A man tried to steal a car but was forced to give up because it had a manual transmission.
The thief walked up to the car in San Diego, California and ordered the 17-year-old and 18-year-old teens who were sitting inside to give him their cell phones. Next, he told them to get out of the car, which they did. But when he tried to drive away, he couldn’t. The thief ended up escaping on foot, NBC 7 reported.
The crime took place in the Fox Canyon neighborhood around 10:45 p.m on Feb. 15. Police said the thief revved the engine several times in an attempt to get the car moving before he fled. They think it’s because he didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission vehicle, according to NBC 7.
Detectives from the San Diego Police Department are investigating.
This is not the first car theft attempt that was averted because of a manual transmission.
In November, two adults in Jacksonville, Florida were robbed while attempting to sell a video game system in a private exchange. Three men demanded the Xbox along with the victims’ car. They got out of the car and ran to police, who arrived to find the car still there, along with the gun used in the robbery. Police believe the robbers abandoned the vehicle because they couldn’t drive a manual transmission, according to CBS.
Another case occurred in Cleveland, Ohio, when a man was on break outside of the restaurant where he works. A robber demanded his car and his cell phone. The victim gave up his keys and phone and then ran away from the scene to find police. The thief was forced to abandon the theft after trying to get the car started multiple times, Fox 8 reported.
The victim described looking at surveillance footage of the thief trying to figure out how the manual transmission works.
“The next day, we went back, reviewed the security camera and just had a huge laugh,” Bonn Rassvong told Fox 8. “Luckily, he had no idea what he was doing.”
Colin is a New York-based reporter. He covers Entertainment, U.S., and international news. Besides writing for online news outlets he has worked in online marketing and advertising, done voiceover work, and has a background in sound engineering and filmmaking. His foreign language skills include Spanish and Chinese.
Friends Read Free