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Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region

By Bruce Hauben, Bruce993@PorscheNet.com
NOR'EASTER Online - May 2002

Now we have another cause of automobile accidents. While I say "another", with the exception of mechanical or equipment failure that is at the root of a very small percentage of total accidents, they all boil down to the inattention of the driver to the task at hand.

We've all seen drivers applying their make-up, shaving or reading while doing 75mph on Rte. 128. And by the way, that's one of the attributes of MA drivers I happen to appreciate - no, not the inattention. The fact that I've never seen another area of the country (true, I've not driven in Idaho or Montana yet) where if you're not doing 75-80 mph you better stay out of the left hand lane or you'll get run over. And speaking of Idaho, a federal appeals court in San Francisco recently ruled that Idaho drivers may continue to drive while high on marijuana so long as they are not driving in an erratic manner and can pass a field sobriety test. Guess all the PCA Parade goers this year are going to be flying low in Boise this summer.

But I digress. Many of you I'm sure have also seen drivers swiveled 180 degrees to look at and talk to a kid in a car seat in the back seat. Or perhaps you’ve seen the driver with his/her head below the top of the dash to tune the radio. Or maybe you’ve seen a driver so engrossed in conversation with their passenger that they're wandering from lane to lane oblivious of all other vehicles on the road. This is why I object when some jurisdictions are singling out the cell phone, looking to legislate against their use while driving. Certainly, using a cell phone may be dangerous when it takes one's primary attention from the road, but not if used cautiously and judiciously, and no more so than all of the above examples.

So what is this newly identified cause of vehicular accidents? NewScientist.com recently reported on a newly released study by Warren Brodsky at Ben-Gurion University. Mr. Brodsky used a driving simulator and simulated streets of Chicago to test a very small sampling of his students. Playing music ranging from laid back George Benson to very loud, up-beat dance club sounds he found that as the tempo and volume increased the "drivers" took greater risks i.e. running red lights, driving faster, and became involved in more than twice as many accidents. An interesting note from NewScientist.com points out that a particular worrisome aspect of this study is that the car is now the place where people most often listen to music.

You may want to check out NewScientist.com for answers to your very most perplexing questions such as...Why don't penguins' feet get frost bitten, or what causes the "green flash" when the sun sets on the horizon (I've never seen it either). Maybe you've lain awake at night wondering if you'd 'see upside down if you popped out your eyeballs and reinserted them rotated 180 degrees?

Back to cars, "The Museum of Automobile History" in Syracuse, NY is for sale. Walter Miller, the collector, founder and owner of the Museum has not given any reason for the sale but has said that he's only interested in selling the entire collection and not individual items or partial lots. Clearly he wants to keep his huge collection intact as he could realize far more money selling or auctioning the items in variously sized lots. Unless there is a restriction in the P & S documents that is not mentioned in his letter, a buyer could of course purchase the entire lot and then resell it in pieces...hmmmm, anyone interested in setting up a syndicate?

Mr. Miller has no automobiles in the collection, as he doesn't believe that the vehicles reveal as much about us as do the toys, publications and other accessories associated with the automobile industry. Every cubic inch of the 12,000 sq. ft. space- the museum has 25' ceilings - is filled with advertising posters, original design drawings, toys, autographed letters by racer car drivers and famous automobilists, racing memorabilia, unusual auto accessories, gadgets, etc. etc. Mr. Miller is of the opinion that with the more than 25,000 items that are in storage, the collection would comfortably fill a 100,000-sq. ft. space.

A few examples of items include: a copy of the speeding ticket given to James Dean 2 hours before he was killed in a car crash; Walter Chrysler's 1924 registration for the first Chrysler and his driver's license; Original US patents for the Daimler-Benz and Duryea automobiles; The 'Car-B-Que', a 1958 accessory that allowed motorists to cook hotdogs in their moving vehicle; an original poster for the 1895 Paris to Bordeaux Race and the Paris Automobile Exposition.

For more details and views of the museum and exhibits check out; www.themuseumofautmobilehistory.com (try typing that without hitting the space bar). Sounds like an interesting side trip on a trip to Watkins Glen this summer.

Dog Pet Peeves About Humans
Sorry, on second reading, most of the good ones are not useable in a family magazine. Send me an email - bmh993@PorscheNet.com - for a private mailing.

Why Moms Are Great!!

MOM TAUGHT ME TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE: "If you're going to kill each other, do it outside, I just finished cleaning!"
MOM TAUGHT ME LOGIC: "Because I said so, that's why!"
MOM TAUGHT ME ABOUT THE SCIENCE OF OSMOSSIS: "Shut your mouth and eat your supper!"
MOM TAUGHT ME ABOUT STAMINA: "You'll sit there until all that spinach is gone!"
MOM TAUGHT ME ABOUT RELIGION: "You better pray that will come out of the carpet!"
MOM TAUGHT ME ABOUT CONTORTIONISM: "Will you look at the dirt on the back of your neck?"

And most of all...

MOM TAUGHT ME THE CIRCLE OF LIFE: "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!"

Porsche Club of America The Northeast Region

Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region