Always Automobiles

Teenage Hotrodders #7
May 1964

Driving for Recreation?

My friend Joe maintains that he likes to drive a car for recreation. He claims he feels happy, contented, well-balanced, and a peaceful man when he is behind the wheel. I feel I must take this claim with a bit of salt. Especially since he drives with his wife and his two children. The older boy, Jimmy, feels he can do a better job of driving than his father. In fact he is always giving his father bits of advice while on the road like:

"You were too close to that car, pop. Get over more to your left," "You should shift into second the next time you go up that hill," or "if you are going down a steep hill and you know the hill will soon be reached, why not decrease your speed. It doesn't make sense to maintain a high speed and then brake."

And then of course there is the wife, Mildred. She too has her own contributions to make while her husband is at the wheel. Something like the following.

"I am not going to wear that same dress to the party. Mildred will be there. She saw me with that dress when we visited the Riley's. I don't want her to get the idea I have only one party dress. So I'll have to get another dress," or "Will you stop repeating those old jokes when we have company. Ben and Hilda are polite. But there is a limit to it. You can't expect them to always smile and laugh that way."

And don't let me forget the young son, Donald. He too has a contribution to make. It goes this way:

"I'm hungry. I'm thirsty. I'm tired. I want to hear a story."

Now I know a wee bit of psychology. It concerns the theory of divided attention. Can my friend Joe divide his attention? How can he concentrate on what his family is telling him and at the same time watch motorists, pedestrians, light signals, and other road problems? Maybe his hearing isn't so good. So it is possible that what his family says goes in one ear and comes out through the other ear. Without registering on his brain cells. This is a possibility. But then we have another situation.

Actually is driving a relaxation and a pleasure today? I am talking of driving on a crowded road on a Sunday morning. Or going to business on a week day. You have to be alert. The car on the left signals for a right turn. Somehow you have to know that this particular driver is going to make a left turn. Maybe its a seventh sense that warns you. Also that seventh sense has to warn you that the driver on your right is going to cut you off. And you have to decide in a hurry what to do.

And then there is the old woman with her shopping cart. Never mind that the light is red for her and green for you. She's going to cross the street. Even if a trailing car has to smack into the car in front of it. You come to a dead stop and out goes that hand of yours in a frantic signal to the car in back. You feel your heart skip a beat or two. Only by some kind of miracle does she get across the street with that car.

If you drive in today's traffic, I claim you have to be wide-awake, alert as they come, and quick on those time reactions. With perhaps that seventh mystic sense giving you an assit from time to time.

And then of course there is the wife, Mildred, hear a story." And if you have to use your car for business, you have a lot of calls to make. Looking for a parking space is tough in many a town. As one salesmen put it, "It's hard even to find an illegal parking place today." And just when you think you have found that legal parking place, what happens? The woman with the four kids in the car jumps your car and makes it. If you don't lose your temper you should get a medal or a miniature pair of angel wings.

And then there is the ticket you received. You swear you never saw that "Stop" sign. In fact you are certain it wasn't there last Tuesday. You tell this to the motor cycle officer. He listens attentively and agrees with you. They put it there three days ago. But it is up to you to be alert. If you were "looking properly" you would have spotted it. So you get the ticket and you'll have to take a morning off and go to traffic court.

And what about that Sunday traffic jam? Bumper to bumper traffic. Maybe you do three miles an hour. Who knows? But cars are getting overheated and get off on the roadside. Provided there is a roadside or a shoulder available. Need I tell you the end of all of this? When you finally arrive late at the beach you will see a sign: "Beach Closed. No more accommodations."

Yet in spite of all of this there are many people like my fried Joe. They claim they do drive for recreation and enjoy driving. I came home last week in a cloudburst. With car after car trying to find a spot where to get off the road. And visibility almost a zero. And water coming into the car. Maybe all of this was a challenge to me? Perhaps somehow in spite of it all-I enjoyed driving that day.

Cars and Roads

Back in the early 1920's I went with a group of people to visit a modern industrial plant. We were shown the latest machinery that had recently been purchased and installed. A trip on the outside of the factory took us to the railroad sidings. For in those days you built your big plant very convenient to your means of transportation. And actually, in an economic sense there were only two ways for you to get your raw materials and then ship out your finished product. One was to be near the port where boats plied their trade. The other was to be near a railroad.

When you were near the railroad you had a track built so that the freight cars could be dropped off and left either outside your plant or inside your plant. Recently I visited another very large plant. It had been built years ago right next to the railroad. And there was the railroad siding outside of the plant. With two freight cars that had been left there. But there was also accommodations for the big trucks that came and went rather frequently. Bringing in the raw material and taking out the finished products.

And I have seen many plants which were located far from the railroad. In fact the only major unit of transportation was the big truck. A recent study points out that proximity to a good highway is the single most important factor in new plant location. And that manufacturers rank it ahead of such items as labor supply, good land nearby markets.

When I visited that industrial plant in the early 1920's, there were a few cars parked outside. But they belonged to the executives and other officials of the company. How did the workers get to their destination? There was a trolley line that ran but two blocks from the plant. It was used by most of the workers to get to the plant. Five blocks from the plant was a "suburban" stop of the railroad. Those workers-and there weren't many of them-who lived at a distance from the plant, commuted every day by train. They would purchase a commutation ticket which enabled them to make the trip at a reduced rate.

Go and visit an industrial plant located off a big highway. The first thing that catches your eye is the big parking space needed for the cars of the workers. Not every worker uses his car to come to the plant. There are "car pools." One man uses his car one week and picks up three or four other workers. Then the next week one of the riders uses his car and picks up the others. Many of them may live in the suburbs. The wife needs the car to do the shopping and take the children to school. What about the wife whose husband is using the car to drive the others to work?

The neighbors may be giving her a lift during that particular week. Or she may even have a second small car that she uses. For in the suburbs we are becoming a nation of two-car families. And bear in mind that the bus has replaced the trolley car. So in some areas the worker may still go by the bus and leave his car at home if he so chooses it that way. Our highways, freeways, and expressways are making it possible for the worker to get a job at a distance from his home. And still return home every day. Nor need he sell his house and move near his job.

And if the man hasn't too much money, he doesn't have to turn down that job twenty miles from his home. He can buy a second hand car or even use a scooter. I met one man who went to his job via a motorcycle. Today a commuting distance of thirty miles is regarded as commonplace by many workers. During the winter when I am on ski patrol I think nothing of going and coming from one ski place which is sixty miles from my home. The other, which is on a modern throughway link, is one hundred miles from my home. I wouldn't want to make that second one every day. But twice a week is o.k. Yet I remember that very area when I was a boy. You made that one hundred miles by train. What has happened to the train? It can't run because they tore up the tracks. People using their cars for pleasure and business men using trucks reduced the railroad's business to nil.

Recently I made several trips with a professional man. He wanted to determine what area he could work in-given an hour's drive each way every day. That took us into two adjourning states as well as far into the suburbs. The modern highway has giving the automobile a tremendous flexibility in the economy of our nation.