and approved starting device. Geez, I can't keep up with this.
 
Here's one of my favorites from a few years ago:

​MALDEN (CBS) – A woman who was carjacked with her baby in the back seat is talking about her ordeal. She became involved in the chaos that followed a bank robbery in Saugus.It was Friday evening after the robbers had just hit the bank and were fleeing into Malden with police close behind.
READ: One Dead After Saugus Bank Robbery
The woman did not want to reveal her identity.
“I saw all the cop cars coming down, so I did realize that something big was happening,” she told WBZ-TV’s Jim Armstrong.
But the young mom never realized she was about to become intimately involved. Three men who had just robbed the bank in Saugus were now on foot and in trouble.
She was just coming home from work with her daughter in the back seat when she nearly drove into the suspects in the parking lot of her own apartment complex.
She says, “When I turned around to look and see where they were they were at my window already.”
They showed her a gun, and offered a quick explanation.
“Just that they had done some really bad things and the cops were after them and they didn’t want to hurt me,” she says. “They were just pleading with me for my car, more than anything, please, we need your car.”
She begged for time to get her five month old out of her car seat, but they wouldn’t wait.
She says, “I was barely out of the car before one was sitting in the driver’s seat and then I didn’t have her out of the car yet and the other was already sitting in the passenger seat.”
But her car is a five-speed, something the bad guys hadn’t counted on. They kept stalling out; the car kept lurching offering precious seconds to rescue the baby. The mother is certain that if her car did not have a stick shift, the robbers would have taken off with her baby.
Just then, a Malden Police officer arrived on foot. There was a gunfight that ended with one of the suspects being shot and killed.
 
Eight vehicles in the garage...seven are manual (wife insists one vehicle must be automatic).
Got this just this week...and I will wear it:

 
:iagree:
 
THX, Jay.
 
Here in the ewe ess, while stick shifts MAY be a deterrent......and nobody has addressed three on the tree....a RHD vehicle with a floor shifted four speed requiring your left hand is a REAL deterrent.
 
Ah yes, the column shifter, I tried once with little success on a friend's 1960 Vauxhall Victor, that was many years ago, haven't had the chance since...

An average thief wouldn't even know what to do... :glee:
 
Sherlock, my only attempt at driving a column change car was in a 1963 Victor around my college car park (before I had a driving licence). It was my friends daily driver (this was in the mid 1980s). In these days, when we always seem to have a camera on us, my greatest regret from my college years is that I only have a handfull of photos to remember it by, all taken by others, and none of that Vauxhall.
 
Here's the test for you to perform yourself to indicate the level of desirability your vehicle is to thieves.
Drive into a valet parking area...your choice...casino, restaurant, hotel, etc.
If the valets all walk away and hide, you're safe.
 
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