Cars with automatic trannys often have a feature like that to prevent them from inadvertenty start moving as soon as the key is turned. It might be the Park position though.
It lets you only start the car in park or neutral.
It is called a Neutral Safety Switch.
any auto transmission car that starts in neutral and not in park has a problem with the safety switch. Fix it or bypass it.
Shift linkage out of adjustment?
Neutral safety switch improperly adjusted or going bad
Could be a safety feature of that particular model and year. Starting the engine in neutral removes all possibilities of the vehicle lunging forward or backwards when it starts up.
It keeps the car from starting in gear. The starter will only engage in park or neutral.
Only if you push it. On a perfectly flat surface, in neutral it will not roll without assistance.
The neutral safety switch prevents you from cranking the car in any other gear than park or neutral. Sometimes this will fail and you will have to manualy flip the switch. also there is a possibility that the car will only start in park and never start if it is in Netural.
appositive
neutral can be a noun: The car is in neutral.
Sounds like bad neutral safety switch. If you search web for info can jump to bypass and then if starts in park you know what the culprit is.