Comments on: Stuck in neutral, or not.

By: Christy S.

Christy S. — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:49:21 +0000

Again, Pam, it wasn’t the driver who was calling, it was a passenger in the backseat. And no, the call isn’t an “urban legend.” I don’t recommend listening to it, though.

By: Pam

Pam — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:08:38 +0000

Is this an actual documented 911 call? It sounds like an urban legend. If my car was accelerating wildly out of control, the last thing I would do is use my phone. But I’m old and not so able to multi-task while driving. I would instead be so focused on stopping my damn car that calling someone wouldn’t even enter my mind. Jamming the car into neutral would be (I think), second nature to most. I don’t know — I’ll go ask Joe what he would do in the same situation. Get the opinion of the young generation and let you know.

By: John

John — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:06:43 +0000

Kim, grew up in Virginia, did driver’s ed in HS (gym teacher as instructor), and watched Signal 30. Thanks for the reference!

By: basset

basset — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:44:57 +0000

I used to work with a guy who’d grown up in Manhattan… who said his dad gave two directions while teaching him to drive: “put your car where you want it” and “nobody wants to hit you.”

By: Deborah

Deborah — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:25:21 +0000

Moe, when I worked on the design of a bourbon museum in KY the client Brown Forman, headquartered in Louisville allowed smoking in their offices because as one of the workers told me, when tobacco goes, so goes booze. I have no idea if that’s true, but it was weird to sit in an office with someone puffing away after it had been banned in so many places for so long. In Chicago, Kraft Foods allowed smoking in their office for a long time, don’t know if they still do. It’s hard to remember back when it was totally normal to see people smoking at their desk at work.

By: moe99

moe99 — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:06:52 +0000

I remember being on airline flights where small packages of cigarettes came with your meals.

And then, when I worked at the KY AG’s office from 78-78, there was a time when Anita Madden, wife of Preston Madden, who owned the horse farm, Hamburg Place, hosted a dinner in honor of the states’ attorneys general (National Association of Attorneys General or NAAG) who were meeting in Lexington for their national meeting.

Festive tents were erected in the pastures of Hamburg Place and part of the centerpiece on each table in those tents, was a crystal vase filled with cigarettes for the enjoyment of the attendees. Ah yes, the Maddens were also tobacco farmers as well as owners of a highly regarded horse farm.

By: Dexter

Dexter — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:04:09 +0000

Kim, I played baseball in Winston-Salem, NC, and we stayed in the old Zinzendorf Hotel. Right next door was the RJR factory where they made Camels and Winstons.
We would take tours whenever we could, because at the end of the tour we received free smokes. In that atmosphere, nearly everyone smoked. The very pretty young women who gave the tours all smoked constantly as they handed out our comp packs of cigarettes. Most of us ballplayers smoked; I was eighteen and the year was 1968, and smoking was very much in vogue.
I still remember the Winstons in process, they would have a long filter in the middle, tobacco-packed paper on both ends, and were sliced in two by a huge blade, hundreds at a time, making two perfect filter smokes.
That entire block was torn down 40 years ago. I suppose they still make products at the RJR Whittaker Park plant out by Wake Forest, but maybe that’s gone too.

Brian: As a grade school kid we toured WAWK-AM Radio station in Kendallville, which was so cool, mostly for the news ticker tape. This must have been 1957 or 1958. I wanted to be a radio man instantly, until stop two on our field trip, a visit to Puritan Ice Cream Company. Free ice cream! I was sure I would eventually work there , to hell with my mind-budded radio plans.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Larry King-type moment: Worst criminal—Capone or Dillinger, your thoughts–be right back ….

By: brian stouder

brian stouder — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:01:20 +0000

Kim – the image of a school bus loaded with kids smokin’ em on the way home from RJ Reynolds is just too funny!

I remember a bus trip to Kellogg’s in Battle Creek (think Fred MacMurray when you say that), back when Kellogg’s actually did plant tours.

I recall seeing a woman sitting on a stool dropping prizes into cereal boxes as the streamed past her (and I thought that must have been a pretty boring job most days)…and everybody got a snack box of cereal on the way out (most of which got spilled on the bus on the way home, come to think of it)

By: Kim

Kim — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:24:34 +0000

OK – Signal 30 is the seminal 1959 film portraying the horrors of reckless driving. Watch it here. I love the disconnect between the “love is a many splendored thing” soundtrack and pix of the bisected young dad in a plaid shirt. Imagine seeing this in h.s. driver ed class – I did, and I bet Bob (not Greene) did, too!

In VA a kid can get a permit at 15 yrs, 6 mo. They have to pass a written test at the DMV, then they are good to go with no actual driving but mere mastery of the written exam (what color is a stop sign?). Then – this is the excellent part – they have to drive always with someone 21 or older who possesses a valid DL. That person can be 18-21, but only if they are a sib, step-sib, half-sib or legal guardian. Then, after you have had your permit for 9 mo. and are at least 16 yrs. 3 mo., you can get your DL but only if you have had 45 hours of behind-the-wheel training (15 have to have been after dark) AND you have completed a state-approved driver education course (an extra $200 or so, since they don’t offer it at h.s. anymore). Upon completion of that course the kid surrenders the plastic photo ID DL and carries a piece of paper until the judge summons him/her. Then you go to court and listen to the judge (who happens to be my neighbor, whose house my kid has to drive past in order to get out of the ‘hood) talk about how this is a good day for him, since he is granting a privilege and not taking one away. Then he and the bailiff share true-life horror stories of the recent past (sadly, always a couple in the past month), and tell the parents that they may hand over the DL when they see fit, and likewise may take it away. The kids treat it all “blah blah blah” because they are young and invincible; the parents listen all rapt because they know it’s all about luck, really. How else would we have survived?

You can really slow down a kid’s road progress by presenting a car with manual transmission. Which I did, happily, even as I practiced Lamaze breathing in the h.s. parking lot as he practiced starting, stopping, turning, pealing out.

One last thing: In Virginia, they used to take kids on field trips to the RJ Reynolds Factory, where all children were given comp packs of cigarettes as they left. My neighbor’s kids tell me how they sat in the school bus on the way home from Richmond puffing away on cigs.

By: beb

beb — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:48:48 +0000

Jeff(TMMO) I avoided the war stories during driver’s ed. Oddly, I didn’t hear many war stories while going up. My Dad was in the war but never talked about what he did. He wasn’t in combat. Every summer we’d packed up for a week or two to visit his buddy from the war, Dad and he were both farmers, but if they ever reminisced about their time in the army, it wasn’t while the kids were around.

In later years I was friends with an older man who had been a ball turrent gunner. I can’t remember which plane that would be. My friend loved to tell stories, and told many about his time in the Army Air Force, none of the various missions he went on. As I recall he refused to fly in a plane for years afterwards. However a few years before he died he was given the opportunity to take a flight on a rebuilt B-17 (I think) and was overjoyed to be able to make the short flight from Ypsilante to Pontiac and back. It’s interesting how some people endlessly relive even the worst stuff of their time in WWII and how others just don’t want to say another thing about it.

Christy S. – From the first when I read (just today) about this off-duty CHP officer dying because he couldn’t stop his care, I felt like something didn’t add it. Now I’m hearing that Toyota is using a lot of electronics instead of mechanical connections, brakes that fail, and so on. So it’s beginning to sound like there could be a car that you can’t brake, can’t shift into neutral and can’t turn off the engine. What a recipe for disaster.

You what’s scary, airplanes are increasing going to electronic controls instead of hydraulics.