I was driving back from an errand when suddenly a childhood memory triggered me to raise my index finger at the next car that came at me from the other direction. Why?
First off, here’s the pickup that was coming down the road towards me. I mean this very one, which I called “That Most Feminine Truck” in its CC. Of course, it’s a close relative to my truck, although mine is a wee bit more butch. Since it was a kindred spirit, I had the impulse to gave a friendly little wave. Do you ever wave at old cars like yours coming the other way?
But just as that impulse erupted, I was suddenly transported back to rural Iowa in the early sixties, riding with Mr. Yoder behind the wheel of his Studebaker pickup. I spent several weeks every summer back then with a Mennonite farm family near Kalona, Iowa, in the seat of one of their old tractors, preferably (full story here). When we’d drive into town or to another farm, Mr. Yoder would raise his index finger at cars, trucks or tractors coming the other way. And just as often, the driver in the other vehicle raised their finger back. The rural-America one-finger wave.
It was only done on the gravel and tarred secondary roads, not on the highway. And it ended as soon as you approached town, or if traffic density somehow reached a certain threshold. Anyway, I’d long forgotten the impulse, but seeing that old Ford truck triggered the memory. Apparently, it’s still going strong in many parts of rural America, but one has to get a lot further out of town for it to be common.
The driver of the Ford truck noticed it at the last second, undoubtedly only because he noticed the similar truck and looked at it and me, and gave a more conventional but restrained hand wave back; maybe not being totally sure I was really waving at him. I wonder if he knows that his truck is famous as “That Most Feminine Truck”, and I’m the one that called it that. He might not have waved back if he did.
So then I pulled over to arrange a quick shoot with my camera of the one-finger wave. Now I just needed a car to come along; the first one turned right at the intersection before it got to me, but the second one was just perfect. But they didn’t even notice my finger.
The one finger wave only works if both drivers are actually looking for it; which is of course what it’s all about. Rural folks expressing interest in each other, by actually taking their eyes off the road to look at the other driver and acknowledge the kinship.
That’s so funny. My dad does that. I remember when I was 6 or so I asked him why he did that? Did he know that person we just passed? He said no, I just waved. I always thought it was just part of a Southern thing, people here in Alabama do it all the time.
Whenever I’m in my aircooled VWs and I see another one on the road, it’s a more enthusiastic wave, sometimes even out the window wave, most of the time reciprocated in the same manner.
I’ll also wave back when someone else is in an old car, maybe even followed by a thumbs up if it’s something I really dig, but I’m more of a quick throw my hand up kinda wave.
Oh and I don’t think the truck is feminine. I think it’s pretty awesome!
It was meant tongue-in-cheek, as so much else that a write. Folks tend to take me too seriously 🙂
There used to be a finger salute like that back when I was a senior in high school and they let students (GASP) drive school buses but only if you were 18. I made $17.42 a day for two trips. Can’t do that now…
I took bus driver training my Senior year, but ended up getting a job bagging groceries instead. The stories I could tell…
My grandparents lived in rural southwestern Michigan. Grandpa’s variation on this was the four-finger greeting, with just his thumb still wrapped around the wheel.
My mother told me that the 4 finger wave that you describe was practiced in her farming community in northwestern Ohio when she was young. Maybe the Lutherans, Methodists and Catholics in the area were just more animated and expressive than the Mennonites in Iowa. 🙂
Speaking of school buses, it’s a tradition for school bus drivers to raise a hand in greeting when you meet another bus. Learned that one REAL quick.
Local LTL and Parcel Freight drivers have a similar wave.
Any kind of local or regional driving job.
When I drove for Campus Bus Service at Kent State…the drivers, especially the girls, would wave each other silly. I thought it a bit odd…they won’t date me or even really talk to me in line at the bookstore; but put me in a bus and them coming in the opposite direction, and alluvia sudden we’re best buds.
I’m all for the fraternity of people facing the same kind of problems or burrs…but that carries it a bit far.
Quite often British car driver’s will give each other a wave. I received quite a few when I had my Spitfire.
NSU Ro80 driver’s used to hold up a number of fingers to each other to indicate how many replacement engines they’d received. I’ve heard rumors that Dodge Caravan owners used to do something similar with transmissions but that seems less likely.
I should have been giving four-finger salutes from my Caravan!
hah!
My only experience with this is a two fingered salute that Jeep drivers give each other. Just “real” Jeeps though, CJs and their descendants. I’ve never owned one, but a friend bought a new TJ when they first came out and would get/give it all the time. He’d get mad when people wouldn’t reciprocate.
Still in use here in Maine, although mostly used by older men. Quite common also to acknowledge road workers and other pedestrians on rural roads. How about tossing the head back when your hands are too busy for the one-finger?
Yes! The head toss!
I vividly remember doing this when I worked summers for the local Parks and Recreation department in high school and college. Once in awhile the director of the department would let us drive his ex-police Dodge Monaco (now painted green) to run some errand or another. We would give a head toss to all the other township owned vehicles – police, board of ed, etc.
We thought we were such a big deal driving that car around town!
Motorcyclists, esp. Harley bikers, wave at each other by extending their arms at an “anhedral” angle. Is this done everywhere?
I know it’s done here. I sometimes get the “Harley wave” from a Harley rider when I’m in one of my VWs. Must be the aircooled connection.
I always have to chuckle when a dude on a big Harley gives me the “wave” when I’m on my Honda CB200T. Aside from the 2-wheeled thing, there is not a whole lot in common.
Most places…in some areas it’s out of fashion. In the South and most of the Midwest, it’s common. In Michigan in particular, it’s gauche…you find yourself giving the index finger to a Harley jockey who ignores it. Not much of the warm-fuzzies there.
Other places…salutes from fellow bikers on diametrically-opposed rides. On my now-departed BMW R1200GS, I’d get Harley greetings. On my Burgman 650 touring scoot, I’d get salutes from the cruisers.
Two wheels, I guess.
Hard to say what you’ll get from a Harley rider when I’m on my Kawi Concours. Usually nothing.
I’ve resorted to giving a little extend the hand beside the handgrip wave to Harleys, if they’re looking they’ll see it, if not, they won’t.
Occasionally if I’m very sure the Harley guys are actually middle class poseurs I’ll wave vigorously, but that can be dangerous with actual bikers.
I also make a point of waving at little kids, they get such a kick out of it.
…Always best understated. Just extend the left hand, index finger pointing at the path his front tire will take. Subtle, subtle…be cool.
Vigorous waving, as you say, is an affront. Might as well have a ten-day tag on your bike….shows you don’t know the ropes.
done all over Texas since I can remember except the interstate and divided highways. Not as common as it used to be but every 3rd or 4th car still a 2 or for finger wave from the wheel. Have not seen it in many other states. Never was vehicle specific in Texas just a courtesy.
I only saw this when driving in the very rural parts of West Texas. On some of those roads you can drive for 20 minutes and not see another vehicle. So when one does, it’s natural to give a wave or some other sort of acknowledgement.
Boaters do this when one boat passes close enough to another that you can see the other boaters’ faces. It’s kind of awkward not to acknowledge them in some way.
The only vehicle specific signal I’ve experienced was when I rode with my father in his Opel GT. Even when they were new, there weren’t a lot on the road. My father often acknowledged other GTs with a flip of the headlamps (and got a similar signal in return).
On Lopez Island, “the friendly island” in the San Juans it is the norm or it used to be years ago. A quick way to tell the tourists, or at least the unfamiliar, from the locals.
It is still pretty common in my neighborhood even though most of us don’t know each other.
Us IH fanatics almost always do a more traditional wave when we pass another IH as do fellow Marauder owners.
Waving to your fellow man on the road, I figured this had to be an article about Iowa 🙂 I also know Yoders from Iowa–large family, small world!
Forgive me, Paul, but before I clicked on the article, I thought you were pointing at the tall tree in the top photo!
Had to wonder what the significance was, but after reading the article – NOW I get it!
There’s the Jeep wave, the Corvette Wave, the Miata/MX5 wave, and the rural wave. Back in the day in Missouri, the rural wave took effect only after you were X-miles off the interstate and major secondary roads in St. Charles county, or out past Warrenton west from St. Louis.
In Ohio, you have to be out well past cities, too, but it’s still done.
Oh, gawd – the Jeep Wave. THE worst part of owning a Jeep…there I am in my retro-poseur YJ-7, no carpeting, soft doors…and some coed cutie in a Mall-Rated Wrangler would be waving frantically. “Lookit me! I’m one of you, too!” Ignoring it felt antisocial; responding felt imbecilic.
Mall-Rated — That’s hilarious! 🙂
+2
I never heard of any certain type of wave until my brother in law bought his Corvette, and he informed me of the wave. As far as my experience, when I had my 66 Deville convertible, there was a guy that had a 68 convertible. We always waved, although we never met.
It’s a rural Canadian thing too; like other commenters have stated, the deeper in the country you get, the more reliably you’ll get a wave.
There’s a scale, or spectrum to it. One finger is just a courtesy, two fingers or more might indicate recognition of an acquaintance, and a full left-hand sweep away from your head towards the side window is full-on rural hospitality! If you have an older truck like mine, you can also do a two-finger by the side window.
In my small town I can get more waves from drivers when I’m on foot than in my vehicle, but it has a lot of city slickers in it now so it’s hit-and-miss.
Have not seen the one-finger salute in these parts.
Back in 1975, I purchased a BMW 2002. There were very few 2002s on the road back then, and owners flashed their lights at each other. This custom pretty much disappeared when the first 3-series showed up in 1977.
I currently drive a 2002 Miata as my summer car, and Miata owners sometimes wave at each other, especially in the springtime. It’s easy to wave over the windshield header. Regularly get spontaneous waves from young kids who spot the car from their front garden or driveway.
The wave is still pretty common here in my part of the Middle West, although I’ve noticed that it pretty much stops once you get on the State road. Everyone has their own distinctive gesture, from the subtle single raised index finger to my own two-raised-finger ‘pitched wrist’ gesture (kind of like flipping a ball out of your hand). The head nod is also common. In nice weather, you wave with your whole hand and arm if you already have your arm on the windowsill.
Folks out mowing their yard will wave big, too (generally older folks on riding mowers).
A neighbor has a restored ’56 Bel Air convertible, and we wave especially big to each other when I’m out raking hay or doing field work on my ’50 8N tractor.
I had a mid-80s Suzuki GS500 ES for a while, and always got waves from other rice-rocket riders. Not so much from the Hog riders, though…
Oh, and when I was driving my ’71 VW bus and the ’64 Beetle that followed it, I always waved at other air-cooled VWs. Same when I first bought my Suzuki – they were a real novelty for the first few months…
As some have stated earlier, the motorcycle wave is still common. I used to ride a tall, plasticky Honda (ST1100), and pretty much everyone waved (except occasionally Harley riders… but even among them, only a tiny minority would hold back).
When I drove through Montana and the Dakotas a few years ago on the interstate, I noticed that people in the right lane would often look to whomever was passing them and give a little nod or smile. Very pleasant.
I hadn’t thought about this in years, but it was the case in rural Minnesota too. We lived 5 miles out of a town of 20 thousand on a RR2, a gravel road. I was used to acknowledge neighbors we knew, or people we curious about. For good neighbors you’d actually slow and stop for a brief “how do ya do”….or even a brief chat.
Miata owners sometimes do this, as with other cultish cars. It used to be that Mark VIII drivers would do that. But as they became mere used cars it lessened.
I used to acknowledge other Falcons, Thunderbirds or Cougars when that was what I was driving…….now it’s ANY classic car 😉
I acknowledge ANY classic car with a hearty “thumbs up” – even Fords (chuckle)!
I think we’re turning you into a Blue Oval Fan Boy!
I do that when I’m out on the Farm-to-market roads and traffic is like a car per 5 miles.
closer to towns I stop doing it. and only wave when I’m out cruising in my old green boat.
I thought maybe you just had to pee.
Drive a british classic everyone waves, Truckies here wave to eachother its just G’Day mate, or CHUR bro, we flick R/H indicators at night when meeting another at night this has been going on since I first saw my dad one finger waving to his mates when I was a kid and long before that,
Cool truck Paul, Buthch Paul? Wait untill you see the LRDG Chevvy if you think your yellow beastie is butch.
Out here on the supposedly friendly left coast, I don’t see it in car. But on bicycle, it happens, at least between roadies. Not so much with mt. bikers.
I do recall my parents waving occasionally in the Philly ‘burbs in the 70s – usually to folks sitting on their front porch though.
Depends on where on the Left Coast. LA? Good luck!
This is typical here in East Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Often when the road is wide enough for opposing cars to pass, mandatory (and rude if omitted) if on narrower ways when one car pulls over to let the other pass…
Fifteen years or so ago, I was driving my gold ’86 Fiero down a rural two-laner in Alabama when I approached — of all things — another Fiero! I don’t much remember the car but I do remember a most attractive female driver. I waved and she vigorously waved back. I looked back through my rearview mirror and saw her hit the brakes.
I was shy and not dating anyone yet still did not stop. She never turned off but her brakelights eventually went out & she continued on her way. I kind of wonder how completely different my life could have turned out had I stopped. She was beautiful from the steering wheel/door sill up.
I’m such an idiot.
That’s how it is with kids.
Some like cars more than girls; or rather, they understand cars better. I can relate…I can relate. A garage queen responds to caresses…and well-used tools…better and more reliably than a high-maintenance lady.
Don’t feel bad. I’ve done this at least once also. I won’t elaborate though as my wife may be reading this… 🙂
Get yer mind out of the grease pit.
A “garage queen” is a toy vehicle that rarely sees the open road. My theory is that a lot of teen males with some disposable funds, buy one as a substitute for a cheerleader girlfriend. Displaced energy…plus, as I noted, a vehicle is easier to love than a hormonally-warped 16-year-old blonde.
A similar story. Driving my 66 Cadillac convertible top down, (at age 28, in 1980), I passed 2 girls in a beater with the roof down. (maybe a Buick midsize.) I waved as I passed them. They both waved as I zipped passed them. As I approached a stoplight, it turned yellow, and I drove through. The girls stopped for the light, and I never saw them again.
At age 28, I was pretty shy. But episodes like this sometimes work for the better. As I grow older, I realize some things are meant to be and some things are not. My guardian angel may have done me a favor, by not meeting the “fun girls” in the old beat up car.
Having been raised in St. Louis, it took me some time to get accustomed to the “steering wheel wave.” Now, after years of life in rural Mo. and Iowa, I can show a quick flash of fingers off the wheel almost without thinking.
When I lived in northern BC, it was common on the Alaska Highway to acknowledge oncoming motorists, particularly if thier headlights were on in daylight which was the local thing to do at the time. It was also a given that you stopped and offered help if someone appeared to be having trouble. I don’t know if it’s still like that or not, different time and place. Truckers in these parts still do it, although it’s getting more common to get no response. Not as many old-timers around I guess.
I do a lot of driving, mainly in the mid-Atlantic from my Home base in Southeastern PA to Philly, up to the New York area and down to the DC area. I dare say that the other kind of one finger salute is the only one that you are likely to see here. But the Jeep wave is around, as is the Harley/motorcycle thing, and sometimes a wave or thumbs among classic car drivers. It’s been a while since I’ve had one of the 60’s Mustangs that I have owned on the road, but I have exchanged waves or thumbs up with other classic cars. I’ve also done the thumbs up to classic cars drivers when in my daily driver, but I’ve stopped because it makes you feel like a tool when you are sitting in a Nissan Altima. 🙂
There was a Prius wave the first year 2000-2001 when they were new and rare. That’s long gone. I saw my first Tesla S on the street recently and gave a happily received big thumbs up to him.
I always give a thumbs up to a fine classic on the road. Went nuts over the Studebaker Starliner convertible I encountered on the freeway, as written in that post. I like to express my appreciation and gratitude for a classic driver’s good taste and work.
I wouldn’t dare give a single-finger salute for fear of misinterpretation.
The one-fingered salute isn’t a rural American thing, it’s just a rural thing. As a youngster I would spend a few weeks each summer in Wales , riding in a car with my favourite uncle, and discovered the habit there. When I moved from London to rural Ireland I found myself adopting the same habit – for greeting neighbours on backroads. On main roads one flashes the headlights to greet a close friend or acknowledge a seriously cool car , as a one fingered salute wouldn’t be spotted at speed.
It’s common in the rural farmlands of MN too. The older the driver, the more likely you’ll get the salute reciprocated.
I had the finger wave the other week by a fellow 64-66 GM truck driver.
I parked next to a ’88 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight in my Electra a few weeks ago.
We didn’t wave, just exchanged awkward glances with each other.
It’s a 1st gen C-body thing.
That’s pretty funny!
Just for completeness, I’ll confirm that this is (or was) was a standard thing on rural roads in eastern Colorado. When I lived in Denver, I’d sometimes head out on the plains (instead of the mountains like everyone else) for a Saturday drive and I’d get the four finger flip like crazy. As it was 1980 and I was helming a ’78 Malibu sta wag, I’m pretty sure they weren’t saluting my choice of ride.
In Central Wisconsin, the wave is still in practice, although the method varies. Where I grew up, in Central Pennsylvania the two-fingers off the wheel wave is most prevalent.
In rural North Dakota, where the occasional oncoming vehicle is most likely being driven by someone you know (personally!) a wave is pretty much standard operating procedure. For me, that courtesy is usually extended to just about everyone. “City folk” and persons with limited peripheral vision are the ones who typically don’t return the greeting…
Also common in rural Australia where I grew up, although it seems like people try to keep it a locals-only thing and don’t wave to a strange car. You also get a lot of waves in a classic car, especially in a group on a weekend club run.
My grandfather used to do a vigorous ‘flapping hand’ wave to warn people of a speed trap, instead of flashing the lights which is technically illegal.
This holds true for the rural parts of Eastern WA as well – which I used to traverse (at extralegal speeds in places) on my way to and from WSU in Pullman. It’s been too long to remember exactly what the specific gesture was, but I remember thinking that it was weird that so many people were waving to me.
Back then most people would appreciate the warning, if you know what I mean, when you had half a chance of spotting a policeman on the side of the road with a radar gun. Now they have mobile radars mounted on the cars, and can get you from a mile away (literally) while driving towards you, and they aren’t unknown on back roads either.
Saw this just yesterday, in Surrey, England. Driver of a Mk I Healey Sprite exchanging the knowing forefinger with driver of a Morris Minor. We are old car guys.
The Healey was, of course, open to the elements, whereas the Minor probably only felt as though it was. But both so much more desirable and distinctive than the rest of the silver boxes littering the road.