The more safety there is the more complacent most people become. This safety garbage is for the ones who dont think and the more there is the less they think. in the olden days they would have gone to heaven now they just kill everyone else also.
mrfxit,
Jul 12, 7:06pm
Slower accelerating Slower braking Slower top speeds Less traction (you slid gradually) Single lane or skinny two lane roads 95% only manual gearbox's No computer controls Crappy radios that if they worked, it was only AM frequency Huge cabins.
Most of those examples meant you HAD to PAY ATTENTION to what you were doing in all aspects of driving
mrfxit,
Jul 12, 7:10pm
Been all over NZ & the only seriously "nasty/ bad" bit of road I can remember in the last few decades was the downhill run to Hamner Springs via Molesworth station end. Really bad rudder bar ridges & I think it was only as bad as it was for us because we were in an 1988 4x4 Surf
gblack,
Jul 12, 7:43pm
It's called 'Survivorship Bias'. people like me that literally fell out of a moving car when I was a young kid, are alive and can post.
The people that died can't post and say actually cars were much more dangerous. But road toll in the 70s and 80s was far worse than now, despite less cars traveling less and slower.
Not that I remember, from memory stopped around Oamaru for fuel. Dad had that car until about 1963 and replaced it with a 1946 V8 Mercury. Great days, great cars.
poppy62,
Jul 12, 8:56pm
Less population, slower cars (most overheating on a slight rise) better drivers? (maybe) no distractions (other than miniskirts). But a terrible number of road deaths. peaked at 843 (1973) . mostly caused by cars just a technical step up from a pedal car. and drunks! The last 20 years shows why the safety stuff works! Interesting stat on injury numbers.
Car safety tech of today with mid range yesterdays/todays roads & lower everything else. A lot of the modern crashes are on a "survivability" basis.
A lot of the old crashes were on a easily survive or dead basis.
Apparently crash Survivability isn't all it's cracked up to be with far higher numbers of longer hospital stays/ much longer rehabilitation & ongoing problems in later life. at a huge dollar cost & human suffering.
Probably one of the biggest problems with the older cars (40's to late 80's) was rust. If you give a modern car a good dose of 70's rust, I doubt it would fair any better then that 70's car in a crash.
There are of course, a whole suite of differences between then and now. I think we have to either ramp up the protection systems to full automation or drop back a little on the gadgets & save those resources for the full automation transport systems
Back to the OP, This was the cause of the first accident of my motoring career. I was about 12, my father was test driving a new Mainline ute in about 1958. There were four of us in the front seat, my parents, me and the salesman. Dad changed from second to third, but was sitting closer to the door than usual and hit the brake instead of the clutch, it virtually stopped in it's own length and the following car buried itself in the tailgate. The salesman laughed it off as dad bought it. Great old truck, I got my licence in it and often borrowed it as a teenager.
bill1451,
Jul 13, 4:48am
Haha my older brother had one of those, painted it with a brush, I was about 11 or 12, in felt pen he wrote around the ciggy lighter "panic button" one day I plucked up courage and found out just what it was. he,s 75 now I,m nearly 70, bet he wishes he had that car now.
peanuts37,
Jul 13, 5:10am
Lovely old car, very popular with butchers in the day apparently as had a very deep boot for carrying sides of beef etc.
Edit to add ours had a factory radio which fitted into the ash tray hole in dash hence the very long aerial in the photo. Henry Ford was very anti smoking and didnt fit ash trays and lighters to cars until the V8 and only did so because he was told he was missing lots of sales because of it. So he fitted them and if you wanted a radio it went where the ash tray was so got his way sometimes.
you forgot to change the hydraulic tap from brakes to clutch. lol
bumfacingdown,
Jul 13, 10:05pm
Can remember my first ownership[ in an automatic car. Was a VJ, I think, and they had the big no miss brake peddle. Coming up to an intersect speed got down to where stalling would normally occur, could not miss that peddle while jumping on the non existent clutch peddle.
pattym1,
Jul 13, 10:11pm
Ive done that - drove a manual car for years and years and while it was in the shop one time I was given an auto loan car - nearly put myself through the windscreen 'changing gear; with the brake
poppy62,
Jul 14, 1:54am
Did the same in my Smart car. developed a moan straight away. She was still moaning the next time we went out in it.
lythande1,
Jul 15, 10:04am
Oh? Dansys Pass comes to mind. Or Devils Staircase.
lythande1,
Jul 15, 10:07am
I think it taught you to actually drive. Big steering wheels with no power steering, manual brakes, no boosters or ABS. no guts either so no boot it out into traffic doing right turns. The first modern car I got into after one of those, I thought it was too easy. steer with a finger, brake with a little toe. and quiet. so you could almost be asleep and the car does all the work. dangerous.
mrfxit,
Jul 15, 6:07pm
Bare foot driving was for farmer boys with stronger legs Townies always had to have shoes on
Moving heavy box's/ engines etc never bothered you because your arms were already strong enough to handle manual steering.
Yep & as soon as you put wider wheels on your car, you KNEW about it because you suddenly couldn't turn the wheel when stationary. Any time one of your mates with a flasher car hopped in to your old clunker for a drive, you always worried if he had a strong enough right foot for braking. Pot holes in the road were real easy at slow speeds but at higher speeds, could bounce you high enough in the seat to hit the roof with your head. Ground clarence was never a problem.
68 FD Victor Backing in to a carpark in an underground parking building & clipped the corner of the front bumper on a pillar. Took a small hunk of plaster off the pillar & scratched the bumper
Years later. 96 Atessa Backing out of the same situation as above. Ripped the front bumper clean off, without marking the same type piller
flossy64,
Jul 17, 3:57am
Jumped out of my tractor today and into my ute. Kept turning on the wipers thinking it was a forward/reverse shuttle
gunhand,
Jul 12, 8:29am
I drive a truck and the nature of the job means I change gear hundreds of times a day. The car I take to work is also manual. Today I was accelerating up to road speed (100kph) and was prob doing 70kph and I changed gear. I own one manual car and two autos. guess what i did.
peanuts37,
Jul 12, 8:36am
Thought it was manual and hit reverse?
gunhand,
Jul 12, 8:38am
Just the first bit lol. Hadnt drivin the auto for a couple of weeks. Least I know the brakes work. And its surprising how much pressure you put on the clutch.
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