Ooo, can I play too? Mine was a 1966 Pontiac Catalina. I swear, it was longer than a full-size pickup truck.
I mentioned this in order to point out something a relative of mine did not know: that “land yacht” is commonly used to designate these monstrosities on wheels. I mentioned that someone was driving a “land yacht” once and said relative said, “Oh? A Land Yacht? Who makes those, Ford?” snicker
And he was serious. We esplained to him what was meant by the term “land yacht”, amidst much laughter.
Nope, that “?” is fulfilling the requirements for a “bilingual” sign in Canada in the smallest sign size necessary. If they put an “i” up there, it’d only be for them English-Speakers, dontchaknow.
So, instead of having a sign that says:
Tourist Information Ahead
l’information de touristes en avant
they just went with the good old question-mark-on-a-sign, which naturally confuses the very people who’d need it.
I remember hearing something along the lines of “garbagemen make a lot of money, for what they do” when I was a kid. Made sense to me, since they only had to work two days a week… :rolleyes:
I didn’t realize better until I was in my 20’s. Oh, the shame…
Thaks for the information on the “?” sign, that really baffled me.
I took my drivers test in a 72 Ford Galaxy 500. Nailed the parrallel parking and the U-Turn the three point was the one I had the most problem with. Like Zebra I learned about reverse lights in order not to be run over by a car backing up. But then I grew up in Detroit where drive ways were uncommon and everyone parrallel parked.
Am immigrant friend of mine was once given directions (by me) to a big BBQ party type thing with the instruction “Take the freeway to exit 43, then follow the…”
He said he saw exit 35 and knew he was getting close. Seems, tho, that he passed exit 35 about two dozen times. That’s when he finally saw the MPH on those big, white EXIT 35 signs. The actual exit numbers were on green signs.
Yeah, he made it to our big party, but he was about an hour late.
Three tries? Luxury. In the UK test you need to complete two reversing manoeuvres on the first attempt. The examiner chooses which two to test you on out of a possible four (parallel parking, reversing around a corner, turn in the road or reversing into a car park space). Fail either one, or the emergency stop, and you’ve failed the whole test.
The OP is not alone. I never knew this either, until I read this thread. Hell, I’m not even sure I believe it. I’m staring out the window hoping to see a car back up so I can check.
I’m shocking at parrellel parking, usually takes me at least 2 goes (meanwhile my arms get a good workout). On my test day, I did it perfectly first try. It was evening more astounding given the fact that I’d been taught by looking at points on the other car - but in the test I had to park behind a ute!
Haha, just reminded me, while I was learning to drive, I was practicing parrellel parking behind this car. It took me ages. Eventually this lady came out of the house I was outside with a worried look on her face. (Kept hearing revving for 10 mins!) Then she realised what I was doing and gave me a clap. Sooo embarrassing.
When I moved to the DC area in 1986, I heard people talk about the “outer loop” and “inner loop” of the beltway.
I assumed there were actually two beltways, one much larger than the other, but for some reason never encountered the outer one.
It was two years before I realized that there was only one beltway, and that the inner and outer loops were (respectively) the clockwise and counterclockwise portions of it.
I felt embarrassed until I met several other people who had thought the same thing – all were people who had moved here.
Someone told me. I’ve always known cars were backing up because they either moved backwards or made a beeping sound. When moving backwards myself, at no point did I notice extra brightness guiding my way from the lights.
I’ve lived in Baltimore since I was five (I’m now 40) and I spent years hearing about the inner loop and outer loop of Baltimore’s Beltway. I never paid any attention to it when I was younger, and even after I started to drive, I never quite understood what they were talking about on traffic reports. I basically had the attitude of, “Inner loop? WTF is that?” I thought the ‘loops’ had something to do with the circular cloverleaf exit ramps. :smack:
One day when I was about 24, I saw a traffic report map on TV, one of those full-color graphic things, and it suddenly hit me. “Ooooh, ‘inner loop’ and ‘outer loop’! I get it now!” It suddenly made so much sense.
And just like the “You don’t get down from an elephant, you get down from a duck!” joke, I felt like a complete moron for not getting it all those years.
There’s a road round these parts that’s known as “the crosstown.” Because it goes across town, you see. Took me awhile to figure out that “the crosstown” (with which I wasn’t familiar) and “62” (which I cross every day and take when I’m going to my sister’s) were one and the same.
I’ve only lived here for 3 years, but I’ve lived 100 miles away and came to Minneapolis very often nearly all my life.
I barely passed the parallel parking portion of my driving test in 1980, and I don’t think I parallel parked again until this year.
Now that I work for CPS, I have to park wherever I can find a space. I was pleasantly surprised at how easily I was able to pick parallel parking back up again.
I lived in DC for about 6 months and I thought the same thing. In fact I thought the same thing until you posted this. (Slightly in my favor is that when I lived there I did not have a car and never drove anywhere.)
I thought it was two loops like there are around Boston - 95/128 on the inside and on the outside. Although I thought the two DC loops were a lot closer together.
In Michigan, you have to parallel park in your driving test. After you drive to the parking lot the tester has set up, you have to drive up to a line without going over it, then from that line back into a spot. After that, you pull out of that spot and you’re right near the parallel parking set-up.
When I did it, you needed to be able to back up into it and be straight in the spot… all in one reverse. You had no chance to shimmy in, or even go forward to correct your angle. There were 4 baby traffic cones at each corner and if you knocked over (I think it was more than one, possibly more than two) you instantly failed the entire test, before even getting to drive on the road; no second-chances, just a chance to schedule another test and pay the fee again.
Miraculously, even though up till the morning of the test, I had not been able to successfully do this maneuver, I succeeded!
I did my test in a 1984 Chrysler LeBaron; man, I loved that thing. :: sniff ::
