> off. This is a question to all the officers out there,
 > have you ever
 > responded to, or stoped a car theif where the theif
 > jumped in a car
 > with a manual transmission but couldnt drive it?
HAHAHAHAHAHAA!!  Not an officer here, but I read of one such some years ago 
(I think he had just robbed a bank), where the perp was just sitting there, 
futilely trying to get the car to go.
Since automatic transmissions were so common at the time when my son was old 
enough to learn to drive, we made sure he learned to drive on a car with a 
manual shift, as he wouldn't have (much of) a problem going from there to 
automatic.  I had, at the time, a VW Beetle with what they called an 
automatic stick shift, which had no clutch pedal.  At the same time, we also 
had a Beetle with a standard transmission.  Several times, I got into the 
automatic one, and, forgetting the automatic transmission, went to shift, and 
stomped on the floor or on the brake pedal instead.
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