In recent years, other than sports cars, most American cars have automatic transmissions. As a result of this, our young people no longer have the joy of stalling out on a hill or revving up the engine at a stop light. But there is also another side effect–cars with stick shifts are less likely to be stolen.

Fox News reported today:

About an hour later they approached another woman in a Kroger parking lot in the city’s Hillsboro neighborhood, grabbed the keys out of her hand, got into her vehicle and were gone in less than 60 seconds.

Not with the car, but on foot. Police said the car had a stick shift and the juveniles didn’t know how to use it, so they gave up.

It’s not an unusual scenario anymore as only about 3 percent of cars are sold with manual transmissions today, according to Edmunds, while a recent U.S. News and World Report study found that less than 18 percent of Americans can drive them.

The Nashville teens didn’t make a clean getaway. Police spotted and arrested them soon after the incident and charged with robbery/carjacking, theft of property, and attempted theft of a vehicle.

All we have to do to stop the younger generation from stealing cars is to buy stick shift cars! We can also use cursive writing as a code since many of our young people can’t read it!