The Little Thread Which Grew - the Apollo '73 to Everything But

[CarmeloOrchards]

Unsafe at Any Speed

Ralph Nader made his fame on a best selling book, based on a spurious premise. he drove GM to end production of the Corvair. In all fairness, they were too stupid, as a company to defend themselves.

The way he explained it in the book, if you care to read it, double negatives and all, was that the engine drove a shaft that turned the transmission that rotated the axles that turned the rear wheels.

I'm not kidding about this.

What he neglected to mention was the instructions for inflating the tires IN EVERY OWNERS' MANUAL: Front tires approx 20 lbs of air, Back tires approx 30 lbs. of air. The front was a lot lighter than the rear. If you inflated the front tires to the same pressure as the back, instead of riding on 4 inches of tire, you were riding on 1 inch of tire.

The videos of the Dodge Dart, Ford Falcon, and Chevy Corvair going around in circles on wet track showed clearly that just before the Corvair spun out, the driver had hit the brakes. That's cheating. What you do for one car, you should do for all.

I haven't googled this. I don't know what you find if you do google it. This is all decades old knowledge.

Nader is a schmuck, an imbecile, a jerk, and the words just keep on coming!

 

[lkwdblds]

Ralph Nader made his fame on a best selling book, based on a spurious premise. he drove GM to end production of the Corvair. In all fairness, they were too stupid, as a company to defend themselves.

The way he explained it in the book, if you care to read it, double negatives and all, was that the engine drove a shaft that turned the transmission that rotated the axles that turned the rear wheels.

I'm not kidding about this.

What he neglected to mention was the instructions for inflating the tires IN EVERY OWNERS' MANUAL: Front tires approx 20 lbs of air, Back tires approx 30 lbs. of air. The front was a lot lighter than the rear. If you inflated the front tires to the same pressure as the back, instead of riding on 4 inches of tire, you were riding on 1 inch of tire.

The videos of the Dodge Dart, Ford Falcon, and Chevy Corvair going around in circles on wet track showed clearly that just before the Corvair spun out, the driver had hit the brakes. That's cheating. What you do for one car, you should do for all.

I haven't googled this. I don't know what you find if you do google it. This is all decades old knowledge.

Nader is a schmuck, an imbecile, a jerk, and the words just keep on coming!

Yes, that Corvair, especially the suped upt Monza Spyder model with "four on the floor" was a hot little number. I never drove one but they must have been fun to drive. I was not aware of the special tire inflation recommendations. That car was an updated American version of the VW Beetle. It should have continued to evolve and be produced as a Chevy model for decades instead of being nipped in the bud by Nader. He built his fame and career on the back of that one book bashing the Corvair - an unfair bashing it at that.

Carmelo mentioned the Ford Falcon and the Dodge Dart. I had a 1964 Dart I bought brand new and enjoyed it for abouf 3 years then got a Plymouth Barracuda in 1967 and an exciting Dodge Challenger in "banana yellow" in 1970. I became a Chrysler product man for about 30 years. Nowadays I would not go near most Chrysler products except perhaps the big Ram truck. After Mercedes broke off from them or even a little before that, their quality control just went to hell. I am hoping their merger with Fiat, or is it a Fiat takeover, may be able to restore that marque. They made some real fine cars during much of their history, the 20's through the 70's mainly.

Yes, when I first met Purple Haze, I assumed an Ormar Garrison valence, not a Ralph Nader valence and got out a note pad and started asking questions and taking notes about her old days at CCLA just like I knew what I was doing. I've never liked Nader much since he got rid of the Corvair. I feel like I know what I'm doing because I resonate to the vibrations whenever "Ahmes the Scribe" back in ancient Egypt is mentioned. I have roots on the deep back track as a scribe or chronicler of History or at least it seems so.
Lakey

 

[Sock1]

Thanks Carmelo and Roger and S&L, I just wanted to say Hi. Thanks for the welcome. Well, you gotta start somewhere. I'll probably be mostly a lurker yet, although it seems I ought to say something or question something every once in a while. Most times on this thread when I see a viewpoint that seems to be missing, someone comes up with it. I don't have a lot of time to follow everything that I would like to here, not nearly enough actually. Have had a little more this winter as its been a hard winter and my work is mostly outside. I agree with Lakey about getting tremendous case gain here on ESMB. For me it's answering questions that I've had for a long time.. and a much more complete vision of the technology, and a clearer view of the church and what exactly the … problems are/were.
Sock

 

[Sock1]

Great to have you as a Newbie here Sock1!! Thanks for picking up on the fair and balanced reporting style. I think my model is Omar Garrison, the investigative reporter who wrote several objective books about Scn in the early to mid 70's. Another would be model is Ralph Nader, but I do not think he is objective enough for my tastes. He bashed the Chevrolet Corvair and had nothing good to say about it. My Dad owned two of them and just loved his. We did have a roll over accident in it however. My Mom was driving and the family was going to Phoenix Arizona in 1964. It was night time and I was in the back seat, my Mom dozed off while driving and a wheel went into the shoulder on the right side of the road and the resulting noise and boucing woke her up and she yanked the steering wheel sharply to the left and the car rolled over 3 times and landed in a ditch. I emerged completely unscathed and both parents had a few minor cuts. My Dad went right out and bought another one, this time a sporty "Monza" model. What did they say, "Get your kicks on Route 66".

If you were on CC Staff from Jan to Aug of 1971, we would know each other, at least in passing. From Oct '70 to Oct '71, I was on lines there as public receiving the lower bridge auditing and doing my training on the Standard Dianetics Course, pre NED. I graduated, having to audit several CC staff members to complete my course requirements. I quit my job at IBM in August of 1971 and lived off of savings. I finally joined the S.O. in October of 1971 as CC's first dianetic interne.

I believe I knew everyone on staff, about 150 people. Perhaps you could send me a PM, Private Message, and reveal your name. Anyway, Sock!, please PM me with your name and contact info or at least present your personal story or better yet do both. By the way, if you are still around the L.A. area, we are starting to have a once a month Koffee Klatch, type of get together for thread members. For that, discuss it with me or Sweetness and Light and we will give you the time and place.
Lakey

Lakey, … oh, OK.... I must have mis-read or (more likely) mis-remembered a line back there somewhere. I was thinking you were on staff from October 1970. I guess we just missed. I was in HCO. External com and then later Dir Com. Didn't really see much public except at events every night. CC wasn't a SO org at first. It became SO about May/June 1971. I was one of the last to join. They just never really asked me specifically until late and I was busy trying to do my job. CC was growing very rapidly during that period. I didn't have any problem with joining SO at all, but then they wanted to immediately route me off post and to the ship for SO basic training, and I did have a problem with leaving my post in the midst of things I was trying to accomplish there.... and in the middle of a medical cycle that I was trying to complete so I could receive auditing. I never did receive any auditing while on staff. Which was an anomaly then. There was real effort being made to keep all staff regularly audited and winning. I protested being sent to the ship so immediately. Nobody would talk to me about it. That would be being reasonable I guess. Maybe that's all it was. It seemed to me at the time there was something else. A little bit of explanation I could agree with would've helped a lot. It was just... be ready to go at 10 AM tomorrow and that was it. So I went under protest... not a formal thing, just internally. I felt sort of betrayed by a group I had just willingly pledged a billion years to, and it didn't work out well. Had a sort of crossing of wills with … I believe he was 1st mate...

Cutting through a few details, I didn't mean to get going on this, after a while they sent me back to CC. I didn't really finish all I was supposed to on the ship. I did what I could around CC for a couple weeks... I don't think they really knew what to do with me. They decided, I think it was Yvonne's idea, to just put me on a medical leave of absence with condition of return being Dianetic completion. So, that's how I routed off staff. I was around there until 1975. On lines at CC then LAO. I left Los Angeles in 1975.

I think the Koffee Klatch is a great idea, and I'd love to meet some of the participants but I'm a couple thousand miles out of range of that. Thanks for asking.
Sock

 

[Sock1]

Ralph Nader was a moron.

Is a moron.

if he ever got smart, would be an idiot.

Details at 6.

Corvairs were fun to drive. Switching lanes was a blast.

Carmelo,
Corvairs were fun to drive. Lot of oversteer. Great fun if you could control it.

 

[CarmeloOrchards]

Carmelo,
Corvairs were fun to drive. Lot of oversteer. Great fun if you could control it.

Driving a friend's Corvair one night, I lost a car painted black and white that had been trying to follow me.

I loved changing lanes on the freeway, nothing like front engine and steering.

It was very low to the ground compared to other cars and trucks. Other drivers sometimes found themselves looking down on us doing mouth to penis resuscitation.

 

[Ted]

Games Processing

I always thought that the Corvair Monza was one helluva cool car. It was fast, agile, and fun to drive. It sounded bad, too. As typical of GM, they discontinue a product once they have it near perfection.

Now in keeping with the apparent theme of this thread which morphs from time to time, I offer this 20 minute video. Apparently Hubbard was onto something with games processing, but he could not have envisioned the global affect/effect of gamers operating in the unified field. I have changed my view of people playing computer games.

From ted.com via YouTube

 

[Panda Termint]

That was outstanding, Ted, thanks for the link.

 

[Ted]

That was outstanding, Ted, thanks for the link.

You are welcome.

The implications here are tremendous. A multitude of beings, connected by database, common game, and operating in an ascended state can solve the problems of the world whether it be one of politics, oil or food shortages, universal healthcare, weather, etc. I would assume that powers that be would want the found solutions and not suppress them, but there can be a game around that subject as well.

We live in exciting times.

 

[SweetnessandLight]

Omar Garrison's low point, in his writing career, was his time working for Scientology. He had a behind-the-scenes arrangement with the Guardians office, and wrote and had published two books re. Scientology. These were slanted in favor of Scientology and are, IMO, not reliable sources of information or analysis.

The saying is true - "Scientology makes smart people do stupid things and honest people do dishonest things." And Garrison was not exempt from that truism. He was also not exempt from one of Scientology's favorite practices: silencing people, and finally succumbed to a "settlement" and gag agreement.

However, his friend and associate Gerry Armstrong is still talking.

And the story of Garrison's final project (LRH biography) for Scientology, in which the lies and absurdity became too much, is, I hope, fairly well known.

To his credit, Garrison, finally, wouldn't cooperate any further, and recognized how extensively he had been misled by Scientology, and finally quit.

Out of respect for Garrison this comment needed to be made. His legacy should not be having been a shill for Scientology, as he was much more than that and did much more than that.

Happy trails Omar, wherever you are.

Thanks for this, Veda!

 

[SweetnessandLight]

Thanks Carmelo and Roger and S&L, I just wanted to say Hi. Thanks for the welcome. Well, you gotta start somewhere. I'll probably be mostly a lurker yet, although it seems I ought to say something or question something every once in a while. Most times on this thread when I see a viewpoint that seems to be missing, someone comes up with it. I don't have a lot of time to follow everything that I would like to here, not nearly enough actually. Have had a little more this winter as its been a hard winter and my work is mostly outside. I agree with Lakey about getting tremendous case gain here on ESMB. For me it's answering questions that I've had for a long time.. and a much more complete vision of the technology, and a clearer view of the church and what exactly the … problems are/were.Sock

Dat's why we're here! Thanks for sharing some of your story, too, Sockie!

 

[Blue Spirit]

The Truth About The Corvair

Ralph Nader was a moron.

Is a moron.

if he ever got smart, would be an idiot.

Details at 6.

Corvairs were fun to drive. Switching lanes was a blast.

The original Corvair was a very dangerous car and almost killed me or my
girlfriend once on a wet road. A pole was coming toward the side of the car and with its ridiculously slow steering (about 5.5 turns) I barely sent it spinning the other way and slid to a stop in the road. Last time I drove that car fast! (I have race car experience)

The first design (corrected later in the second gereration design) had a severe "jacking effect" where the rear "swing axle" when subject to adhesion side loads would go into high positive camber which caused the axles to push the rear of the car higher, narrow the track (distance between the rear tires), and cause the tires to ride on the edge with hardly any rubber on the road.

This easily caused spins and the turnover of Lakey's family's car, as well as

watching a friend take out 30 yards of barbed wire fence one wet night in

the country, while I watched from another Corvair.

The VW bus was another car with this dangerous rear suspension and

usually turned over if it got sideways. Also to some extent the VW Bug, too.

I solved this problem in a Fiat some time ago by chopping the rear coil springs

until I had enough negative camber (top of tire leaning inward). I then drove

it safely fast on snow covered roads.

The second design of the Corvair corrected this problem by changing the

geometry of the suspension, but by then it was too late, because of bad PR.


While we are on the subject of cars, clearly the Toyota's stuck throttle

problem is an intermittent electronic problem, and I predict that the

attempted cover up of this is going to backfire on the company BIGTIME.


I really wish I had my simple Ford Falcon car back sometimes.


Corvair "Jacking Effect" references:

http://everything2.com/title/Chevrolet+Corvair

http://www.largiader.com/paralever/
(scroll down 60% for a drawing to explain the "jacking effect")


Ralph Nader for President ! (We could do a lot worse, and have!)

 

[CarmeloOrchards]

from a friend

The following is probably out reality, a gross oversimplification, and a generality. Therefore I expect each one of you to have lower affinity for me after you have read it.

In 1952, in England, Ron discovered about 5 to 10 people who were (my opinion) natural auditors (really successful, could make a living out of it), and a number more who could not audit, really. (you will get reference to documentation on this in a week or so).

Ron wanted more to audit, and thus more to get the benefits of auditing. He was very ingenious fellow who in the following years established some "crutches" to enable people to audit.

In Dec 56 to mid 57 he established Training Routines (Trs).

in 1959 in the first Melbourne ACC, he stated that Trs were a substitute for professionalism.

Later, he established daily Trs for all HGC auditors, regardless as to how professional they were. Probably the really professional ones were nevertheless glad for the opportunity to sit down and relax. But for them, daily Trs were unnecessary.

Ron established many other good things, so people could have a frame work, where they could get to understand auditing, develop empathy (interest in the well being of the client), and become more relaxed and more professional when with a preclear, and give gains to preclears while they did so.

Most of these things have become called standard tech, a Holy Cow.

You should perhaps note that in my universe there is a difference between standard tech and the basics of Scientology. Amongst the basics I include the idea that anything which is unwanted and yet persists must be thoroughly viewed, and concern to give the preclear a safe environment in which can relaxedly view unwanted things in his/her universe. It could happen in a bus, without a meter, and no formal rudiments.

My theory is that in some cases we have forgotten to throw away the crutches, one by one, on a gradient as one learns to become a "natural auditor". We could help more people than we allow ourselves to.

 

[lkwdblds]

A question for anyone about Gov't Contracts

Blue Spirit - Thanks for the history lesson on the Corvair from a mechanics' point of view. I think Nader etched his name into the public consciousness by destroying the Corvair brand. He should have just pointed out the flaws and not trashed the entire line of cars. As you pointed out, the problem had been fixed quickly but too late only because of the bad publicity.

I was called Thursday morning, on a sales solicitation cold call by a firm in Van Nuys called Business Thru Government Inc.. They said they were considering 5 general contractors in my City to choose one who would be their representative to bid on government construction projects for small businesses as part of the 2009 Obama Financial Bail Out program for Small Business.

With the economy the way it is, I thought I should check out every opportunity which came my way. They booked me to meet with them at their offices in Van Nuys at 11:00AM the next day. I showed up and registered. They have a nice group of suites on the top floor of the Van Nuys Airport building overlookng the air field. I filled out some registration forms and was taken to a large conference room where an extremely beautiful young Russian woman was waiting to brief me on how their company worked and what my role in it might be. She was actually a very remarkable woman, she looks like one of those starlets in a James Bond movie, very similar to Fahmke Jannsen I believe her name was who played a villain in one of Pierce Brosnan's James Bond movies.

Besides her looks, she was vey bright and her tone level was between enthusiasm and exhillaration. Her communication cycle was excellent with no comm lags, she had very good charisma, she was knowledgeable, had good people skills and was just an amazing person for me to talk to. She said she was 29 and just about to turn 30. Well, you know us old guys, at the age of 70, we are still attracted to lovely and capable young women. The meeting's are supposed to last at most 45 minutes but ours ran over by a half hour because we kept finding more things we had in common to talk about.

Anyway, forget her for the moment. Her company says, 'WE WILL REMOVE ALL RED TAPE & EXPAND YOUR BUSINESS THROUGH GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS. ALL GOV'T CONTRACTING SERVICES UNDER 1 UMBRELLA FROM: CERTIFIYING AND APPROVING YOUR COMPANY TO WORK WITH THE GOVERNMENT , TO WINNING THE GOVERNMENT CONTRACT. WIN A GOVERNMENT CONTRACT; THAT'S HOW A SMALL BSINESS BECOMES BIG TIME.

I put on a bit of a show to impress her. Her home town is St. Petersberg in Russia but she was trained in modeling and acting and also business in Talinn in Estonia. I knew a lot about Talinn alredy having had relatives growing up who came from there and I also asked her if she had made it to Riga in Latvia and she was amazed that I knew about Riga, Latvia, Talinn and Estonia. She said she had been in the USA for 6 years and I was the first person who ever even heard of Latvia or Estonia, let alone know things about them. Then We got onto languages and she knew pretty good German and we talked a bit in that and then I asked her about Spanish and she had learned that while down in Miami so we talked a bit in Spanish. Then she went to add up some numbers on her adding machine and multiply them and I did the calcs in my head and said the answers before she could read her tape. She acted very impressed and excused herself for a few minutes and then came back and told me that she told her boss she found the right guy and to dismiss the other 4 candidates from consideration.

Their fee structure is reasonable, they get 3% of your contract but only after the government funds it and they take 3% not all at once but out of each of your progress draws paid as the job progresses and they also take $100 a month for admin fees. I was all excited about starting to receive a steady stream of government work and also working closely with her but there was a hitch.


THE HITCH First they wanted a $900 check from me right there. This was to make sure I was approved by three organizations, Dunn & Bradstreet, something called CRC, who would handle the money transfers from the Feds, and something called ORCA. She said if I did not qualify, they would give me my $900 back but if I did qualify, then I need to pay $2000 more to go to the next area of my training and then finally $1600 before I start receiving leads from which to choose from and start bidding government jobs.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THEY WANT $4,500 up front without me knowing anything about their company except what they publish themselves in their own promo. I asked her if I could speak with some of the other contractors who were already doing business with her and verify that they were doing well and she said "no" to that saying that the other contractors privacy had to be maintained.

Could this just be a scam, using the lady as bait to attract contractors and just bilk them for $4,500 or is it something legit which I should pursue?. She says that the Obama administration has set aside $500 billion in construction money for government contracts and of that amount $195 billion must go to Small Businesses.

If anyone has any comments on this, I would appreciate it.
Lakey

 

[Sock1]

The original Corvair was a very dangerous car and almost killed me or my
girlfriend once on a wet road. A pole was coming toward the side of the car and with its ridiculously slow steering (about 5.5 turns) I barely sent it spinning the other way and slid to a stop in the road. Last time I drove that car fast! (I have race car experience)

The first design (corrected later in the second gereration design) had a severe "jacking effect" where the rear "swing axle" when subject to adhesion side loads would go into high positive camber which caused the axles to push the rear of the car higher, narrow the track (distance between the rear tires), and cause the tires to ride on the edge with hardly any rubber on the road.

This easily caused spins and the turnover of Lakey's family's car, as well as

watching a friend take out 30 yards of barbed wire fence one wet night in

the country, while I watched from another Corvair.

The VW bus was another car with this dangerous rear suspension and

usually turned over if it got sideways. Also to some extent the VW Bug, too.

I solved this problem in a Fiat some time ago by chopping the rear coil springs

until I had enough negative camber (top of tire leaning inward). I then drove

it safely fast on snow covered roads.

The second design of the Corvair corrected this problem by changing the

geometry of the suspension, but by then it was too late, because of bad PR.


While we are on the subject of cars, clearly the Toyota's stuck throttle

problem is an intermittent electronic problem, and I predict that the

attempted cover up of this is going to backfire on the company BIGTIME.


I really wish I had my simple Ford Falcon car back sometimes.


Corvair "Jacking Effect" references:

http://everything2.com/title/Chevrolet+Corvair

http://www.largiader.com/paralever/
(scroll down 60% for a drawing to explain the "jacking effect")


Ralph Nader for President ! (We could do a lot worse, and have!)

didn't ever really know the technical side of it. Amazing what one can learn on here. Just from driving it, it was fun. Friend of mine had one. High school days. Drove it on a lot of back roads. Probably an earlier model. It wasn't really fast around curves, the rear end would hang out too easily, but a lot if fun if you liked sliding around. Didn't ever feel like it would flip. Maybe we were just lucky. "Jacking effect" I can see that. I drove a 1960 falcon ranchero mostly at the time. It was a lot more stable.
Sock

 

[CarmeloOrchards]

The original Corvair was a very dangerous car and almost killed me or my
girlfriend once on a wet road. A pole was coming toward the side of the car and with its ridiculously slow steering (about 5.5 turns) I barely sent it spinning the other way and slid to a stop in the road. Last time I drove that car fast! (I have race car experience)

The first design (corrected later in the second gereration design) had a severe "jacking effect" where the rear "swing axle" when subject to adhesion side loads would go into high positive camber which caused the axles to push the rear of the car higher, narrow the track (distance between the rear tires), and cause the tires to ride on the edge with hardly any rubber on the road.

This easily caused spins and the turnover of Lakey's family's car, as well as

watching a friend take out 30 yards of barbed wire fence one wet night in

the country, while I watched from another Corvair.

The VW bus was another car with this dangerous rear suspension and

usually turned over if it got sideways. Also to some extent the VW Bug, too.

I solved this problem in a Fiat some time ago by chopping the rear coil springs

until I had enough negative camber (top of tire leaning inward). I then drove

it safely fast on snow covered roads.

The second design of the Corvair corrected this problem by changing the

geometry of the suspension, but by then it was too late, because of bad PR.



Corvair "Jacking Effect" references:

http://everything2.com/title/Chevrolet+Corvair

http://www.largiader.com/paralever/
(scroll down 60% for a drawing to explain the "jacking effect")

Wow! and so the designer of the VW bug and his son who brought another car to market USING THE SAME SORT OF SWING AXEL were actually risking my life by designing those dangerous vehicles. Damn Germans!

I remember in the movie"Harper" starring Paul Newman where he is being chased on a mountain road in this dangerous little bathtub of a car by a safe and sane Lincoln Continental. Poor little car couldn't handle the curves in the road as fast the American made powerboat on wheels. Thank God I never tried to race a Lincoln on a mountain road in my 356.

The jacking effect is just the axle's pinion gear pushing in on the differential.

Driving too fast for conditions with I expect at least 10 psi too much in the front tires."I have race car experience so I am allowed to drive way to fast for conditions at all times"

I have purchased two wrecked 911s that went off the road backwards-both were driven by Corvette guys who jumped in the car and lost it big time. "I am a Corvette guy with a two foot dick."

"yea,right."

"Something had to be wrong with the car because I'm a great racer car driver..........."

Porsches, VWs, and Corvairs handle differently than Mustangs. They are not the same beast.

My daughter getting into an unsafe car that I gave her. She and some of her friends from work rented Infineon Raceway, when it was Sears Point for a day. They didn't practice parallel parking.

 

[CarmeloOrchards]

Blue Spirit - Thanks for the history lesson on the Corvair from a mechanics' point of view. I think Nader etched his name into the public consciousness by destroying the Corvair brand. He should have just pointed out the flaws and not trashed the entire line of cars. As you pointed out, the problem had been fixed quickly but too late only because of the bad publicity.

I was called Thursday morning, on a sales solicitation cold call by a firm in Van Nuys called Business Thru Government Inc.. They said they were considering 5 general contractors in my City to choose one who would be their representative to bid on government construction projects for small businesses as part of the 2009 Obama Financial Bail Out program for Small Business.

<SNIP>
Lakey

She probably gets 20% as a commission. It doesn't cost $900 to do a D & B. (Dunn & Bradstreet).

What you want to know is WHO their other clients are. Call their references. Visit their references. See for yourself if they can help you get more work. The gov't always has money to spend, that s a given. It is still WHO you know. This is called your due diligence.

 

[CarmeloOrchards]

Corvair

GM, in their infinite wisdom, chose to attack Nader rather than put their designers out there to be questioned. In other words they did things like Scientology, attack the attacker rather than counter the charges.

Just like Scientology, they got caught being bad guys.

 

[Sock1]

lakey, you can google the testimonials on their website and get phone numbers.
sock

 

[CarmeloOrchards]

BTW

I'm opinionated.

I was driving tractors when I was three. I was fixing them too. I have a decent selection of Snap On tools. Snap On is guaranteed for life. I've taken my share of tools back to be fixed or replaced. My tools are not pristine.

When I was teenager, it wasn't uncommon for me to have a hoist in an oak tree lifting an engine out of a truck or car.

I've also been known to exceed the speed limit. So has my spouse. My spouse had a Triumph 500 at age 18. Our youngest daughter was stopped by the CHP (California Highway Patrol) when she had just turned 16. She was driving her Explorer, according to the officer at 105 MPH. She said, "how can that be, the speedometer only goes to 85?" She's cute. She got a ticket for 70 MPH in a 65 zone.

Our kids (and now our grandkids) all learned to drive on my knee, when they were three. I believe in educating and empowering my children.