The other day my son, who is home from college for the Summer, had a friend from high school ride his bike over to visit. Just as he got to our house his bike broke down and was unridable. So my son asked me if I could load his bike in the back of my Jeep and give them a ride to his house.
After we got the bike in the Jeep my son asked if he could drive. I said “sure” and asked his friend “you want shotgun?” To which his friend looked bewildered and slightly alarmed, as if he was thinking “why is this guy asking me about shotguns?!?”. So I just said “that’s what we old people call the front passenger seat”.
It got me wondering, is it now an ‘old person’ term that’s not recognized by younger generations? I did teach my kids to call ‘shotgun’ once they were old enough to ride in the front seat so they didn’t fight over it, so they’re aware of the term. Do you non-USAian Dopers recognize the term, since it originates with the ‘shotgun’ seat on Old West stagecoaches?
I’m not sure I even knew about the term for most of my childhood despite growing up on westerns in the 1960s and ‘70s. We had a pickup truck, and everybody sat in the front seat (or the truck bed).
That said, a lot of states require children under a certain age to ride in the back seat now ( the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends any child under 13) so the opportunity to call shotgun doesn’t exist for kids until they are almost driving age.
Speculating that it comes from a situation like this screenshot from The Magnificen Seven (1960 - one of the greatest movies ever made), where Steve McQueen is riding (with a) shotgun next to Yul Brynner as they take a coffin up to Boot Hill for burial when no one else will. IOW, an armed escort.
Am familiar with the term, likely from it’s American stagecoach origin.
The main horse coach company in Australia was Cobb & Co who operated from 1854 to 1924. I know that C&C coaches didn’t always have co-drivers and that when they did the co-driver might carry a a firearm, especially in areas where bushrangers were active but whether they always did I can’t determine.
A similar term used here is “the jump seat” which I think is of aviation derivation.
Thanks! I was particularly interested in hearing from Dopers outside the U.S. to see how far the term had traveled.
Really? I would have assumed the driver’s seat, since there’s a large steering wheel that could end up planted in one’s chest.
I just googled it, and Google’s AI agrees the shotgun seat is the most dangerous in an accident, but other results are kind of all over the place, a couple saying the driver’s seat, and others saying “contrary to popular belief, the back seat is most dangerous, since people often don’t wear seatbelts in back and there’s no air bag protection”.
Midwestern US, born 1970. Been “calling shotgun” for as long as I can remember. And this was in the days before governments started mandating that children under a certain age ride in the back seat. Christ, when I was 13 Mom would take me to the JC Penny’s parking lot after hours and let me drive the fucking car.
We Gen-Xers are a different breed, is what I’m saying.
It carried on through the '90s but my kids don’t know about it. I’ve told them and they keep forgetting, but I think that’s part of a larger trend of young people driving less and not hanging out as much in person with their friends.
My friends and I were very competitive about calling shotty, and we ended up scrapping this rule. It led to too much physicality at the door of a restaurant as everyone was trying to “get out” first to see the car; you’d tug on people, push them, whatever. It made us look like assholes.
The new rule was that shotty becomes available as soon as the driver’s foot touches ground outside of the establishment. This a single trigger for everyone so there’s no fights. In the event two people were watching for that footstep and called shotgun at approximately the same time (we didn’t split hairs over fractions of a second), then it was decided by RPS amongst the callers.
It worked great, and I’m sad it’s not really a thing anymore. Not that riding shotgun really matters, but we had to entertain ourselves somehow.
Back when I was old enough to need to call shotgun, the backseat was usually a bench seat. So, in the back, I’d sit right in the middle, so I could interact with the front, with plenty of room on both sides.
If we’re in an accident, I’m an unimpeded missile through the front windshield.
Also, please forgive me for the terminology, but there was another named sitting position. If there were 4 passengers, somebody called shotgun, and then somebody was told “you get the bitch seat.” That meant sitting in the back middle, between two passengers who had window access.
(This justified, in my opinion, why calling lookout, my term for backseat window, was valid. You’ve got your driver, you’ve got your shotgun, you’ve got your bitch…lookout just follows. Of course, that leaves a 4th passenger name, too. I usually proposed wingman, but by this point in the conversation everybody else had tuned me out)
