MTFCA Forum

It is on facebook so I cannot post it here. Maybe others can.
Jerry King was sent to hospital, but no one was badly hurt.

Would like to know cause if anyone can educate us so as to prevent future accidents.

Well, google is useless. Wrote my request four different ways (Including model T, Ford and the date) and all they want to tell me about is a Cessna plane crash.

This is what I found on Facebook :
What a sad sight to see. 1920 model T involved in a accident on junction hwy yesterday. Driver was ok with only minor injuries. Not everyday we get to work an accident involving a 100 year old car.

Witness said modern ran into right rear wheel, upsetting the T. Good no serious injury to the solo driver.

Try this FB link to picture of T accident. https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q= ... SEARCH_BOX

He was able to crawl out of the car but ended up getting taken to the hospital, was released later in the day.

Car was on its side, the down-side (left) rear wheel was broken off, the body looked like it took some pretty serious internal damage

After the shock wears off, tho, it does look repairable. Maybe not cheaply, but I've seen cars worse than this brought back from the dead.

Looks like it may be a center-door sedan.

[image][/image]

This happened yesterday on a T Fords of Texas (MTFCI) Tour. I just spoke with the Facebook poster-our club president - Hugh Hemphil and he claims the centerdoor was totaled. Said the frame was twisted and lots of wood structural damage. I wasn’t there but just from the pictures I’d say it is a long way from being totaled.
But that illustrated an important point: I am annually more exclusive on determining where and when to take a T out for a drive. First of all, Texas is too populous and, secondly, a greater percentage of modern iron drivers are becoming less responsible. The safest place to drive a Model T is as a middle vehicle in a rurally driven sanctioned T tour.

I may have posted a wrong accident, I’m not sure, anyways I tried

If you read this , I hope your OK Jerry King, all the best to you, it’s sad when we see something like this happen

I think it might be repairable. The frame can either be straightened or replaced. Not a big problem. The fender can be replaced or straightened and the glass can be replaced. The sheet metal still looks good. if the wood is cracked, that would be the most expensive thing to replace, but it can and has been done on many cars.
Sorry that happened and glad the driver was not badly injured. Sad that the owner was not there or responsible but her car was damaged. Depending on what kind of insurance she has, it will probably be covered for much of the cost of repair.
Norm

We have to remember that modern cars come up real quick when your driving 25-maybe 40mph. Most people are not use to slow cars much less ModelT’s. Besides our T’s can’t get up and go fast enough in today’s traffic when you really need to.
I’m fortunate to have farm to market roads to drive on but you’ll never get me a mile or so further where they connect to I-35. Won’t do that.
Don’t know the circumstances of the accident but a reminder of what may happen.

Well I am glad the fellow is not hurt.That car is far from a total as we look at these cars but we all know the insurance company is going to offer a check for a total to settle the ordeal.If the owner decides to keep his car ,depending on if it is famly heriloom or something,it is very repairable. If not ,whoever gets it at Copart auction will get a very fixable car.

My 1907 Cadillac got nailed like that in 2008. Hagerty totaled it, but let me buy the bones back for a very reasonable price. Pretzeling half the frame, shattering the flywheel and destroying two wheels, among other damage, doesn't get fixed easily or cheaply on a car as scarce as a one-lung Cadillac. The balance of the insurance money paid for an excellent re-restoration that then won an AACA senior. I've driven the car thousands of miles since. That Model T will rise again!

I agree with George that it is important to be selective in where you drive your Model T. We had a stretch on the Michigan Jamboree last august where the mix of T's and tourists in a hurry created some dangerous situations. Whenever possible I choose the "Road less traveled." I also got a flashing battery powered magnetic caution light that I can put on the back for those times when I can't avoid heavier-trafficked roads. You only have to look at archive photos of Model T accidents to see that they are not very crashworthy.

We live in an area with Amish farms and every year or so there is a terrible accident where someone on a rural road plows into a carriage, often with tragic results. Such accidents are proof that some drivers just aren't paying attention. Such drivers are a threat to us wherever we drive our T's.

My 14 that I usually drive on tours is equipped with programmable amber strobes purchased from a store that sells first responder equipment. Wired to separate sealed 12 volt battery, Visible from a long way.

Tmdltim wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 03, 2019 2:40 pm

My 14 that I usually drive on tours is equipped with programmable amber strobes purchased from a store that sells first responder equipment. Wired to separate sealed 12 volt battery, Visible from a long way.

Tim

Perhaps you could post a link to where others could find that product ?


FJ

not necessarily what the previous poster was talking about, but I bought some battery flares from Lee Valley tools last year. They are very bright, even in daylight, have strong magnets and a bunch of light patterns programmed in them. They stick very well to the tops of my fenders. They are no longer available from Lee Valley, but they look just like these from Amazon.

Garage Monkey Engineering LED Road Safety Flare Roadside Warning Safety Flare Kit for Vehicles & Boat | 4 Beacon Disc Pack https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BGHR4PN/re ... 5Db3Y57DDR

Keep crankin’
Eric

PS. I use Energizer lithium batteries in them, these batteries have a shelf life close to 10 years, work in sub-zero temps, and will not leak and corrode your devices if left too long without attention like alkaline batteries do.

Still wondering if anyone was there that can tell us what happened.

Since the subject has already been raised, has anyone designed a flasher type
set up that has a sensor to detect vehicles approaching ? Having the sparkly/flashing
lights in one's eyes isn't very nice, and I would prefer to not do that to drivers behind
me.

It would seem an improvement to the idea, if a sensor detected the approaching car
and gave off a burst of *sparklies* to get the driver's attention, and then go back to
"sleep" mode. It would not be difficult to get a similar effect with a switch in the cab,
but I often discover a car right behind me, never having seen it approach !
I can only submit that between the noise in the cab and other driving distractions,
combined with the tiny mirrors and zero backward visibility out the tiny back window,
hoping to catch those approaching from behind is going to be spotty, at best, to actuate
a switch. A motion sensor of some sort might be out there that would work well in
conjunction with the sparkler lights.

I put a 1950s type add on turn signals which has a 4 ways built in winter project is to add a second tail light you can never have to much red light on the back of your car these days.

Bob Doris designed this bracket to fit on My model T touring tie down post. Use's standard tractor supply trailer lights with 1157 dual filament bulbs and dual facing amber front and red rear lens or amber front and back. can be seen well from the front and rear of the car. tri function. running, stop and turn lights. Easy removal and reinstall for shows with a small connector and plug on the wires. Have pictures of actual lights on the touring very bright. Langs sells a bracket that is set up for a standard model T tail light.

Someone please explain to me how a Model T Ford is invisible on the road and how adding lights solves this supposed problem.

How did ye do dat Tim?Float down the road like dat!
That is how you feel as a state employee on the side of the road putting up a road sign.BIG yellow truck,flashing lights all around with bright orange cones behind you 100 feet.Invisiable.
Flashing lights tend to mazmerize "spelling" people.They are everywhere nowadays. Red lights, we are all used to seeing red lights because we are behind something and that is what we see.
Sadly colors have purposes that don't allow us to use more than red or yellow.Purple is funeral,green is security guard, red is fire and ambulance,blue is for Barney the police and so on.
So creativity is a must.
Perhaps orange light,or neon green?

Strobing lights,be careful,they can cause sezuires.

As a side note,when I was working,if I knew I was going to be working on a certain road in the county,a high traffic numbered route,I kept 2 pairs of bright RED pants,Coca cola uniform pants,that I would woar when I was working out there.
Perhaps we need to paint our T's bright RED?

I have been looking and thinking,there is no such thing as a Brown light fixture,so far that is 1 color I have not found would be illegal to have that might blink on the back of a car.

I reality there is no easy fix for people how are distracted while driving, One of the T guys here was hit by a semi he was doing 50 mph the truck driver did not see him ,he died later in hospital .

Sadly that is the truth.There is no way of keeping peoples eyes on the road and not on their Iphone 12's or whatever the latest fade is at the moment.There is videos on Utube of people jumping out of their rolling cars and dancing then trying to get back in or dancing while driving somehow to music.No way those folks know what is in front of them.
Driving has gotten to simple.Power everything,automatic everything.Alot of new cars have avoidance on them.So folks can look down at their Iphone 12 and the car is supposed to slow down automaticly as it comes up to something.
3 on the tree and manual steering and brakes would fix the problem.People would be to busy driving to and navigatiing to be distracted by anything else.

It all boils down to the fact that "you can't fix stupid". No amount of lights , flashing or otherwise, is going to protect you from the morons out there driving these days. I have been passed by women putting on their makeup, men reading the newspaper, people texting with both hands and any number of other moronic stunts. Sadly, there is not much you can do to protect yourself from these idiots other than avoiding high speed, high volume roads.

I agree with Val (Russ T Fender) above. Simple thing is, even on the "roads less traveled", THEY (the morons) ARE OUT THERE! I travel as many
"back roads" as possible as do most of us, yet even in those cases the double yellow, no passing either direction lines, DON'T MEAN A THING to today's impatient, distracted drivers. For the last 3 of 6 years I've been in this hobby, the instances of being passed on
those lines, some including hills, has more than doubled. Happens at least 6 times a year any more. Making me thinking about getting out before I get killed. Sorry to say that.

It goes far beyond just stupidity. Although my favorite saying about "stupid" certainly applies here. It goes into psychology, and brain wiring. The human brain is not wired from birth. It is designed to grow, and adapt to how it perceives it needs to be. There was a case in medical history of a "normal" baby being born under extreme/bizarre circumstances (this was in a dungeon way more than a century ago). The baby was kept in near total darkness throughout its upbringing and nearly to adulthood. When the young man was liberated from his confinement, he could not fathom what his eyes saw. Although he was of normal intelligence, had been taught many basics of math and language, and otherwise interacted with a few people in his darkness, his brain did not know what to do with the images his eyes suddenly presented. He never did fully understand what he saw, continuing for the rest of his natural life to feel his way around and identify familiar objects by touch.
One of my best friends when I was in high school had been totally blind since birth. Because of this, I have always been interested in areas of that subject. I once read an article in a medical journal I came across that was on the subject. The author was saying that IF sight could be surgically "restored" (I don't think that is quite the right word?) to a child that had been blind since birth, it needed to be done by about the age of three because after that, the brain's wiring would make sight never very good, and that the benefits would not be able to outweigh the risks.
Think about the childhoods of so very many children today. They don't even watch television! They rarely go outside and play, play is one of the most important brain training methods ever! They spend half their waking hours with their eyes glued (figuratively) to a small screen playing video games! They do not interact with even their best friends or siblings in a personal way, instead texting conversations back and forth to someone sitting six feet from them! Their brain isn't taught to recognize objects. Their brain doesn't analyze what it sees. Their brain is taught and hard-wired to recognize and react to icons! And our model Ts are not an icon that they recognize.

Many people today LITERALLY cannot "see" an antique car on the road ahead of them!

And that favorite saying?

"Ignorance" is a FACT. "Stupid" is a choice.
I do not use the word "stupid" lightly. If I call someone "stupid" it is because they have chosen to not learn something important.

A lot of people today are in fact, "stupid".

Maybe I missed it in this thread, but did anyone describe the accident? No, I don't want to see a URL to click on, as with dial-up, I can't access most newspapers or other media sites. Getting to this site can be a problem quite often.
Thanks

Hey there David D ! No, I haven't seen any details of this wreck other than a distracted driver didn't "see" the car going down the road ahead of them. Fortunately, I hear that nobody in the T was seriously hurt. So at least we can be thankful for that. And I don't understand the notion that the T is "totaled" either. It looks to me like as it is,it would be one of the easiest center-door restorations ever!
I hope all is well with you and yours these days. This whole internet thing is SO frustrating. People that think something that works eighty percent of the time is wonderful running the world are clueless! My internet connection is (to use a modern phrase) lightyears ahead of yours. Yet I cannot look at Facebook (which millions of people in this country believe is the one and only necessary information contact point in the world). I can only reach some links to other news sources, have many issues with so many sites because they are designed to work (ONLY) on super duper ultra high speed connections!
I cannot afford the Hugesnet satellite ISP services, and frankly, some past experience with them make me not want to try them.

Hey Mr B ! When you are right, you are right. I think SFB will be a bigger and bigger problem as long as most people are taught to not think, not remember, just follow the rules and do what we the masters tell you to. Most of the people that buck that system are the natural-born liars and thieves, and too many of them have gone into politics.

Wayne - Your two post above are monumental. I'm going to copy and save them to show a few friends. Thanks.
Burger is also correct.

Personal experience here ; sorry to say hang all the lights & flares you want but don't expect to actually be any safer. feel safer, maybe, but don't be fooled.

...but don't expect to actually be any safer..feel safer, maybe, but don't be fooled.

You can make things foolproof, but you can't make them damnfoolproof.

I believe making your car more visible actually does make you safer. But some people are just too boneheaded to pay any attention, no matter what you do.

Fred S, Spread the word! Shout it near and far! About a hundred million people in this country need to WAKE UP!

Wayne, I've tried, but most folks won't listen.

BTW, do you know where a fellow could find any information about the baby born in the dark? I googled it with no results. I did find that if a baby were born that way, they would have rickets and a curved backbone and a whole bunch of other problems. It's gotta be true, I saw it on the internet.

Another thing - and it's not a big deal - I always thought the stupid with genetic and ignorance was chosen. No biggie, I know what you/we mean.

Fred S, Sorry, I do not remember just where I read that story. I know it was a very long time ago. I believe it was in a book, but no idea what book it may have been. Back before I had to earn a living, I read a lot of books, on wide varieties of subjects. I was always very interested in history, and cultures, around the world. I learned much more through independent reading than school ever taught me.

Well, adding lights, etc. in this situation probably wouldn't have helped--lookit the bright red (maroon??) paint job on the body--if that isn't visible, what is?? Still would like to know what happened. Modern driver just hit them from behind, or pulled out of a side street into them?
My friend Lloyd had his '16 roadster T-boned from a business driveway Gal just kept on driving into him. Did a heck of a lot of damage to a car restored from what was a mostly untouched original.

Hey David D ! How is Lloyd coming along fixing his T?

Hi Wayne,
He's been distracted with other projects, house, shop & other cars. Don't think he's done much yet, other than finding replacement parts.
I've been too busy to stop by and visit much lately; will have to try to do so this week.

Wayne, naturally I don't know what kind of ISP you have, what speed, etc., but trust me, don't waste your time and money on
Hughesnet. Sadly, for us it's pretty much the "last man standing", but it's nothing like their ads on TV want you to believe! Imagine that. I cringe and almost wanna puke every time I see that gal wandering towards the house in the country telling everyone how great they can have high speed internet "anywhere". BS. Once the data cap is reached each billing period, in our case takes about 3-4 days, we might as well have dial-up. Rarely is it "fast" the last half of the month, but I will admit occasionally it is. I suspect
their server(s) are just plain overloaded, and they don't want to invest in extra equipment.

Hey there Tim W ! As I said, I had "issues" with them some years ago. While the parent Hughes for commercial systems was fine, the spin-off for home services was (shall we say?) less than honest. I haven't spoken with any of their customers in many a year now (since I got out of the commercial communication systems business). Given the way this whole foolish nation has gone, it is not surprising that they are still "all promise, and no delivery".

Here is a brief FB post from Dec 1, I too am thankful Mr King is recovering from this accident:
*************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
San Antonio Ford Model T

December 1 at 7:08 AM ·


This is a difficult post to write. For courtesy and legal reasons. an effort has been made to avoid conjecture, speculation and accusations.

There was a collision during a Ford Model T tour in Kerrville, Texas, yesterday, Saturday November 30, 2019. A 1920 Ford Model T Center Door and an approximately 10 year old Plymouth PT Cruiser made contact at around 10 AM on a four lane road with both a center strip and hard shoulders, on the main road out of town heading towards Ingram. The road was busy but dry and there was unlimited visibility. The PT Cruiser remained upright and stopped on the right shoulder after a short distance, The passenger side rear wheel of the T was most likely the point of contact. It shattered from the impact and the T became uncontrollable. It ended up in the center strip laying on the passenger side. The sole occupant, Jerry King, was able to get out of the vehicle unaided. He sustained injuries that caused him to be taken to the nearest hospital. Numerous EMTs, fire fighters and local police swiftly secured the scene and interviewed the drivers involved and witnesses. Jerry was released from the hospital in the evening.

The future of the T is uncertain. Very significant damage was caused. The appraisal of a T expert will be required to establish the costs involved to effect repairs.

It was a bad day for the San Antonio Model T community. Our hearts go out to Jerry King and we are relieved his injuries, though serious, were not worse. The vehicle's owner, Beverly Luce, who was not present, also has our sympathy.

It still would be nice to know if both cars were in the same lane, were they in adjacent lanes, was one turning, etc? Was no one there to see it?

Guys,
Please refrain from conjecture and suppositions about this situation and negative posts. Nobody knows what happened. Let’s leave it at that for now.

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