During the summer of 1992, I was 15 years old. One would think that my fondest memories would involve first or second loves and long days hanging out with my neighborhood pals, but I was a slightly awkward teenager; and as a result, my mind’s eye now focuses on happy memories of driver’s education class. I may have been the only one who truly enjoyed it. The teacher showed endless, ancient 16mm films that had been endlessly spliced. The warm, gentle ticking of the projector lulled many of my classmates into a peaceful slumber, but my focus was glued on the endless variety of antique cars that populated each new gem. Unfortunately, my instructor never introduced us to the simple logic of the Smith System, which I discovered on my own much later.
According to an article I found online from The Chicago Tribune, Harold Smith devised his straightforward system during World War II. After copyrighting it in the early 1950s, he became known as the “Father of Driver’s Education,” eventually being hired by Ford Motor Company to pass on his techniques to the company’s drivers and many others around the country. Here, Mr. Smith introduces his system in a video titled The Smith System of No-Accident Driving, a video I found on YouTube while searching for, what else, old driver’s education videos. Yes, my life may not be that exciting, but it’s mine.
The Big Three produced many driver’s education videos, and this one is no exception. Although one is never too old to refresh oneself on the fundamentals of safe driving, the real reason to watch this Ford Motor Company video from roughly 1963 is the cars. But first, let us review the Smith System.
Mr. Smith himself is one of the stars of this film, and throughout much of it, he drives a 1963 Galaxie 500, one of many new Ford products roaming the streets of greater Dearborn, MI, during this eight-minute video. The Smith System involves five easy steps, shown above. The genius of this system is that it’s easy to remember, logical, and intuitive. The only drawback is that it requires complete focus on the task at hand – driving – and that is something with which many of us on American roads struggle.
Most of the films in my driver’s education class took pains to differentiate between rural and urban driving. In a rural scene of our featured film, this ’62 pickup looks right at home; in a later city scene, it and the driver look fearfully out of place.
See what I mean? Is Ford guilty of some subtle ageism?
Equally at home on rural roads is this horse-drawn wagon. My dad would remark, “There’s some horsepower, Aaron.” Good one, Dad. This scene shows that city drivers can feel out of place on rural roads – “it goes both ways.”
Mr. Smith’s ride, the Galaxie, shows up with several drivers behind the wheel. Here is an example of why “aim[ing] high in steering” is important – it centers the car in the lane.
In this scene, a potentially hazardous situation is playing out ahead. The narrator advises us to “get the big picture,” but I’m too busy concentrating on the Breezeway Mercury ahead. I test drove a rusty example in my younger days.
The narrator advocates using the horn and lights to alert other drivers to your presence when passing, but these days there are far too many concealed carry permits out there for me to feel comfortable with that line of thinking. Nevertheless, it’s always a good idea to watch another driver’s body language when approaching an intersection, but all I can see is the Thunderbird Sports Roadster parked at the curb. It will show up again later, as will the Mercury Meteor at the intersection.
This short video isn’t simply an advertisement for Ford Motor Company products; after all, the filmmakers had to show some city driving scenes. Here, I see numerous products from crosstown rival General Motors, including a ’62 Oldsmobile and a couple ’59 models.
As I referenced earlier, here’s a rare sighting indeed – a Mercury Meteor. It shows up on this video more often than I’ve seen one for real.
Easily the most spectacular machine in the film is this beautiful ’63 Thunderbird Sports Roadster, a rare model in its final year of production. As the owner of a ’63 hardtop myself, I had to pause the video several times to check it out, as its appearances are few and short.
Here it goes, flashing by Mr. Smith, who is undoubtedly disappointed in the Bird owner’s apparent hurry.
Here is a lightly traveled expressway, maybe the Southfield Freeway in Dearborn, where a ’63 Comet convertible and what looks like a ’63 Falcon Futura are approaching in the center lane, with Mr. Smith’s Galaxie not far behind. You can guarantee, however, that he’s following at a safe distance and leaving himself an out. You can also guarantee that this freeway is far more crowded today.
Yes, a lot of nerdy fun is packed into roughly eight minutes and eleven seconds here. I’ve attached the video below, courtesy of a channel that is appropriately titled “US Auto Industry”; the still images are taken from this video. Watch it and learn something, or at least travel back to a time when a cool T-Bird sighting happened more than once in one day.
All I remember from Driver’s Ed class (1972) were the gory blood-and-guts accident photographs. This when such explicit images were rare in mainstream movies, really only starting with The Godfather which came out that year. Oh, and I recall our teacher telling us about tires, and not to trust the “ply rating” but to find out the actual number of plies. “Because a 4 ply rated tIre with only 2 plies isn’t the same as a true 4 ply tire!” I suspect that none of those plies were radial, let alone steel.
The Smith System was still very much de rigueur when I took Driver’s Ed back in the ’80s. I remember well watching the movies and spotting what were, even back then, the very old cars.
Yes, I remember watching similar movies in Driver’s Ed in 1989. I recall one scene told listeners that when parallel parking, to always exit on the curb side of a car by sliding across the bench seat. A good idea, but not quite current for the 1980s.
But other than being outdated, a lot of the concepts were sold – my father taught me many of the same strategies when he was teaching me to drive (I took Driver’s Ed after getting my license).
And I did know someone who blew her horn excessively at both pedestrians and cars, to “warn them” of her presence. It was incredibly embarrassing to ride with her.
I sometimes use a “newer” version of the Smith System in my commercial driver training. Dates back to 2005 and uses the same principles. Some of the footage on the dvds date back to 1995! Great in concept but very drab and it puts my drivers to sleep. This version uses a helicopter to track one of Mr. Smith’s descendants as he drives a box truck and a tractor trailer locally and on the interstate. Perhaps the newest version uses a drone!
We were taught the Smith System when I took drivers ed in Ontario in the summer of 1980. As I recall, he liked to use the horn a lot, which became something of a running gag with my cohort. We used a text titled “Power Under Control” which was Ontario-specific and dated from the early ’70s.
The Smith System is still in use by many fleets. It works.
I never took drivers ed in high school. With my background involving race tracks, I would have been teaching the instructor how to drive.
‘Signal 30′ (1959) was one of them shown in my drivers ed class. The film was fifteen years old, about the same age I was. I found the shots of the cars’ undercarriage fascinating because they all looked the same. Front engine, rear wheel drive, solid axle, leaf springs.
Of course, as a fifteen year old I was invulnerable.
One thing you didn’t mention was the sudden jump cuts from traffic to a full-frame closeup of Smith’s face. Every time it happened my mind envisioned the MST3K guys’ “GAAH!” reaction.
Those closeups are shockingly close. 🙂
Our company had a fair number of company cars and semi trucks, 200 or more in total. We’d had a slowly increasing accident rate. Though mostly minor, some could have been far worse. I became concerned and pulled together a few key people to address the issue.
We chose a Smith-based on-line training program, required for all drivers of company vehicles. Further, if a driver had an accident judged serious or potentially so, he would get an in-vehicle instructor for a couple days.Very quickly after implementation, our incident rate dropped like a rock.
I personally found the Smith program very helpful in my driving as well, despite an accident-free driving record (up to the point recently that I was t-boned by an elderly guy running a light). A reminder of the basics is never a bad idea.
Jeff, I believe the concepts are good and press our drivers to use them. I’ve found the JJKeller stuff a little more to my liking though. The “ leave yourself an out” was something my Dad stressed to me. Still use it everyday and it’s saved my but more than a few times.
Today’s big problem that I didn’t notice if Smith touched on -well, besides inattention- is lane control. Drivers don’t stay in their own lanes, particularly when rounding curves or corners.
With most roads and vehicles there’s no reason that two or a dozen vehicles, (however many lanes there are) can’t simultaneously round a corner, each staying in their own lane. Then the “wanderers” have the audacity to toot at drivers who do stay in their own lanes. Crazy. It’s as if they’re too lazy to turn the steering wheel and then want to be angry with someone else about it.
Driving directly down the center of the road in our residential area seems to be increasingly common. With the hills and curves it’s a stupid move, as you cannot see oncoming traffic. And yes, some people really looked pissed that they have to drive on their own side of the road when an oncoming car forces them to get over.
As my high school buddy used to say “He’s taking his half of the road right out of the middle!”
Honestly, the roads where I live are so bad that driving in the middle of the road is sometimes your only option if you don’t want to bend a rim.
I took driver’s ed at age 15 in the summer of 1965. We were shown this film – it must have been a fairly recent release at the time. I alluded to it in my post re Jim Klein’s piece on the London to Bath film earlier this month. At the time I couldn’t remember the title of the film or quickly find it via Google so thanks Aaron – great fun to see it again all these years later.
Over many decades of driving I continue to find these techniques very helpful, the best of which is Get the Big Picture, a renewable strategic plan each time you get behind the wheel. I will say that my plan for avoiding roadside distractions would fail if a Thunderbird Sports Roadster (and with the tonneau cover installed!) entered the scene☺.
I have memories of these movies from driver’s ed. A hot humid summer day inside a stuffy classroom without air conditioning, watching these reels with the lights out. A perfect formula for snoozing. However, I remember the principles, and still use them. This is a great piece, worth bookmarking.
Thanks!
I just noticed that the drivers don’t seem to be honouring the move to the right rule unless passing. Perhaps that wasn’t a big concern in those days.
Dark tinted glass which is so common today prevents the “Make sure they see you,” habit.
Staying out of other drivers’ blind spots is a great idea. I practice it constantly. I eliminate my own blind spots by adjusting my side view mirrors way out so I can see behind and to the side. I do find however all those “other drivers” have never taken the Smith System! 🙂
Great post Aaron, Thank You!
This should be modernized and shown to new drivers today, especially the DISTRACTION part… Feature mobile phones and why they are evil in cars…
ok, end rant.
While I do not recall this movie, I have a feeling I watched it, as I use these principals every day, even the friendly tap on the horn if I have doubts about another driver seeing me. But that part I didn’t learn in driver’s ed; I learned that when a friend was teaching me to ride a motorcycle. If someone pulls out on you and you hit them with your car, you’ll likely live to tell about it. But on a bike? Yeah, if I don’t see your eyes on me, you’re getting the horn. Although I don’t ride anymore, I still do this in my car and my wife wonders why, citing the same thing you did about drivers with guns. I told her I learned this long ago driving a motorcycle.
Always scanning the mirrors and road ahead is another really important one. Again, my wife is like, “Don’t worry about the person behind you.” Really?!?!?! – I’ve been rear ended by an inattentive driver. It was not fun.
The movie seared into my brain from driver’s ed featured the dangers of driving while tired. I still can’t unsee the two guys driving along in their ’59 Buick, the driver falling asleep at the wheel, and subsequently being impaled by the steering column, with the passenger being thrown clear… yeah… clear to his death! That was when the whole “scared straight” thing was so popular, even in Driver’s Education.
Oh, and I’m surprised that Jason hasn’t chimed in yet. Mr. Smith’s ride is Mr. Shafer’s very own CC!
You’re welcome… 🙂
Driver’s Ed = 1969 for me; I remember scary “Signal 30” (being an Ohioan), but not Smith System, despite being only hours from Dearborn.
I’ve driven enough in SE MI to vaguely recognize the “look,” if not specific locales. At one point we drive past “Keim Realty,” “Logan Glass,” “Dearborn Pharmacy,” and the “Wrigley” grocery (?) mart in short order; here’s another photo from the area not too much later.
Those cars look very, very new, and it was fun to see the odometer close-ups with barely forty miles turned…..
Yikes—-gotta remember this is all nearly sixty years ago now!
The Smith System and that film were part of Driver Ed at Bishop Union High School in Bishop, California in the fall of 1971. I still practice it. The only at-fault accident I’ve had was a single car-into-snowbank thing 43 years ago. I was going too fast on a slushy road near Mammoth Lakes. I was rear-ended in Reno in ’82, but the only way out of that would have been to run the red light at which I was stopped, and that would have been worse.
I’ll give Smith credit for one thing, he probably made a pile of money with the simple old recipe of taking a little common sense and adding a lot of BS.
The article I referenced alludes to this; he trademarked his system and spent the rest of his life defending his trademarks. I wish I were that smart!
Something I’ve never seen taught, I wonder how many others do this…
When traveling a freeway with “blind” on-ramps, by looking waaaay ahead at surface street traffic, even though you can’t see the on-ramp, often you can predict if you will be meeting an incoming merging vehicle from the ramp.
This brought back memories. I took high-school driver’s ed in the summer of 1969, with the gym teacher leading the class, as was quite common back then. Either the Smith System was included in the textbook or we were shown this film; I don’t recall.
It’s a good system as far as it goes, but the problem is that at this time (early-mid 60s), the scientific study of auto and highway safety was in its infancy. It was thought that the answer to rising US highway deaths (both in absolute terms and as measured in deaths per capita and deaths per 100 million miles driven) was to improve the drivers, not the vehicles or the roadway/roadside.
Of course the auto companies were only too happy to oblige in this, as it absolved them of the need to build safer products. Just get all those idiots behind the wheel to behave better! (The billboard pictured would have been appropriate for those times; ironically I saw this along an Ohio road in 2007!)
It was at this time that Congress began to take an interest in the subject and then a young lawyer named Ralph Nader released his book. LBJ signed into law the establishment of the federal Department of Transportation, under which the predecessor to today’s NHTSA was formed. The first set of vehicle safety standards went into effect as of Jan. 1, 1968.
We also have roadway features that contribute to decreased fatality and injury risk — Jersey barriers, stronger guardrails with energy-absorbing ends, and crash cushions in front of abutments.
We know today that this holistic approach to vehicle and highway safety has greatly reduced the death toll.
Closely aligned to my system of:
1. both hands on the wheel at 3 and 9
2. all distractions put away
3. constantly scan forward, left, right, rear view mirror
4. keep a clear view 100 yards ahead as in no trucks blocking my vision down the road
5. expect many to do something stupid
6. always know where your outs are and the accelerator is your friend, not your brakes
^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^
Well said, tbm3fan!!!
The farmer is wearing a classic. Probably either a Artcraft Clubman or Shuron Ronsir Zyl. Very old frames still mad today.
And once again I am amazed at the depth of non-automotive knowledge some of us have. Optician?
Excellent road sights there, thank you. That’s pretty much what I recall from driving school in the ’80’s along with specifically calling out the dash gauges as one of the things to have an eye glance at while “making the rounds” visually. Unconsciously I still seem to do all that these days.
We got the Smith System and some assorted horror films in community college driver’s ed in 1981. We also had to write a paper, I did a critique of air bags, quoting heavily from Road & Track.
One of the first driving directives my dad gave me was “always leave yourself an out,” and now I’m sure he watched Smith’s films at Flint Northern High School in 1959. Here’s a photo of him with his folks’ Chevrolet on prom night that year. Next month, after sixty-two years of driving and no accidents, he’s reluctantly agreed to hand over the car keys for good.
At approximately 4:25 they talk about a hazard ahead. I don’t think they were too bright making the hazard a broken down Ford with it’s hood up blocking a lane.