What happens when you mix a well-intentioned but kind of loveably clueless auto thief with a manual transmission? Nothing—if he can’t operate the stick.
Which is what went down in Concord, California late last night, when the man who owned the stick shift-equipped car opened its driver’s side door mid-heist to find the suspect sitting in its passenger seat. He then ordered the car’s owner at gunpoint to drive him to an “undisclosed location”; dumped the owner and tried to take off in the car alone; then, fled on foot, presumably because he couldn’t figure out how to operate the transmission.
My guess, though, is that he had an, “Oh, shit” moment before he got to the “undisclosed location,” probably when he first got into the car and discovered it had a manual transmission; realizing, perhaps, it was the part of driver’s ed in which he should have paid attention. Then, thanks to playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto on the weekends, guy figured he could get a refresh by watching someone else drive for a minute or two, which is why he had the car’s owner take it for a quick spin, only to realize that operating certain types of sticks is a lot harder than it looks.
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