A/V Geeks (not) at the Hunt Library

okay here we go okay welcome to av geeks at the hunt library not at the hunt library i'm jason evans growth from nc state university libraries and this is our 15th semester of this series partnering nc state folks with raleigh's av geeks to discuss vintage educational and classroom films as a reminder skip alzheimer founder of av geeks is an nc state alum and for the last few decades has been collecting films made throughout the last century mostly 16 millimeter educational training and other sorts of what we call ephemeral films he currently houses over 36 000 such films at the av geeks archive here in raleigh and shares them as stock footage for films and exhibits as research material and during public events like this as a reminder we have over 200 of av geeks compilations available for checkout from the libraries and you can also visit avgeeks.com or search for av geeks in youtube or at archive.org but as i said i'm jason and in addition to being the digital media librarian for learning spaces and services at nc state i'm also a reformed small engine enthusiast the same year i began library school i also became obsessed with vintage mopeds a quick point something we'll learn a little bit about today a moped is typically a bike frame style bike with an engine that uses pedals to start the engine and also as your foot pedals as opposed to a scooter which doesn't typically have pedals and can sometimes even go faster but we thought as we celebrate earth day today it might be fun and informative to consider the small engine is it environmentally friendly is it safe these questions and more will be explored over the next hour and so with that i'm going to hand it over to skip to get us started hello skip hi jason um wow you you spun that great like i was afraid like how are we going to spin this in a way that kind of makes sense with earth day like but you did it congratulations i've been thinking about engines for a long time nice um so today we have a couple of different films uh from different sources and most of them are going to deal with either lawn mowers or with scooters or mopeds um and so this first film is uh something from uh the special collections library and it was part of a tv show called aspect of which we've shown a couple of episodes uh clips from episodes in the past the one on rocket model making uh the one on etiquette so this was something that was made by nc state and distributed through the agricultural department of north carolina and was shown on different tv shows or tv stations across north carolina and so this one is um basically about mower safety so it's a short little segment about mower safe let's let's watch aspect the story of agricultural research and development in north carolina produced by the agricultural extension service at north carolina state college in raleigh our host is hal reynolds who has us his special guest today mr howard ellis engineering specialist with the extension service [Music] so [Music] i just realized this is the entire episode and we don't we're not going to dedicate 28 minutes to this so uh let me uh skip ahead a little bit sorry about that unfortunately hell some danger is constantly lurking you know through the crutch and we can stand up and enter first always this is important i've hey there yeah i'm one of those many americans who are presently only in operating motor vehicles i mean motor lawn mowers i've owned and operated one for many years they're very valuable pieces of machinery save a lot of time and a lot of labor however as in the case of most of our modern machines they are potentially dangerous that's what i want to talk to you about when operating one of these machines you must remember there are a number of don'ts among those being that in starting this piece of machinery you should never stand in back nor in the front if you do you're able to find on your lawn a toe or even a foot which moments before was a part of your anatomy now if you want to be safe and operate in this piece of machinery you should put your foot on the side in this manner and spin the machine and that way there'll be no danger of losing a toe now you should never leave this piece of machinery running if you do it might be that your neighbor's child will come over to this attractive nuisance and leave on your lawn a hand or a foot leave with you a potential lawsuit and years of regret now if your lawn happens to be uneven you should mow it sideways and not up and down that also is very dangerous because you have uh the chance of getting unbalanced and falling down and if you do not get cut you may get injured as a neighbor of mine did on one occasion he found himself unbalanced fell down broke his hip resulted in a hospital bill many months in the hospital and a permanent injured hip now another thing you should not do is to operate this thing in a backward motion if it's possible to operate it in a forward motion if you do that you may find yourself also injured as i did on one occasion in a moment of challenges and negatives i pull my more upon my foot which resulted in a hospital bill of some two hundred dollars put me in a cast for some six weeks on crutches for some five or six weeks i don't know if you can see the scar on my foot but maybe i can illustrate by showing you just what did happen uh i cut about a third of my foot off cut this bone here completely into and as i say that was bad enough but it could have been much worse because he could have cut my foot off completely now i'm not telling you folks that you should never buy a lawnmower no operate one i'm simply saying that you should remember the many don'ts involved and be careful and if you do you'll be glad that you did thank you very much you know what loan is really something such as something dangerous i don't mean to laugh at the misfortune of others at all i truly don't yeah well you know i am glad i'm glad to have heard how many things i don't need to do mowing my lawn yeah and um and if there was a chuckle coming out of me there it was more of the surprised look and maybe the really extensively long mic cables those gentlemen were holding in that cornfield yeah and so uh here's a technical thing somebody pointed out so this this was kind of crazy so it was shot on film so they did it locally they did it like on location shot it on film then when they brought when they did the show they did it live so they used what's called a film chain which is an early version of the telesini which is what i got behind me so they broadcast that so they had a live in studio thing then they went to the film chain and played that then they had a 16 millimeter camera hooked up to a monitor and they recorded that as a as a kinescope so it's like this crazy from film to video back to film like immediately so there there's there's the av geeks part of the av geeks i just geeked out a little bit so uh the the lavalier mic that that that the the gentleman performing the safety demonstration had on it was unlike anything i've seen i'm wondering what you know what's capturing the audio 50 feet away right like is that is it a real real tape machine um right i was worried he was going to start the lawnmower with that cord around him yeah and that's the final ending so obviously so uh i have another film that was made by i want to say either iowa university or university of iowa i can't remember which one it was but this one basically talks about and um how dangerous lawnmowers are i mean the fact that you had this uh this powerful engine with this rotating blades that could launch things or you could accidentally reach underneath and um have serious problems i mean it was there was a need for this because a lot of people are getting hurt with this heavy equipment so here's charlie's or mowing lesson for charlie do [Music] [Music] poor charlie it's hot and his old more gets harder to push by the minute if he only had a power more like harry's well why not [Music] so [Music] charlie is about to join the millions of americans who every year turn to rotary power mores to make the job of maintaining a law and a little here unfortunately thousands of people every year turn the job of mowing a lawn into a very hazardous task now the job will be a pleasure that is if charlie follows the simple rules of more safety that operator's manual contains useful information and hints on the right way to use that more oh charlie that's not a good start good for you charlie keep your hands and feet away from the blade area once started charlie stop you're about to run into trouble that hanger can make your more a lethal weapon inspect your lawn before you mow and remove any small objects which you might run over and mowing near other people can be dangerous so this would be a good time to move mother hey charlie don't leave that more running unattended shut it off whenever you leave it even when it is only for a few moments [Music] uh-oh watch yourself on that slope charlie don't mow up and down mow back and forth it's too easy to slip and get your foot caught in the blade when you mow up and down hey charlie charlie charlie watch where you're going pay attention to your mowing you might run into trouble better not charlie tempting as it may be letting children or anyone inexperienced operate your more is a bad practice [Music] it one of the most common more accidents is caused by a person reaching to clear a clog more while it's running stop your mower and disconnect the spark plug before cleaning or making adjustments of any type and never pick up a more while it's running it doesn't pay to hurry when using a power more well just that little patch left charlie pulling that board towards you is just asking for trouble if you slipped and cut your foot under the moor well here let me show you go ahead try it suppose your foot had been inside that shoe let me show you something else remember that clump of grass in the discharge chute go ahead try to clear it with that stick if it can do that to a stick think what it could do to your fingers now take a look at what can happen when you run your mower over rocks or other debris better have some leg protection just a moment there now try really shot it full of holes charlie didn't it you see there are good reasons for obeying the rules of moore's safety [Music] the mowing is done but your job is not in order to be a safe efficient machine you're more needs regular maintenance a point covered in the operator's manual you threw away [Music] hi there charlie at it again i see i hope this time you and your more can do the job as friends not enemies oh charlie your lawn looks pretty nice too so [Music] all right i don't know about you uh jason but um my father was eager for me to learn how to mow the lawn and um mine was not which is why i think i became so obsessed with small engines later how early were how early were you out doing that chore i gotta say i was probably 11. um i mean we didn't have like a big mower and we didn't have a big lawn so it was kind of easy to do that but um yeah i i remember um when i was told how to do that um i mean lawn mowers are so much safer now with the dead bands that you have to hold and all this other stuff but um yeah i actually watching this it occurred to me that maybe my dad was doing me a favor yes um because our pawn was sloped we had an old red toro that um you just turned on and it stayed on um and it's interesting to me and i know we're gonna watch some more but like how similar those two movies we just watched are like like essentially saying the same thing with two different very different characters very different americans but very similar americans at the same time um but yeah i wanted to mow lawns like crazy and now i have no desire to do it at all uh but talk about that later so there's another film i had that i didn't didn't pull but it's basically made for uh young people mostly boys uh by toro on how to uh mow lawns for money and it actually introduces this idea where you take this course on how to do it and safety then you qualify for some sort of loan program where they loan something and i'm sure the parents underwrite it but uh it's uh it was made in the 70s and it was kind of an interesting thing um yeah i mean a thought crossed my mind during that last movie for all sorts of reasons about how it's kind of crazy how dangerous how all this like the stuff in the house is so dangerous you know we're living in these extremely dangerous things we've got these ovens that go to 500 degrees we've got blades spinning at 200 rpms like you know like uh and yet everyone is expected to have one and we do what charlie did and just kind of throw the manual away um funny to me that we aren't just forced for so many reasons for safety and then also environmental safety reasons to just deal with a service i realize we're in a democracy or whatever but mostly a capitalist place that wants us to buy lawn mowers but like that a toro course that teaches young people how to entrepreneurially eliminate the amount of lawn mowers in the neighborhood seems a certain amount of lawnmowers neighborhood seems safe and uh very capitalist in a kind of socialist way no it's it's wonderful and i don't know where it was shown i i got it it was not from a school thing i got it on ebay but it was uh yeah it was interesting to kind of see it and somebody was like somebody at toro was like gotta hit this market and you know we can pre provide a niche and we can also make the kids buy through the parents buy a new toro motor so uh so these next uh series of commercials are sunbeam ads when sunbeam wasn't a household internal um appliance manufacturer but they also made external things and so this is for sunbeam products for your lawn observe a man who mows his lawn the easy way instead of doing this or this he bought this a new sunbeam re77 electric lawnmower no starting problems he just plugs in and mows no gas cans no fumes no engine roar not even a problem with a cord because at the end of the yard he just flips the handle over and starts back again this sunbeam electric mower is powerful enough to take on the thickest grass and yet it's so light he can even talk his wife into using it easy as running a vacuum cleaner she says even in narrow crowded spots all done it stores flat on the wall out of the way why not mow your lawn the easy way got a new sunbeam re77 electric lawn mower a man who loves fine cars will appreciate the superior performance of a sun beam mower he'll appreciate the instant cutting height adjustment the easy way it starts and its responsive controls raise the handle to make itself propel lower it for smooth maneuverable freewheeling a man can't resist trying this son be more himself he's impressed by the governor-controlled sustained power that can't stall even in the thickest grass he'll like the easy cleaning too simply connect the hose to the exclusive under deck minute wash and flush the housing clean in seconds if you appreciate superior performance in cars or mowers you will appreciate this sunbeam power mower complete with grass bag hi i'm his royal sprinters the sunbeam rain king with a sprinkler for every shape of lawn now this is the sunbeam ring king oscillating sprinkler with 45 individual settings this aqua magic control is the secret because it gives you the widest choice of sprinkler settings to compensate for wind dry spots and overshooting if your lawn is small and square set it like this or if it's oblong set it to water the whole area and never waste a drop it's handsome styling makes it a thing of beauty to watch and its complete control saves you water sunbeam also makes traveling and stationary rotating sprinklers whatever shape your lawn is there's a sunbeam rain king sprinkler to fit hi i'm his royals finest the sunbeam rain king with a sprinkler for every shape of lawn beep beep here comes the sunbeam rain king traveling sprinkler just set a path and let her go slowly watering all the way travels automatically sprinkling up to 125 feet even turns corners and shuts itself off automatically the aqua magic dial lets you adjust your watering from 5 to 50 feet for even distribution of water exactly where you want it and you can also use it as a stationary sprinkler time to shut itself off automatically sunbeam also makes rotating and oscillating sprinklers whatever shape your lawn is there's a sunbeam ring king sprinkler to fit it and here's a big extra all moving parts made of a new miracle material tough rust proof sunrun guaranteed five years against corrosion rust and breakage hi i'm his royal sprinters the sunbeam rain king with a sprinkler for every shape of lawn this is the famous sunbeam rain king rotating sprinkler famous for even distribution of water set it to sprinkle a five-foot circle in close areas or up to 50 feet for the wide open spaces here's the secret the aqua magic dial that gives you complete control of the watering range and as professional gardeners know a rotating sprinkler gives the most even thorough distribution of water no dry spots no over soaking sunbeam also makes traveling and oscillating sprinklers whatever shape your lawn is there's a sunbeam ring king sprinkler to fit it and here's a big extra all moving parts made of the new miracle material tough rust proof sun run guaranteed five years against corrosion rust and breakage it's easy to keep your lawn looking like this with a sunbeam gardening team to do the work sunbeam's electric twin blade mower starts at a flip of the switch it's plenty powerful yet so lightweight my wife can run it and put it away this sunbeam electric edger trimmer neatly manicures the toughest overhanging grass then quickly adjusts to get at those tight problem spots hedges are easy to groom with sunbeams electric shrub and hedge trimmer and its pruning saw keeps trees in shape thirsty lawns the sunbeam rain king traveling sprinkler follows any course you set goes around corners up hills even shuts itself off let sunbeam go to work for you they have equipment to suit any lawn and any budget sunron which by the way is a high impact thermoplastic material used in injection molded parts sunlight the uh is a high impact sorry no problem just to let you know if you want to renew the trademark on sunron it was canceled back in 2004 so apparently sunbeam is not using it because i don't think and i don't think they've been making lawn mowers or lawn stuff for a very long time no i don't even know if sunbeam exists anymore in this country yeah i don't know either acquired by black and decker but i i could be wrong about that it could be another household appliance thing but um so you know that wasn't all just about mowers there was definitely things about lawn sprinklers including that brilliant a moving uh lawn sprinkler system so awesome yeah i i think looking watching these three it was really cool to watch those three different things that we watched in a row because it started with a very personal take on lawn safety lawnmower safety like a guy showing us his injury and then the second repeated all those things but in a really madison avenue way we got charlie he's like going to the dealer he's buying stuff he's learning lawn mower safety and then once the sunbeam stuff comes around we have cartoon characters everything looks like a toy i don't know if you noticed but they did not follow the safety rules they were pulling that lawnmower back at them they lifted it up to show us the blades like oh yeah we've gone full american full madison avenue by that last one um you know and you know there's a sense of machismo that exists through all three of them too and it gets charlie it demonstrates it a little but then it gets really it's really big there when when even you know even the wife can hang it up for you yes but those lawn mowers are cool they were 29 pounds like like super lightweight the like there's lots of cool features on that and but they came with a two foot cord so that extension cord they show you'd have to buy that separately um and apparently they were only ten dollars cheaper than the highest the nicest gas mower on the market at that point so not a lot of incentive um right so they had to really go for the advertising i mean i having owned i owned two uh electric lawn mowers and uh they're wonderful man i mean the one i have one with an extension cord and that's a big pain um because you just have to plan how you're mowing and all that but it is glorious not to stink of gas exhaust and smoke um but uh so you had talked about the ecological since earth day is coming up like yeah talking about just the very nature of having a lawn isn't the best uh ecological uh approach yeah you know and um these are just these are engines that i know well that earlier that early toro engine i was the first lawn mower we had was a two-stroke engine meaning that it um it burned oil and gas at the same time it didn't just lubricate the engine with oil it burned it at the same time so you would smell you'd see the blue smoke coming out of it um we were just looking up those stats that said uh a lawnmower produces 11 times the amount of air pollution as a newer car will and that has held true apparently since they became a household commodity so it's working really hard it's running really fast and it's burning a lot of fuel and it becomes sort of an invisible pollutant because well you have to have a nice lawn like what will your neighbors say you know like you can ride public transportation and and blah blah blah but like keeping your lawn up up to snuff you're given a couple options right you're given not doing that at all and letting it go to pasture which would be awesome uh you're given that push mower which is hard and like if you're living in the suburbs you're also paying your mortgage for that you know so like like do i really have the time to not work and then and then push this thing or you have these really really mowers and i think the fact that people don't maintain them like they're worried about maintaining their cars it's hard enough for us to maintain our cars you know like the reason we get oil changes and spark plug changes and stuff is that they don't leak oil and that they don't they don't pollute as much but like how many times how often are you taking your lawnmower to get serviced if if you were if you're just like if you don't care about the lawn and if you really care about the lawn you're probably mowing it so much that that that what you save in maintenance is creating the same amount of pollution um you know and then as we were talking about too like electric mowers it depends on where your electricity is coming from probably you're doing a service by by like using one less engine and and powering it with probably a smaller amount of coal or whatever it is our electricity comes from but you're definitely saving that immediate local air pollution right like even not having the smell in the neighborhood is probably beneficial it's just kind of counting on how can we do small things to make a difference not mowing is the biggest thing we can do you know and if we are going to mow using stuff that doesn't produce as much pollution but it's crazy i mean they have carburetors they're burning oil they're burning gas and they're exposed in ways that our cars which are super safety regulated are not um and you know when it comes down to who cares you know that's that's maybe the most disappointing thing is like who why do we want a nice lawn who's telling us like if you like landscaping that's awesome but i mean i don't think my dad loves landscaping i think he was more worried about it not living up to arnie a neighbor who was also my driver and instructor like he had a really nice lawn and he would talk about my dad would talk about arnie's lawn and ernie's along wasn't that nice but arnie was mowing constantly like so there's there's a whole lot of things here but the safety aspect of it too like these are really dangerous like you know like i ca it's amazing how when you put it in the perspectives we just watched how dangerous these things are yeah yeah and the thing is the uh i mean i am very happy to figure out another way to not maintain a law and i have i've hired people to figure it out and i planted clover like low clover which is brilliant except during sometimes in the season then it's all brown but whatever i can do to not mow uh and not have to water so much i mean it's just a phenomenal waste of resources um and you know i don't have kids so they don't roam around in the yard so yeah we don't have a dog so we don't have to what we mean but even if that were true that's just more compost for that beautiful natural area in the front and back of our house yes all right so we're gonna take the the engine and we're gonna take it off the lawn and we're gonna stick it on something that has two wheels and we're gonna watch the series of ads for honda scooters some don't believe in growing old they own a honda optional push-button starting three-speed transmission automatic clutch and a four-stroke 50cc engine give get-up-and-go action with 225 miles to a gallon of gas dual cam type brakes on both wheels mean real braking safety a honda's for the young at heart honda world's biggest seller what's greater than the great outdoors the great outdoors plus a honda a honda gets you where you want to go the four-stroke 55 cubic centimeter overhead valve engine gives zip and power yet at 45 miles per hour it's like riding on silk a honda doesn't gulp gas just sips 225 miles to a gallon honda world's biggest seller [Music] 135 honda costs for the people almost 92 rounds these are the wheels made for your fun honda honda world's biggest seller hold it why not draw straws to see who gets the car tonight but you know for about the cost of one good used second car you could get two brand new hondas with three-speed transmission automatic clutch and dual cam type brakes and the honda gets up to 225 miles to a gallon of gas honda world's biggest seller take two wheels add a 50 cubic centimeter four-stroke motor enclosed drive chain cam type brakes three-speed transmission automatic clutch and top with the name honda yield all the power you need at 45 miles per hour it's like riding on silk up to 225 miles to a gallon of gas honda world's biggest summer it doesn't take a course in economics to figure out a honda makes good sense price insurance upkeep all lower than you'd imagine and 15 honda models to choose from no service headaches your honda dealer can handle any problem quickly and easily another thing with a honda you can ride right up parks anywhere it's so easy on the budget too no wonder you meet the nicest people on a hunt world's biggest seller people who own a honda know how to enjoy life honda world's biggest seller honda the ultimate in technical perfection in the air on the ground these men value performance quick response plenty of power plus low fuel consumption and above all they like their reliability hondas hold up sleep as a jet you can ride them anywhere you meet the nicest people on a honda honda world's biggest seller when there's a job to be done the honda trail nightie meets the challenge whether it's on the ranch or on the farm you'll find the honda trail nighty of big health takes you over all kinds of terrain it's the ideal bike for hunters and fishermen too no wonder the honda has become the most popular trail machine in the country honda world's biggest seller okay let's go she knows there's only one way to make decisions like this go to your honda dealer he's got the answer 15 different honda models 50 200 miles to the gallon and if you want to trade in for one of the big ones 305 cc of course there's a matter of getting dad to agree but it doesn't take long once you ride a hunt and you must admit you mean that's glorious so great so what's your personal connection to uh these ads i own a 1982 honda c70 passport um what we were looking at were the the beautiful red and white ones the the 50cc ones those are the original honda cub which i believe started they were manufacturing those as early as 1962 i think um they stopped manufacturing them in like 2002 and then they just started again in 2020 but i own one i bought one used uh that was in a barn fire and so it was in a barn fire most of the plastic on it was burned away that thing has never not started um this is the that that bike is the most purchased moving vehicle in the world ever like versions of that bike because you can't kill them i don't know how many miles mine has but like i wrote it almost exclusively um from 2012 to 2016 when we started a business in raleigh and i realized i couldn't put my life in that much danger anymore um uh in it that was the nicest of the of the scooters that i owned um because it's a real motorcycle um and i think there was always a lot of lore with it to me because i would see them around and they're just beautiful looking they look like the ultimate american dream of like being freedom on two wheels um i love the idea of a semi-automatic transmission like anybody can drive it but i'm a huge beach boys fan and i learned early on that the song little honda was about that bike in particular so i think from the time i was 10 i really wanted one i wanted to go faster up to 45 miles per hour 225 miles per gallon because it's all right um and uh and it came on the heels of owning a bunch of two-stroke mopeds which you know we're about to talk about in a minute but like it felt more conscientious like it felt safer has bigger wheels um it's got a fuel-injected engine even the 82-1 has turn signals you know um push-button start like all that stuff it seems like it's you know that's it was made fun of a lot i think culturally back then like you have the little honda was not as cool as a big old big old hog and yet you could park anywhere you weren't annoying people you're like kind of quietly pulling up to the rock and roll show on the beach in your honda cub i was surprised no one was wearing helmets in those except for i guess the the the woman in the first dad had a hat on that may have stifled her from really destroying herself you mean the grandmother had a little uh little bonnet yeah um i don't know but i don't know you know like two wheeled vehicles riding a bike felt like freedom as a kid um i didn't realize how why like it took getting on one of those in particular to make me understand why people go head over heels for it it just feels you've you know you you feel and this is not real you feel bulletproof when you're when you're riding like 50 miles an hour when you say you go head over heels you're not talking about literally feeling like that's the problem yeah you don't realize you can do that because it feels so good until it happens um but uh but you know economic 225 miles per gallon is not fake i think my 70 cc one which i don't tell the cops converted to 110 ccs like it um it could get 160 miles per gallon i put gas in it once every four weeks and just ride it to and from grad school and work and park it at a bike rack at the end you know and um you know that's a big you know parking brings us all together italy's awesome most people ride scooters because you can't drive anywhere um it's not very environmentally friendly still like they're while they're a little bit nicer you're still burning a little bit of oil with all that but you're definitely saving on it like if you have to have a motor vehicle one of those is not the worst thing and just recently like vespa has has made like after-market electric engines for all of their models of vespas that are still that are still being supplied parts and and that's that's been the dream for me is like i hang on to these things because i keep thinking like an electric engine will show up and i can just drop it in um but um since they just made a new gas powered one i don't know if that'll actually happen wow okay so yeah you are not only a proud owner but you were emotionally invested in having that vehicle i am and and i'm also but it has been i mean it still starts it's been five years since i've i've ridden it outside of just starting and seeing if it drives because where we live in raleigh north carolina it's not a particularly two-wheeled vehicle-friendly town i don't know that any i can't think of a town that probably is completely that i'm sure there are some plenty that are much more that tended to be portland oregon look like it really was people use bikes to get everywhere yeah very surprised um we're just not used to i don't know if it's just at large i actually and we met we were talking about this before we started i actually feel hated while i'm on one of those things and i think it's becau and i i don't know why maybe we like but but targeting people on scooters for whatever reason you know like i'll be quite honest about it like when i started writing these things people just assumed i had a dui like they just assumed that i couldn't drive a car anymore i was like no i actually really want to do this like the freedom and blah blah blah and so there's this classism associated with it like you see somebody on a scooter and whether you know and i don't know that that's happening in raleigh but i certainly felt targeted so many times while riding on streets i could you know in a bike like that you can go more than the speed limit of most residential streets so you're going easily 50 miles per hour if you have to and i would still get passed in residential areas in school zones i got passed by a person in a school zone near the village district because i was going 40 and she just passed me so violently and then got to a stoplight i pulled up next to her not trying to be violent and just asked like hey you really shouldn't do that to someone like that could have been really dangerous she's like well i was late to work it's like i don't know that they would have done that to a car but they see an opportunity with a two-wheel vehicle to do it and and so there are these real safety issues yeah as much as as environmentally friendly as it might be to if you have to have a motorized vehicle to use a smaller one you have to you have to wonder is it worth not being seen is it worth is it worth being targeted you know whether that's real or not it can certainly feel that way when you're isolated and naked in a way that you aren't when you're in a moving metal box right and um so with the the e-bikes that are appearing and we had a whole scourge of the scooters the electric scooters that just kind of showed up and clogged with big problems because uh this so this next one i have is is about moped safety but it's really uh it's five minutes uh and it's towards the end of the the film but it's really about okay you have this wonderful vehicle that you can go take anywhere you can put on a sidewalk you drive through a parking lot but come on don't don't do it so this is uh the last part of moped safety and this addresses some of the issues that came up when all these e-scooters appeared when all these e-bikes that you can you can just rent uh appeared and it is an issue with some people with scooters definitely so let's let's watch this in mo pedaling common sense and courtesy go hand in hand thoughtful riders signal all turns and lane changes well in advance to give motorists time to react being courteous helps ensure their own safety at intersections courteous riders are always willing to yield the right-of-way to larger more powerful vehicles it's just common sense to do so traveling in pairs thoughtful riders never impede speedier traffic by riding side by side if a frustrated motorist tries to squeeze by the car may force the riders together in a most unromantic way experienced mo pedalists avoid such entanglements by riding single file keeping an adequate space cushion between themselves and other vehicles a moped speed is reduced considerably when climbing steep hills so if traffic starts to back up the courteous rider will pull off the road and let motorists pass unhindered of course there are always a few thoughtless riders who seem bent on endangering both themselves and others they're the ones who weave in and out of traffic ride illegally on sidewalks and take occasional short cuts through the corner gas station what do you think you're doing if such foolish riders survive to a ripe old age it won't be because they haven't made enemies courteous mo pedalists on the other hand always ride within the bounds of law and reason they share the road willingly showing respect for the rights of other motorists and pedestrians among the facts of life dealing with moped safety none is more important than the maxim that says always expect the unexpected writers who live by this rule try to anticipate safety problems before they occur it begins with a pre-write inspection to make sure the moped is in safe working order are the brake levers operating smoothly are all the cables connected our tires properly inflated and free of cuts or other damage chain tight enough is the throttle working smoothly are lights switches and horn all working a pre-write inspection may take a little time but if it prevents an accident it's time well spent in traffic riders who expect the unexpected practice a defensive attitude they keep their eyes moving scanning the road for potential hazards they use the rear view mirror and frequent head checks to stay aware of traffic behind them defensive riders always assume a car door will open at the most inopportune time so they're seldom surprised and because a ball rolling into the street is often followed by an impetuous child defensive riders will always be ready for a sudden stop even at a green light defensive riders slow down and check traffic before proceeding it should be obvious by now that learning to write a moped safely is not really difficult the beginner should keep these three basic facts of life in mind first become thoroughly familiar with the machine and its operation before writing in traffic second use common sense and courtesy when riding make yourself visible ride on less traveled streets as much as possible and yield the right-of-way to larger vehicles [Music] and third always expect the unexpected be a defensive rider [Music] oh my gosh where did you get this i can't believe he actually bought one yep from now on this is the way i get to work can i try it out well you've got to know what you're doing it's all right i taught her the facts of life about moped safety i mean [Music] oh yeah what a time to be alive when those were just things that you could go downtown and buy that looked like that yes um um when i got my first one it was partially because in indiana there was no regulation like you know you could buy it and just immediately ride it no insurance you didn't need a license like you didn't need a plate like that again by the classist assumption that you might be dealing with some sort of legal reason um legal thing uh is there but like they're also those all of those things that we just looked at i think those are those centrons is that what we're looking at um yeah yeah uh endlessly modifiable like uh you know and and i and to bring it back to lawn mowers me modifying which was the first one a 1981 honda express which was a moped but it was one without pedals they had like they'd been moving into scooter land and it came with a mod with a custom harley tank on it just really weird flames and stuff i'll send you a picture um i learned how to fix engines because i needed to keep it running and so like when the lawnmower broke i could immediately fix the lawnmower and it's also the moment where i was like god these engines are so gross like we're just there's no regulation we're just burning stuff going 38 miles per hour to work and back um but uh it's it's interesting how much that um not interesting at all it's totally relevant that that movie echoes what we learned in driver's ed the ball especially the ball with the impetuous child following it yes yes there's lots of children uh running after balls on streets the uh yeah so there's we i'm seeing more scooters uh because they're just cheaper to operate and don't have as many uh legal stipulations at least in north carolina um and i'm seeing more electric ones in in uh when i was in new york city uh last month there were so many electric scooters it was actually very hazardous because they would you wouldn't hear them whereas you know with a traditional uh gas powered you could hear it but this one it was just so um i mean you i looked to new york city as where we're eventually all going to be because those inexpensive chinese electric scooters are going to make it their way down to flea markets down here and markets down here so it's only a matter of time before that kind of takes over um we were in philadelphia last weekend and noticed the same thing and actually i was at a i was at a moped rally in 2012 which is a thing like conferences for moped people uh in louisville kentucky i can't remember the name of it off top my head but um there were these informal sessions that usually just happened in people's garages where um and we talked about uh with the dawn of electric scooters how will we make them loud enough for people to hear us you know those there's those uh those those bumper stickers that always talk about like you know loud pipes save lives from from motorcycles it's true if you can't be heard you won't be gotten out of the way you know like it's people just won't know you're there so one of the moped riders was just built i think he just put a bluetooth speaker on the back of this thing and just just looped the sound of loud motorcycle engine right constantly just to keep people aware that he was there while getting in the equivalent of 600 miles per gallon on his electric moped and we have that problem with so the prius i have like an um 2007 prius and it doesn't make any sounds when it's just running the uh electric and that's been a problem where we've been driving like we were on the blue ridge parkway and we were driving slowly and we came up behind some people who were just walking in the middle of the road and they didn't know we were there and so we're like what are we going to do we're like right behind them like do we rev the engine or do we go beep you know like how do we tell them that we're coming um whereas you know if his regular car they would have hurt it and the new vehicle that i have a new ish vehicle that i have that's a hybrid it makes a sound when it's an electric it goes it sounds like a flying saucer it's actually really cool that's awesome yeah so you know it sounds like i'm driving the future um so yeah i mean that's that's something to think about but you know the whole when we and i'm sure that other big cities dealt with this when all those bike those uh scooters showed up the actual little scooters um that you could just rent with us with a cell phone um it was horrible there was this nobody knew how to use them and nobody was considerate at all so you'd be you'd be driving down the road and suddenly these like three scooters would whip out um mostly because people didn't know how to do the brakes but it was like holy cow you know and people got hurt um and then uh i think as a safety issue the city said like okay if you're gonna have these you have to pay a certain fee if you're gonna rent these out and that will offset the uh what the police have to do to accommodate uh and many of those disappeared but um it's it was i what i liked about it was that they were ecological like they weren't like a little tiny motors running like they actually were these electric things and people were able to get around with them and people liked them and you know i think that we need some educational films about the e-scooters yes um and like we need educational films about driving and all these other things that nobody's watching nowadays especially about courtesy but um i i feel better about the idea that i can get something that just doesn't spew gas gas fumes and that it's not super loud and i'm able to do some of the things uh that required a gas engine before yeah i mean the democratization of movement with vehicles is is excellent i think access to movement for all people um if if if done appropriately ecologically and like with safety in mind is is awesome like i just but i couldn't believe the first time i rented like a bird scooter to ride to go get my car out of the shop that i wasn't even forced to watch like a three-minute video on my phone about how to run the thing on the app it probably said be safe be curious be courteous yeah where he said wherever there's no option it's like okay i guess i you know and um i've seen people wipe out i you know like and i'm not um as even though i am an educator i don't you know i i also know people can can read but there needs to be something before you go out into 40 miles per hour traffic right completely open to all injury and unfortunately people don't really know how injured you can get until you get injured on one of them i've had it i had two two serious moped accidents both of which weren't even in traffic and had i not been wearing a helmet on both one i would have been i would have been i would have been done it would have been gone um and they were like 10 mile power accidents i can't imagine being on one of those things so the promise of them i think is super cool especially on earth day like i just got a text from bird saying save some gas today and write a bird scooter it's like okay we'll follow that up with a little bit of like how to be safe on them so that if we wanted to make this an alternative form of transportation we could actually see what the benefits would be without hurting so many people yes um well it's it's that time um thank you so much for uh joining us uh but also thank you so much for facilitating this this is something that we've been doing this for how many years that we figured well we 15 semesters i don't know what that means is that nine years now yeah eight years eight and a half yeah i mean i don't know how you yeah but um i want to do it again so yeah well that's i mean and and as you know this is our last one of the of the semester um that doesn't mean we don't have summer coming up but i promise as a member of the av geeks at the library team we will convene soon so we can figure out when we can bring these delightful shows to our audience again um i would like can i remind everybody to come and borrow some compilations through the libraries and also to go see avgeeks.com look up baby geeks on youtube is that okay yes so i'll do that right now check them out i'd rather you i'd rather you didn't say that uh go to youtube.com your favorite your favorite website and look up av geeks go to archive.org look up babygeeks and come to the libraries if you are an affiliate of some sort and borrow hundreds of av geeks compilations on dvd yes um so thank you skip for doing this for 15 semesters and for really making this something that we look forward to nice yeah and uh we'll be back we'll be back uh maybe in the fall maybe in the summer i don't know we'll see and it might be something where we're gonna do it at the hunt library uh the numbers mean um but yeah i would look forward to doing that now i don't know how we broadcast it i mean we'll let trevor uh uh figure that out but um yeah i would love to do it bring the filmstrip projector back and do stuff live and all that stuff so yeah maybe we'll fire up the mopeds and show them off next time um yeah let's see i'll do a i'll show a film while i'm on the moped it'd be great well i didn't see anything i didn't see that as a don't in the safety movies so it must be okay if i wear a helmet all right thanks so much jason thank you trevor uh and uh everybody have a great weekend take care