Re: Driver Skills

Posted by Loyd Smith On 2009/5/19 13:10:29

Good point and one that I have demonstrated to me almost daily in using my '55 Patrician for daily transportation. One day, several months ago, I was taking my neighbour somewhere when another motorist cut in front of me to make a right-hand turn. His remark at the time, "h'mm, she's obviously never had a two ton Packard up her a$$ before," started me ruminating about the way that I learned to drive fifty years ago and the way that people drive today. A good many of the "courteous" driving habits so lacking in modern motorists were learned, by us old folks, as a result of having had to be aware of the limitations of the equipment that we were using. For instance, having the brakes fail totally on a '39 Chevy that I was driving and bouncing a Ford pickup truck that was sitting at the traffic signal in front of me across a four lane intersection is an experience that has stood me in good stead for over fifty years. Tailgating was a practise that one almost never saw (except of course in southern California) until modern disc brakes came into general use. Terminology, too, says something about one's driving experiences. Parking brakes, when I started driving, were commonly referred to as "emergency" brakes - because they frequently had to be used as such. Even signalling well before one turned (whether with hand signals or with those newfangled turn signals) was more a matter of survival than a matter of courtesy as was knowing, maintaining and repairing one's vehicle when needed - because it was (A LOT) cheaper than having to buy another one. All of these things, learned many years ago, make driving my Packard today much safer (for me and others on the road) than it would be did I not know about them.

Things learned as necessities and through sometimes hard and expensive experience have a way of being, somehow, more permanently etched into one's memory than do things that seem, today, to be considered courtesies.

People used to get pissed at me when I maintained a proper driving interval in my Grand Marquis, slowed and signalled before turning, looked in all possible areas and directions and signalled before changing lanes, etc. In the Packard these practises don't seem to irritate other drivers as much and I suppose that most think it's because I am "babying" my car - and I am. Just not for the reasons that they think.

Most who drive their old cars tend to be more familiar with them than the average driver and for good reason. That's another positive aspect of our particular dementia. It probably tends to promote safer all-round driving practises.