Woman tailed by suspicious truck, 1955

So, the 'hook' was in the last line of the article? Humor? Maybe in '55.

You don't see that happening much today. Most cars and trucks don't have "bumpers."

Bumpers today aren't strong enough to pull anything much less the weight of the vehicle its attached to.

I suspect it was a Ford. A lot of people (me included) don't usually set the brakes when parking a stick shift -- just leave it in gear, and it shouldn't go anywhere. The gears in Ford transmissions were sloppy enough that if she backed into the truck hard, it could easily have slipped into neutral.

@ Phideaux : Should isn't the same as will.

I had a Tempo and someone backed into it and it rolled all the way down the street and ended up in someones front yard. I've put the parking brake on ever since.

@Laz: Never had a problem with any of my many standard transmissions from 1939 Plymouth through my 1973 BMW 2002, and onto the 2005 Toyota.

@Phideaux: If you were parked on a hill did you have the front tire up against the curb???

It was just a pickup truck, not a real truck. If the owner hadn't put it in gear, just applied the parking brake, the parking brakes would be easy to overcome. I mean, who hasn't driven around with their parking brakes on for awhile without noticing?

@Expat47 -- I always point the wheels towards the curb when parking on a hill. Don't know when/why I picked that up; it's just something I do.

@Phideaux: You 'picked that up' because you were taught to actually DRIVE the car instead of just aiming it down the road between the lines like the drivers in the US seem to do these days.

Drunks always had an excuse. A car passes me in the opposite direction with a expired deer on the front hood. I turn and pursue it, while watching it's erratic operation. It finally stops and as the window is rolled down the smell of alcoholic beverages billows out. Woman driving: Officer my husband was too drunk to drive so I am. The deer Ms. how did it end up on the hood I ask? It was drunk and depressed so jumped in front of us to commit suicide. Who was driving? I ask. My husband she says, He then told me he was too drunk to drive. We decided to bring it to the vets in town, ( 30 miles away). Have you been drinking? Not much only a bottle of wine till we hit the deer, then I felt sad so had a couple of beers. I asked her to exit the car and she failed all the roadside sobriety tests in a most spectacular manner. Hubby got out of the car tried CPR on the deceased deer. My back up arrive and broke into uncontrolled laughter. He said, Gator you always get the weird ones. Both were arrested and went to jail for the weekend.

Were you a city cop, a sheriff deputy or a state trooper? Just curious. You have my utmost respect thank you.

Patty,

Thank you for your kind words.

I served as a National Park Ranger for 30 years. A small number of us carried a full federal law enforcement commission to protect the parks and their mostly well behaved visitors from not so nice people intent on evil or illegal deeds or damage to the parks resources, other visitors or themselves. And yes, I spent a number of years scooting across the great swamp on airboats. I could never be so lucky again.

GG

Very cool GG!

@GG
Yeah but what about the deer? Did it make it?
(kidding).

GFinKS,

The deer became a meal for the other creatures of the night in the swamp. Once a car hit a very large wild hog that I figured was 300lbs, totaled the car. The driver was arrested on a outstanding City of Miami felony warrant so the Miami cop who came to pick him up, the tow truck driver and I came to an understanding that being a non-native, exotic animal, the injured hog could leave the park with the tow truck and what happened beyond the park boundary was no concern of mine. I suspect it became a main course at a couple of Bar-B-Que's that weekend.