Sunday, October 22, 2006

Mechanised DEATH.

I don't know about you, but when I was in high school we had to take Driver's Ed. It's a state law. Except in our high school, you weren't actually required to drive...you had to take a real classroom class. I took mine with Mister Hosterman. His first name was Don, so we called him "Don Ho." During Driver's Ed, they'd show us these films...REEL films...about what horrors awaited you, should you drive recklessly. They were made in the early '60s, so most baby boomers, including my parents and uncles, got them in high school as well. They were still showing them as late as 1995. These films were really controversial because they showed actual corpses: victims of grisly road mishaps and bad judgement.
And you wonder why I don't drive. After seeing human hamburger and listening to dramatic music and a guy with a monotone telling you to keep control of the wheel, I've just thought it best to leave Celia Pleete out of it as much as possible. Actually, aside from these films, I spent most of Driver's Ed playing Othello and chess with this kid Gary I hung out with sometimes.

Anyway, years have passed, and I mostly have those awful images out of my head...oh, wait.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember seeing one of those movies! It was great, full of violence and blood and REAL DEAD PEOPLE! I think the movie was called "Signal 30" or something like that, but I never figured out what that meant, exactly.

Anonymous said...

yes Signal 30, it was horrible. Full of '57 Chevys all full of shredded corpes and dramatic music right out of Ed Wood. Here, relive the good old days before airbags and disc brakes http://www.archive.org/stream/Signal301959/Signal301959_256kb.mp4

Anonymous said...

Oh, cool, thanks for the link! Haha, I like how they put up the disclaimer that this film can't be from Hollywood because it's not up to their standards. I think we all have our doubts about that.

DAMN THEM!! THEY'RE WRECKING NICE CARS THAT WILL SOMEDAY BE CLASSICS!!