The best drivers on the road...

Thanks for a great read, I love driving my Studebaker truck for this very reason!

 

I call it saving the idiots from themselves.

 

Yeah, whats wrong with letting the idiots weed themselves out?

 

Great thread and blog!

I've been saying this for years now, that new cars leave the drive too isolated. When ever I see drivers (especially young drivers) speeding down the freeway at 80 MPH, doing all kinds of other crap besides driving, I think how it's the car's fault.

New cars are too good, drive too nice and are too quiet. You can go 80 and it feels like 40.

I started driving (legally anyway) in 1972 and even new cars back then were pretty primitive compared to new cars today, although I didn't buy my first new car until the mid 80's. Most of my used cars had drum brakes and would dive to the side of the road if you slammed the brake pedal, they have vague steering, bias ply tires, lots of wind, road and engine noise, no overdrive trans, crappy AM radios, no A/C, etc.

They could really be a handful to drive, especially above 60 mph. I would eventually fix them up but even in perfect operating condition they were marginal at best. You really had to pay attention to what the hell you were doing. Today, even the cheapest new car you can buy is way better than what we had back then.

I remember back in the 70's I was driving a borrowed '68 Charger with a bunch of friends in the car. It was in Seattle, at night and raining as usual. We'd had come from a party and trying to get home and it was a real Cheech and Chong moment (it was the 70's! ) as I was trying to drive normal. I asked if I'm driving okay and one of my buddies in the car says, "Dude, you're going like 30 mph on the freeway!".

In my defense, I said the headlights suck and you couldn't see 5 feet in front of the car, I took my hands off the wheel and the car pulls the to right so bad it was like we were going around a corner. I hit the brakes and it dives to the left, the steering wheel shimmied at anything over 20 mph and with headers with glass packs bolted to the collectors, it sounded like a freight train.

The owner was riding in the back and says, "Really? I never noticed any of that"! It was just a normal car back then!

 

It's good to get a little credit for what it takes to operate an old rig in LA. When I had a group of car buddys, we used to roll 10 cars deep and haul ass down the 405. People had no clue wtf was going on.

 

You read my mind! We are interfereing with natural selection. I think the shallow end of the gene pool needs a little more chlorine! LOL

 

Years ago someone on the HAMB said it best for me. He said driving his old car was like operating machinery, I couldn't agree more, you have to do things to make the car go and stop and steer correctly, it won't do it for you. i went for a run to Lowes today and it seemed like everyone on the road was multitasking. One gal in front of me was weaving back and forth in her lane, five under the limit and stopping fifty feet from the lights. When i got around her I saw she was too busy to drive, she was on the phone and reading a sheet of paper on the steering wheel....

 

That was a good read

 

One engineering advance I like is the black box in modern cars:

Driver: "I stood on the brake and tried to stop."
Black box: "No you didn't."

Driver: "I was only going 40 mph."
Black box: "You were doing 55 !"

Driver: "I stopped at the stop sign..."
Black box: "Nope."

 

I need to sell my old Plymouth. It doesn't park itself.

 

I think about that too. It was a great achievement for me when I got my wife to fill her windshield washer fluid on her own.

I'll be damned before I buy a car that parallel parks itself.

 

The "Poison Ivy" Merc lives here in Glendora, the dude drives it all of the time. I don't know how he has kept it so beautiful.

 

That's it! That's exactly right!

 

I think there is a dying breed of us, people that love driving, and take pride is being a great driver! I enjoy whatever I am driving, but I especally enjoy driving my Acadian.

If it wasn't so scary, it's almost amusing watching some people in their cars wanting to be anywhere but driving....having the music full blast and cell phone talking/texting puts their mind away from driving. Speeding, tailgating, running stop signs and yellow/red lights helps get them there faster so they can end the drive.

 

Geez..... just drove down to Anaheim today and NEVER AGAIN! How you can be so lucky to see a great car in all this is beyond me. All I saw is TOO MANY CARS! Now we all know why you write and I just bend metal.

 

Ryan, Interesting story, recently I was headed back to I35 on Mopac when up into the lane ahead jumps a chopped Merc coupe. The driver was a woman and she was totally focused on the task of driving that super looking car. As for poison ivy, well this driver was a very pretty woman who would be posion ivy for me if the wife caught on that I was lookin! Actually outshined the car if that is appropriate for this board!?! So, when you get back home to your stomping grounds keep an eye out that is one fine set ... the car and driver.

 

My 63 IS my daily driver. I dont even look at other people trying to give me the thumbs up or wave or whatever unless I'm not moving. I have too much to do when I'm driving. No ps, No pb, No radio, well I do have a radio, but it's am and the speaker is gone. I damn near get run over at least a couple of times a week. And I'm only 5 minutes from work. No highways, just around the small town I live in. I have sworn off anything past 65 except trucks...they're good though the 70's. It's obvious when someone who knows pulls up next to ya when you're driving cause they don't honk at ya, wave at ya, or whatever to try to get you're attention. They wait till you're at a light or stop sign and then tell ya how cool it is you drive that thing you drive.
I think whoever said drivers ed should use old cars is right! If these stupid kids nowadays would have to learn to do something besides work their I-whatever they would be a lot better for the rest of society.....or not make it.....whatever makes the road safer for those of us who do actually have to DRIVE!!

 

"... it occurred to me just how much more work and dedication it takes just to drive an old car. That the skills it requires to navigate a ‘kingpin suspension, single-circuit drum brake, manual steering’ Jalopy... "
Not to mention maintenance! Although not quite "Poison Ivy", driving my old Daily allows me the pleasure of the experience of being connected as we blast down the road.

 

If you want to see some 'driving', put in a couple of hours at your nearest boat launch ramp, on a nice day; really cheap entertainment !

 

"The modern car conveniences of bluetooth, GPS, and the almighty cup holder have lulled today’s drivers into a vehicular coma." That's poetry.

 

Hahahaha! True!! Remember that miller time commercial where the guy is standing in his yard watching the guy across the street trying to back a trailer? That's what I call it when I see someone back and forthin it tryin to keep it strait.... a miller time moment.

 

The ease of operation has caused total check out of drivers. I remember When Calif started text free driving laws the local tv news stationed a reported at the San Francisco Bay bridge toll plaza to ask reactions of people in the toll line,
"How do you feel about the new no text law?"
Girl looks at the camera in great anguish says "What? well what are we supposed to DO when we're driving ?!?"
Reporter locked up -" back to you in the studio"

 

I think that in 10yr you will be able to enter your destination into the GPS and the car will just take you there.Mayby this will Stop all the I-holes from crashing into us! I just want to take all my cars and hide-trouble is,you just cant get away from them.

 

It is a full time job driving Rusty the Ranch Wagon. Trying to hit green lights and coasting along with people all upset because I am not barreling up to a light and applying disc brakes. I have to constantly be aware of braking situations as the drummies are sketchy. But it is a blast, the only car I have ever driven without a radio since high school days, no a.m. radios in my 33 chevy or 38 fordin those days. I love it!! ~sololobo~

 

Driving on the road shouldn't include such distractions and gadgets that take your skill away. It's about being proud of what you have and respecting others around you. If you text or play with other gadgets while driving, you are careless about your life as well as others and potentially making your nice ride. . .well, history. It's like another way of scrapping it.

It's about paying the attention your classic ride always deserved.

 

only teenage females text and drive.

 

Amen, Bomber. My ex-girl used to wonder home come I wasn't catching everyone who would give me the "thumbs up" and acknowledge them. Driving a hot rod is work sometimes. Especially with all the driving challenged drivers out there.

In Houston and a lot of other places, most folks aren't driving, they're AIMMING!

 

Props to you for not pulling out the phone and trying take a picture!
But it would have been a cool shot.

 

my girlfriend's lazy 18 yr old turd of a son (out of high school now) is an artist at texting and driving, that and xbox 360 playing for 8 hrs plus straight till 4 or 5 a.m then sleep all day and play xbox over and over day after day............. not sure if its the kids these days or the technology.

 

Gaming, Robots, Gadgets.. .will our hands ever object to these and take their work away?