[John V.]

Originally Posted by Chris65LeMans

Did anyone else have the "driver's simiulator" training where everyone sits at a steering wheel in a double-wide and drives along to the movie on the screen in the front?

South Jersey. You had to be 17 to get a permit in NJ so we started DE pretty late, probably a few months before my 17th birthday. Full size 4 dr. Chevy, it was either a '71 or '72, probably the Biscayne but not sure.

We got very little time behind the wheel and the rest was the simulator in a trailer.

I distinctly remember when we were supposed to learn how to check back over your shoulder like for making a lane change, something I don't do to this day.

First time the narrator told you to do it, I'm staring at the screen and suddenly the movie is backwards. I didn't understand the concept.

Only later did I realize you were supposed to be staring at a mirror behind you and seeing the REFLECTION of the movie which was now showing vehicles behind you.

I still laugh about that. I don't understand why some drivers do it. That's what I use my mirrors for!

Also recall we had a segment where we used the clutch in the simulator. It was pretty pointless. You weren't gonna learn the feel of a clutch from that simulator. I think I did learn the shift pattern for a column mounted 3 spd from that simulation, that's about all.

[geeteeohguy]

We sat at these mock- up podiums in a truck trailer and watched films by Aetna Insurance. The films were early '60's (this was 1976) and our podiums had a steering wheel, three on the tree shifter, clutch pedal, brake pedal, and accelerator pedal. I remember the main thing that was emphasized was to get the car into 'High' as soon as possible to save fuel. Points were lost if you wound it out in second!! I remember all of us long haired '70's kids snickering at the crew cuts and peg legged jeans of the guys in the movies. They were only 15 year old films, but seemed hopelessly square.

[Chris65LeMans]

Those days in the simulator trailer were supplemented by tons of "Red Asphalt" viewings. The sound of the pull up (console) parking brakes clicking drove the instructor nuts, so he just told everyone that not holding in the button when you pull up the handle will wear out the brake faster. I'd bet more than half of those former students still believe that.

[John V.]

Man, you guys remember those details a lot better than me! Of course, I went thru it before you guys so probably didn't seem as dated to me. Pretty sure the simulator was in color, so would have seemed very modern to me, we still had B&W TV at home. If the instructor was monitoring our performance, I don't remember that, don't remember anybody getting any feedback, but probably did.

On ours, I do remember that the clutch pedal was normally up out of the way under the "dash". We had to swing it down to use it. And I think only did it once.

I do remember watching the blood & guts movies during the classroom time. A few years ago I googled the only title I remembered, "Signal 30".

Never happened to me before, but while watching one of them, I "blacked out", I was fully awake, my eyes were open, but I saw black.

I had no idea what was happening to me, I turned away from the screen.

My instructor saw me turn away and called out, "Pay attention, I'm not showing this for your health" or some such.

I caught my breath and recovered, finished watching it. But when the lights came back on, my shirt was soaked with sweat.

Instructor must have noticed, it was very obvious, but he never said a word. Those movies definitely left an impression on me, although I'm not sure they made me a better driver.

In senior year, my biology class got to attend a Phila coroner's office autopsy as a special field trip. We first watched slides of various gruesome things, abused kids and such.

This time we were warned ahead of time that if you felt woozy, just get up and walk out for some air.

I was the first one to leave but not the last. My teacher came out to check on me and several more kids followed.

We then watched autopsies of 2 murder victims. That wasn't as bad as the slide show, but I would watch for awhile, then walk away for air, before coming back.

Learned that I didn't have the stomach for seeing blood and guts on film from those 2 episodes. Haven't had a similar experience since, but I still will not watch stuff on TV that is too real and gruesome. Doesn't seem to affect me in real life as much but I don't watch the vials fill when they draw blood from me for example.

[Keith Seymore]

We used to have to watch "blood and guts" safety films within the GM manufacturing plants.

They would show some guy forgetting to take the chuck key out of a lathe head and it would come around and smash this (obviously) rubber hand - ketchup flying everywhere. (Special effects were not that great back then).

They would show guys with long hair that had been "scalped" after catching it in the spindle of a drill press. That made quite an impression...

K

[GT182]

We went thru the video deal at Eastman Kodak watching guys get run thru with the forks of the fork trucks and getting their feet squashed by the wheels. Nasty watch at times but it did happen. We even had a guy with a fork truck slide across a wet floor in the paper storage building crash thru the wall and drop 5 stories. He didn't make it and neither did the fork truck. I even saw a few hands go thru the chill rolls on the poly extruders that got smushed and plastic coated. Not pretty at all.

[geeteeohguy]

We watched Red Asphalt, Wheels of Tragedy, Signal 30, and Alcohol and Red Flares. Talk about being scared straight....Red Asphalt was pretty grim. Working in industry had to watch a film called "so, you want to be a statistic" that showed plenty of arterial spray un the underside of a white K-car hood (insulation removed just for this purpose!).