More musings from 'Oldest Living Blogger'....

I was watching a movie on TV a while ago, and it was interrupted by the usual commercial break, one of which showed a red tag sale for Toyotas. It's a shame what's been happening with them lately, and it makes me wonder if a lot of the drivers of today have forgotten a few of the basics of the art of controlling a misbehaving automobile. 

I grew up and learned to drive before the age of turn signals or seat belts or air bags or even padded dashboards, and us kids survived not because we were lucky or well-behaved, but because we learned a few defensive tricks for times when things went to hell suddenly. "Like what?" you ask. Like, if the gas pedal stuck and the car took off, reach down quickly and pull it up, and if you can't reach it, then turn off the ignition and stomp on the brakes. "But the regular brakes aren't working right either!" you say. Fine - remember that lever between the seats for the emergency brake? Grab that and pull it hard, but don't let it lock into the 'on' position, because you'll want to be able to hold onto it and release it again. It's called an emergency brake for a reason, and you can guess what the reason is I hope. "But all we have is a parking brake!" you say. That's it, dummy! So use the damned thing. It isn't as effective as regular brakes, but it will slow you down if you use it. And if all else fails, like I mentioned earlier, turn off the engine but leave the car in gear.

"So, Gramps, what did you use instead of seat belts and air bags?" you ask. Well, Kiddies, it's like this - when we nodded off and woke up too late to save it from going into the ditch, the safest place to be was on the floor beneath the dashboard. The car can be replaced, but you can't, so down on the floor under the dash was the safest place to be until everything stopped flying around. I've survived crashes that way when the car was a total write-off, and more than once too. I'm not especially proud of that, but I'm still here to tell about it. It all comes down to whether or not you're smarter than your car - and maybe that's the problem. Today's cars probably are smarter than some of their drivers.