A Fun Peek at the Ways Driving Was Different Was Back When There Was a Baby Boomer on Board
It wasn’t merely that cars were different back in the Baby Boom era. The whole experience of riding, driving and just being in a car was nothing like it is today.
In the pop culture trivia game Boom Again, we revisit all the fun and experiences of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ’70s.
So let’s take a minute here to remember what it was like in cars back when there was a Baby Boomer on board.
You probably knew how to drive a stick shift.
Even though only about 2 percent of cars today have a manual transmission, they were the more common option in the boom era. For many boomers—even if the car they learned to drive on was an automatic—it was a rite a passage to make sure they also knew how to drive a stick. After all, otherwise how could they properly peel out like A.J. Foyt driving in the Indianapolis 500?
You’re familiar with the line, “Don’t make me turn this car around.”
Today “Baby on Board” stickers are meant to protect the child inside the car. Back in the day, if there had been a “Baby Boomer on Board” sticker, that more meant the parents weren’t going to take any horsing around from the kids. Or for that matter, any guff, back-talk or shennenagins.
The threat to “turn this car around” was usually an empty one, but—if delivered properly—scared you quiet. Especially because it was often accompanied by the parent swatting a hand toward the back seat without even bothering to turn around.
Seat belts were optional.
Seat belts only became mandatory equipment in the late 1960s, and it wasn’t until the ‘80s that you were required to wear one. There’s a good reason it’s the law for the driver and all passengers to wear one, but it wasn’t the norm back in the boom era.
Most likely, your childhood was filled with bouncing around the back seat, or the back of a pickup, or squeezed into the front seat between your parents—no belt in sight.
There weren’t any digital distractions to keep you entertained.
Parents have no idea how easy they have it today—especially on road trips. Kids now spend their time headphones on, noses buried in an iPad, poking around on their cellphones, or watching a movie on the vehicle’s built-in backseat screen.
Back in the Boom era, it was much more of a challenge to keep amused on the drive. It could also be a lot more fun because—maybe we didn’t have handheld video games—but we had car games.
Some of the best games prompted you to actually engage with other people in your car as well as the outside world. For example, one of the most popular car games was the ABC game, where everyone would look at signs, billboard, bumper stickers, etc. and shout out as they found letters of the alphabet in order.
Sure, sometimes we were painfully bored driving without digital distractions, but often it was fun to actually look up and see the sights.
A Baby Boomer on board meant you pumped your own gas.
Younger people today would be astounded to learn there was a time when you pulled up to a gas station and someone trotted out to pump your gas for you—and maybe even clean your windshield. As we’d say back then, it was a gas having someone handle that chore.
Then came the gasoline shortages of the 1970s, which caused such a spike in gas prices that stations looked for ways to keep prices lower. Service was the first to go.
We didn’t have SUVs, but we had “the way, way back.”
Families were bigger back then (hence the term “baby boom”), and a popular vehicle at the time that you don’t see much of anymore was the station wagon.
For kids, the best part of the station wagon was sitting not just in the back, but in the way, way back—the fold down seat in the absolute rear of the vehicle that sometimes even faced backwards.
You could be a little louder, wrestle your siblings a little more wildly and—most importantly—were out of smacking distance from any parents’ hands swatting back toward you.
And a few other fun things that happened when there was a Baby Boomer on board…
How about drive-in movies? Drive-up restaurants (especially the ones with bellhops on roller skates)? Piling too many people into a convertible? Cruising the boulevard? “Parking?”
What other things can you remember about cars and driving back in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s?
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