The OP is a woman and doesn't understand cars. Which would explain why she thinks the engine is "blown". Probably just the clutch is really messed up. There's not really a lot you can do to a car to make a gasket blow or something of that nature. All you would do is mess up the clutch and/or transmission, not the actual engine. If the OP drives a race car without a rev-limiter/gear selection restrictor, then the friend could've downshifted from 5th to 1st at 80 mph. That wouldn't be good for an engine. But I doubt someone on FML would drive a 911 GT3 or something like that.

"The OP is a woman and doesn't understand cars". Wow, how ignorant are you?

To number 44: The OP is a woman and doesn't understand cars. Which would explain why she thinks the engine is "blown". Both my mom and sister can drive stick, but it doesn't mean we know jack shit about cars. We're like everyone other girl and we couldn't care less about a cars engine.

or it was an older car without a rev limiter

Wait, what? Stick shifts almost always get better fuel economy than their slushbox counterparts. Or do you mean for having a car at all? If that's the case, you need to take off your rose colored glasses and see the real world outside of 'Frisco.

freedom of speech etc

I'm not criticizing your countrys way of doing things, as obviously, people like your sister will bother learning both automatic and manual, but unfortunately not everyone is as bothered to learn both, and as you don't need a seperate lisence, can get into a manual car they don't know how to drive and cause an accident (like in this fml...) All I'm saying is it seems a little risky.

Americans are not collectively retarded. Stop generalizing things if you don't know about the country. 99% of us who drive automatic will admit we can't drive standard and will avoid it. I haven't driven stick in years so I would never get into someone's manual and risk screwing up the tranny. We don't need to require a seperate license for manual cars because the majority of us have the common sense to say, "Sorry I can't drive standard." The guy in this fml is a rare occurance.