According to police, a delivery driver was going back to his car on S. 5th Street when 24-year-old Emmanuel West appeared from behind the vehicle and demanded the driver’s keys, wallet, and cell phone. The driver complied.
Police say that once West got the keys to the vehicle, he realized the car he had was equipped with a manual transmission and that he did not know how to operate it.
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My mother taught me how to drive and she borrowed a stick shift from a friend to do that because "If you learn to drive on a stick, then you'll be able to drive anything".
I glanced at the bottom of your page and saw "Total Page views 41,608,217" and thought if you'd have gotten a penny for every time someone came here for entertainment you'd be doing all right ($416,082.17)!
ReplyDeleteYup, considering I get a little over 50,000 hits a day.
DeleteI enjoy what you do and try (to remember) to donate $10 when I get my retirement on the 1st of the month.
DeleteI learned in my brother's '56 Chevy, four on the floor with a Hurst shifter. I'll bet he wishes he still had that rig!
ReplyDeleteI have a 3 on the tree 63 F100. It's own theft deterrent device.
ReplyDeleteThat was the 1st truck I bought. It was a long bed with granny gear. I got it for $100 and half cord of wormy pine wood. Another $100 for a friend to drop in a spare 292 he had sitting around. A great truck, beat to hell and back.
DeleteI mentioned recently that I learned manual with a "3 on the tree" and not a single person knew what I was talking about.
ReplyDeleteI, too, learned on a 3 on a tree and drove a stick for many years. TX Girl.
DeleteI learned on the family Volvo station wagon; my first pick-em-up truck was a 1968 Chevy 1/2 ton with a 3 on the tree. '64 flatbed Chevy 4 speed that needed a jumpstart due to lack of funds for a new battery. Various F-150s, depending on the construction job and company. Later another Volvo 4 speed, Honda 5 speed. Almost disappointing to think that driving with a clutch has become a skillset.
ReplyDeleteAutomatic transmissions are much more prevalent in the US than in the UK. here pretty much all driving instructor's cars have manual transmissions. There is a special version of the driving test for autos only but it is usually only those with a disability that take it.
ReplyDeleteMakes sense. Majority of people driving here are retarded.
DeleteAll vehicles should be manual, have shitty brakes except cargo haulers, and have a big spike in the center of the steering wheel to weed out said retards.
I took my driving test using an on the column three speed in a snow storm. At the end of the road test, the examiner had me parallel park into a space between two vehicles that I had to back up hill into with ~4" of unplowed new snow on the road. The examiner told me after I parked that if I had spun the wheels he would have flunked me.
ReplyDeleteNemo
The only thing that kept me from getting a perfect score when I took the driving test for my commercial license in 1974 was for exceeding a 35 mph speed limit on E. Main Street in Grass Valley.
DeleteWhen the guy giving the test walked out of the DMV building and looked at the old Mack logging truck I was taking the test in he said "Does it have a passenger seat? I don't have to sit on a milk carton, do I?"
It was a different time.
Long before I had a driver's license, I drove the tractor on our farm and the pick-up while hauling hay or cattle feed or gunny sacks full of pecans. In later years, I drove a drilling rig for my state's DOT, and a dump truck for a private company. I have not, and never will drive a tractor-trailer rig.
ReplyDeleteIf they can't drive a stick I would love to see them on a motorcycle. They'd never figure it out.
ReplyDeleteClassic bike magazine did a feature on a WL Harley that had a hand gear change and a pedal operated clutch. Turning left out of a T junction meant that you couldn't change your mind halfway out because you were leaning left and needed your left foot on the clutch pedal to stop.
DeleteFirst car with a stick I ever got into, I drove off with no problem. It was instinctive I guess.
ReplyDeleteThe first time my friends & I went to Australia for a surf contest we 'hired' a rental car with a stick shift. Problem was the seat was on the wrong side compared to Hawaii. Of course I got nominated to drive as I was the crazy haole kid who could hunt & clean a pig. So they figured the Red Neck kid could handle a right hand drive car Down Under. I did just fine, thank you very much....
ReplyDeleteI learned and took my road test in a '68 SAAB 96. 4 speed on the column! Tricky finding reverse...
ReplyDeleteSent my daughter to college with a five speed Volvo 240DL wagon. She loved that car. One thing, in particular, was that no one ever asked to borrow it because of the manual transmission. I was a bit surprised since it was an Ag School. In my day, if there was one thing farm kids knew how to do it was use a clutch.
ReplyDeleteI've been driving a stick shift of one make or another for fifty years. Only way I'm changing it is if my legs stop working.
ReplyDeleteStill driving a five speed stick Toyota MR2 with reverse out and down. Just came back from a 100 mile jaunt with a lot of stop and go. Everyone wants me to sell it. Screw them.
ReplyDelete