Long-Legged Safety Check

Do you remember the days of manual transmissions, or ever further back, to a crank-starting vehicle? I was thinking of earlier days, when children often spent the day in the field with Mom and Dad. Daycare consisted of the children riding in whatever vehicle or machinery was being used at the time, or maybe they had a “spot” for play nearby.

Of course leaving children in a vehicle has always been a safety issue, but back in those days there wasn’t much chance the little ones were going to get the car/pickup started and moving. I am sure the little ones were just as observant as they are now, and pretty much knew about turning the key on to make things go, but it would take a lot of cooperation of several little ones to make things move. You didn’t have the safety feature of needing to have things in neutral or park in order to turn the key, but you did have to be long-legged enough to push the starter located on the floor. Then, if you needed to shift gears to move, you had to work the clutch and gear shift together.

Those were the early-day safety features a lot of farm children and parents lived with. Not too many worries about the kids starting the farm vehicle and running into or over things while Mom and Dad were busy working.