When I was growing up, my best friend just happened to be the kid who lived kiddie corner from my house, or as the Instagram quips might say, “What luck that my best friend would live so close!” Even more fortunate, my friend’s mother worked at the local Secretary of State office; therefore, every year, she would bring me a copy of What Every Driver Must Know. As a preteen in the late 1980s, I would go home and read all the new changes in state vehicle code and make sure I knew the basic rules of the road. Little did I know, however, that Michigan had been publishing this same book for years. When I found a 1974 copy at a local swap meet for a dollar a few years ago, there was no way I couldn’t relive those dorky days of my youth. The 1974 copy was better than the ones I remember, however, because the illustrations within held mysteries of the noblest sort.
Even though most rules have been an anathema to me, I’ve always found the rules of the road to be fascinating. My parents even bought me this popular-at-parties board game, which I still have, and which my lovely bride will still play with me on a very limited basis, such as during the bleakest days of a pandemic. She’s a good player, but the game hasn’t quite won her over.
Nevertheless, there was a familiar face in my new swap meet find: Mr. Richard H. Austin, Michigan’s Secretary of State from 1971-1995 (he passed in 2001 at the age of 87). This is the same picture that the office was using in the late 1980s, so Mr. Austin must have liked it. It looks like he’s driving an upscale Ford of some sort.
The 1974 edition uses illustrations that could only be the product of a late-1960s or early-1970s artist. Seemingly hastily drawn, the images depict Detroit product mashups with a few more flattering portraits thrown in for seemingly no reason at all. The car above resembles an early-1970s Matador to me from the front, but only vaguely.
As an aside, the Secretary of State plays fast and loose with capitalization throughout the booklet. Grammar is a slippery slope, kids.
Motorcycles and minibikes were popular throughout the 1970s, so it makes sense that information about your motorcycle endorsement was located early on, page 13 to be specific. Any ideas on the brands?
This truck is obviously a GMC with nothing to hide but an emblem.
On the other hand, this slowpoke who’s clogging the lane and infuriating their fellow motorists is driving a, a…Montego? It’s not quite clear.
In the signaling section of the booklet, Dodge must have given the “all-clear” on copyright infringement, as a Dart and a Challenger bookend another motorcycle.
Under “passing,” we have some cars with vague GM styling cues, paired with a ’64 Pontiac on the bottom of the page.
Here we can see some more mashups, such as the car on the bottom of the page: Is that a ’62 LeSabre or a ’72 Impala? Maybe both?
A 1969 or 1970 Ford wagon has been parked by a very inconsiderate motorist on the top left; the others are harder to “box in.” Is that a ’68 or ’69 Buick Skylark or Special on the lower left, with the rear end of a ’67 or ’68 Chrysler nearby?
Here’s a real-life picture of a ’69 Ford wagon (from bangshift.com) for comparison. I wouldn’t mind driving one of these.
I think we have a 1970 Chevelle on the top right, and a Chevy Colonnade sedan with a missing rear door on the bottom right. Maybe a ’67 Chevelle on the bottom left?
Then, we have some obvious Chrysler product placement with a ’71 or ’72 Charger parallel parked incorrectly (?). It’s tough to tell. Any firetruck fans in here who can give us more information on that illustration?
This “cutaway” hardtop looks like a vague cross between a 1967 or 1968 Mercury and a GM A-Body hardtop from 1966 or 1967.
Is it a Pontiac?
I’ll lean toward the Mercury.
This faceless gentleman could be driving a ’67 Camaro or maybe the never-made ’67 Nova convertible.
More Chrysler product placement: That’s definitely a 1972-1974 Plymouth Barracuda. Is that a ’69 Chevy sedan on the top left?
Here is a rare 1970 Chevy Nova/AMX mashup that’s gone off the road in a cloud of dust. Look up from your phone, joker!
Uh-oh. The owner of this 1967 or 1968 Buick Electra has run into some trouble on the highway. Or is it something else?
This one is as shadowy as a dusky road: The grille resembles that of a 1963 Galaxie, but the bodyside is too swoopy for that.
No idea…this could be anything.
My wife has been considering the purchase of a 1970s Rupp snowmobile; she had one in her youth, and I can’t argue that we’d have a great time. Any snow machine fans in here who can identify this drawing? Maybe a Ski-Doo?
Michigan’s booklet even covers watercraft; after all, we are the “Great Lake State” and are also home to more than 11,000 inland lakes (five acres or larger).
In addition to the illustrations of cars, boats, trucks, and snow machines, What Every Driver Must Know is filled with 79 pages of road signs, driving tips, and other such minutiae. If you feel the need for more rules in your life, or are just looking for a nerdy diversion from your day-to-day travails, find yourself an old copy. If you want a more up-to-date version that is not nearly as entertaining, it is now on the internet, which is not nearly as romantic. See the link below:
Click to access wedmk_16312_7.pdf
No small cars at all. No Gremlins, Hornets, Vegas or Pintos, let alone foreign invaders.
Austin seems to be buckling a three-point belt, but the big three had those horrible separate shoulder belts in ’74. AMC had the three-point belt, ahead of the game on safety as usual.
You may be off by a year. I think those belts went away earlier than that. My ’74 Malibu had three point belts for the front driver and passenger positions. I believe ’74 was also the first year for the seat belt ignition interlock (which lots of people bypassed).
Yes, 1974 was the first model year for mandatory 3-point lap/shoulder belts. None of the domestics, AMC included, used them before. As we know from extensive discussion on CC, the separate shoulder belts had no retractors and were ignored by almost everyone. 1974 was also the year of the ignition interlock, Ford’s bright idea to forestall mandatory frontal airbag installation.
Yep, my ’74 Firebird has three-point belts, and it (at one time) had the ignition interlock, but I imagine it was bypassed soon after the original owner bought it.
Yep, my ’74 Firebird has three-point belts, and it (at one time) had the ignition interlock, but I imagine it was bypassed soon after the original owner bought it.
Motor Trend published an article on how to defeat the system in each US brand of cars as the repeal of the interlock reg allowed the system to be defeated in cars that already had it.
“1974 was also the year of the ignition interlock, Ford’s bright idea to forestall mandatory frontal airbag installation.”
FORD was responsible for that?
Bastages.
Ford–and Firestone–are to blame for Tire Pressure Monitoring Sensors (TPMS) on post-Exploder vehicles. (i.e., Ford’s “roll over and play dead” SUVs.)
Ford and Firestone should be forced to pay for every TPMS device ever installed, as OEM or as a replacement. Labor charges, too.
Page 53, upper left … agreed, it’s certainly a full-size ’69 Chevy, but an economical* Biscayne or a sporty* Bel Air, rather than a luxurious* Impala or even a Caprice. The courteous driver is clearly slumming it a bit.
*These adjectives are from a 2-page spread in LIFE magazine, advertising the new Chevrolet lineup for 1963. This was pre-Caprice, and thus I have no descriptor.
Here’s a word I don’t like but it might work: sumptuous. 🙂
Seems appropriate to include watercraft.
Michigan has a higher percentage of water area than any other state and ranks #2 (after Alaska) for absolute water area. Supposedly it is impossible to be further than 7 miles from a body of water while in Michigan.
Not sure why, but that bit of trivia has always impressed me even though I have never lived in Michigan.
I’ll take any win for the home team. An added bit of trivia (from memory): I believe only one county (of 83) in Michigan doesn’t have a lake.
Wow – that’s a great bit of geographic trivia. I wasn’t able to find an actual answer for that question online, but it seems that Sanilac County may the the one without a lake. I either saw lakes listed in geographic references, or on Google Maps, for all of the other counties. Of course, Sanilac is on the Lake Huron’s shores, so calling it Michigan’s lakeless county is bit of a misnomer.
I thought it was Osceola County, but it was in a book of cheap stuff to do in Michigan that I haven’t read in 20 years or so.
Could be. I didn’t do too technical of an analysis, and I’m sure the definition of “lake” is open to interpretation.
There’s a list of Michigan Lakes on Wikipedia, here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lakes_of_Michigan
…I sorted that list by County, and there were six counties not represented there. Osceola was one of them, and the only inland county (Arenac, Macomb, Menominee, St. Clair and Sanilac were the others). For each of those I just pulled up Google Maps and looked within their boundaries. It looked like all of them except for Sanilac had internal lakes… at least as ID’d by Google Maps.
But I have no doubt that various Michigan historians / geography experts will have varying opinions as to what exactly constitutes a proper lake, and whether a county bordering one of the Great Lakes would count, since that county would technically have water area on the lake. Nothing’s ever easy.
One more fun item on Michigan lakes — I came across this photo recently… from a magazine for license plate collectors (it’s a 1939 Michigan license plate on the car). Tough folks in those days. My mother-in-law grew up in northern Michigan, and still enjoys swimming in cold water.
Great picture! Check out the onesie/wrestling outfit on the guy on the passenger side of the Chevy!
I think people in the north HAD to do stuff like this; otherwise, they’d be inside the house eight months of the year. 🙂
Style points for creating an ice-block border on their swimming pool…
The Chevy colonnade sedan with no rear door (which is how I saw it too) is a 1974 Chevelle.
Odd lack of illustrations or photos in the current version.
“Odd lack of illustrations or photos in the current version.”
Yeah, I think people are just no fun anymore. 🙂
I read that same book in driver’s ed, in 1969.
The Michigan hand signals: hold left arm out horizontal for either left or right turn, was confounding and confusing. Seems the rest of the world had distinct hand signals for right and left, but not Michigan. Michigan finally joined the rest of the world somewhere along the line.
The registration fee schedule shown is based on vehicle weight. When cars started downsizing, but the price was soaring, the state changed to assessing the registration fee on the original sticker price of the car.
For years, when I went to the SoS office to renew my license, I had to take a shortened version of the driver’s test. That went by the wayside long ago. Now, seems if your license has not been revoked, and you have the money, they renew your license. I can’t believe how many cars blow past a school bus that is stopped with red flashers running.
By the time I was reading these booklets, Michigan had changed their hand signals to be more universal, thankfully.
My old cars are still licensed based on vehicle weight, which is why my Special, T-Bird, and (surprisingly) Firebird cost up to 20 dollars more than the others.
Mr. Austin appears to be preparing to pilot a 72-73 Thunderbird. A Mark IV for the public servant. I agree with the comment above, that shoulder belt appears to have the elastic loop for hanging, making this photo perhaps the only one in existence anywhere of someone using a shoulder belt in a pre-1974 American car.
High on the list of little things that irritate me was that 1970s fad that avoided using capital letters for titles and headings.
My Dad was a fan of seat belts. In city driving, everyone in his 68 Nova had to wear the lap belt. And when out on the road, the driver and the front passenger had to also wear the shoulder belt. I wonder why he wouldn’t use the shoulder in the city, as there was probably no more than a 200 mile vacation trip per year at the time, while as a doctor doing many house calls (that was a thing here in Uruguay, and still is sometimes) he’d drive about 10K a year.
“High on the list of little things that irritate me was that 1970s fad that avoided using capital letters for titles and headings.”
I feel like that’s making a comeback, unfortunately. People are also not using apostrophes where they should be used; up until recently, they used them when they shouldn’t!
not 2 mention 4matting everything like ur sending a txt.
And the obnoxious trend that Looks. Like. This.
And companies expecting their random-ass capitalization to be used not just on their building and in their logotype, but in every text-based mention of their name: ams OSRAM; HELLA; XenomatiX.
And people saying “O.G.” when they mean original.
Now get the hell offa my lawn.
At one point in the mid 90s, Michigan had the highest number of registered boats, surpassing Alaska, Hawaii, and Florida. Might still be true today…
Interesting that in Michigan the Department of State was responsible for driver licensing. Here in California, it’s primarily elections along with a random potpourri of other functions, including licensing notaries, managing Advanced Health Care Directives, and running the State Museum (which despite being a lifelong resident, I didn’t know existed). Our DMV reports directly to the Governor. And all its documentation refers to “driver’s licenses” with the possessive.
In Colorado, the DMV is a division within the Department of Revenue. Seems like an appropriate assignment given automotive related revenue seems a greater concern or the legislature over vehicle safety or road maintenance…
Michigan has no vehicle inspections or, in most cases, road maintenance either!
The dashboard on the Rules of the Road game is from a Mercury Marquis, but the steering wheel looks like it’s from a circa-1975 Pontiac.
As Steve comments above, this is super lame. It’s completely thoughtless, unreasonable, and stupid; a single signal that could mean four different things means nothing at all; it is not a signal.
Uhh…sure, that’s nice advice, but anyone following it would be limited to about 30 or 35 mph under ideal conditions of a straight, flat road in clear weather. Even today’s much more powerful low beams are intrinsically, geometrically limited in the seeing distance they can provide; everyone routinely overdrives their headlights.
That’s more than lame (the single hand signal); it’s mind-boggling, stupid and dangerous. Frankly, I’m very surprised; I assumed that the traditional hand signals were essentially universal, and widely used before turn and stop lights.
I still use them when riding my bike, and sometimes in my truck, as the turn signals didn’t work for a while. But I have doubts that most folks knew what I was doing with my left hand.
That reminds me of that videoclip from the band Geggy Tah titled “Whoever your are”.
Wow…I haven’t seen that video in years!
You might also remember these Disney shorts we saw on Driver’s Ed like “Freewayphobia”, “Goofy’s Freeway troubles” and “Motor Mania”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjZR7sWMSAo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUrD0MEUMFk
Memories. I too grew up in Michigan in this era. That boat looks looks vaguely Chrysler like (Chrysler trivia : Chrysler Marine was the very first company to make there own boat/motor/trailer under one roof available as 1 stop shopping) . That fire truck used a “Chicago cab” used by most notably Hendrickson’ Diamond T, REO and Diamond REO but gained biggest fame as an International DCO or VCO/CO series. (And the “Emeryville” OTR line)(The horizontal grille bars suggests REO in this situation )(There was a Diamond REO version made totally of Royalex plastic)This cab won many industrial design awards and has been copied by manufacturers all over the world. The quarter wing vent that dips down below eye sight for clear unobstructed mirror usage is almost ubiquitous on 60-90s Asian truck cabs. P/S Mr. Austin’s big claim to fame was that he led the charge on lap and shoulder belt usage and kept a close watch on airbag development details. He was an outspoken advocate of passenger restraints.
Great find!The early and mid 70s seemed to be the halcyon days for the use of creative commercial illustration in government literature across North America. The illustration style here, often involved using vellum/tracing paper and markers to overlay and loosely trace an existing photo or photos. Lack of styling details prevented copyright issues. While ‘spot’ color in the printing film work, was used to colorize the printed art. Loved brochures like this as a kid, helping inspire me into illustration.
One animated commercial that many Ontarians fondly remember from the early 70s, probably inspired by the Beatles Yellow Submarine, was especially memorable and effective.
I loved those dancing cascade-stacked snow plow ads!
How could you not like that commercial? ’70s animation, a Can Am car, and some subversive snark at the end… 🙂
That green Pontiac is soo beautiful!!
Am I the only one who is having trouble with the whole ‘driver license’ thing? I’m pretty sure if I kept saying that instead of ‘driver’s license’ I’d get called on it or at least looked at askance.
Although “driver’s license” is commonly used in conversational American English, in reality the majority of jurisdictions issue a “Driver License”. That’s what my Oregon license says. What does yours say?
This exchange got me curious — so I looked this up.
Nearest I can tell, it seems that 32 US states use “Driver License” while 17 use “Driver’s License”. Geographically, these states are scattered, though “Driver’s License” is used by only 3 states west of the Mississippi River.
Indiana appears the lone holdout here — looks like the Hoosier State uses “Operator License”. South Dakota changed from Operator License to Driver License about 5 years ago.
Canada appears to be the opposite of the US on this. Among the English-speaking provinces, those from Ontario westward appear to use “Driver’s License,” while the Maritime Provinces use “Driver License” instead.
Mine says Driver’s. Weird.
I got my learner’s permit, then later in the year driver’s license in 1974. We lived in Virginia at the time; schools still did driver’s education and we drove around in the large cars common back then, donated by a local car dealer..such as Monte Carlos, which were hard to see out of in order to do parallel parking. Also recall it getting hot enough one day that they actually called off school..the only time they did it in the 3 years I attended, and it had to happen when I was looking forward to going to driver’s ed…our school wasn’t air conditioned (built in the 50’s) and it did get plenty hot mostly in the spring, since school didn’t let out until June as I remember.
We moved to Vermont the next year, and as I was still young, was required to go through behind the wheel testing again to get my license in Vermont. Only my dear departed youngest sister actually graduated from the same high school that we started, as my Father moved frequently in those years…it was our 2nd time in Vermont (first from 1965-1969).
Remember similar literature at the time that was done by “modern” artwork depictions rather than photographs…probably Virginia had similar instruction books at that time.
It was right after the 1st gas crisis, and I remember another student moaning about having to pay $20 to fill their gas tank…probably not a great time to start driving, but 48 years later, hasn’t been too bad.
I got my learner’s permit in summer of ’74. Similar deal, “Driver’s Ed” was run by the school district, the quarter-credit was specifically required for high-school graduation in my state. I have absolutely no idea how they handled blind students or those otherwise handicapped; I’ve always assumed they got some sort of exemption from that quarter-credit requirement. Vehicles donated by local car dealers. Our only manual-transmission car was–I think–a VW Rabbit. But some sources say the Rabbit didn’t arrive in USA until ’75. This was all just *after* Dirtbag Nixon dropped the speed limits to “55”. The National Mandated Speed Limit stuck with us for twenty-one terrible long years; while state and local governments made a fortune handing out undeserved speeding tickets, and the Insurance Industry made a fortune in premium surcharges for those so-called “unsafe” drivers. When they could no longer claim that it “saved fuel” because there was no evidence of it, they pretended that it “saved lives”. There was no evidence of that, either. (in fact, deaths per mile dropped when the speed limits increased.) It was all Government/Insurance Industry LIES from front-to-back, side-to-side.
Thank God for the National Motorists Association ( https://ww2.mоtоriѕtѕ.org/ ) for leading the movement to repeal that disaster. I’ve been a member of NMA for decades. STRONGLY recommended.