MOVIE CLICHES ... CARS AND DRIVING

 

• A car will always explode when shot at, unless the hero is driving it.
• When you drive a car, you can always recognize all the persons you know that pass you in the opposite direction.
• If someone has "fixed" the foot-brakes in the car, the driver never uses the hand-brake and the gears to slow down, at least not until the last moment.
• Cars often end up on cliff-edges with 2 wheels in the open air. The good guys are saved just before the car falls over, the bad guys join the car in the free fall, often caused by a bird setting down on the part of the car hanging over the edge.
• When a car falls off a cliff after a car chase, it usually explodes before reaching the ground.
• When speeding cars hit a parked car, they fly up into the air while the parked car doesn't even wiggle
• After a car crash, no movie character ever sits and shakes for five minutes, or becomes incoherent with shock.
• All cars seem to run on kerosene rather than gasoline (hence the copious black smoke when they burn).
• Watch steering wheels in movie cars, especially in "through the windshield looking at the driver" shots. 9 times out of 10, the spokes of the wheel, which one would think should be horizontal, or close to it, are vertical, i.e., one can see one of the wheel spokes vertical, above the dash, in front of the driver's face, even when he's driving straight.
• Whenever you see someone driving, even on straight and smooth roads, they are sawing at the wheel hard enough to be running an obstacle course. The car doesn't swerve at all, of course. The amount of excess wheel-twisting is independent of speed.
• Not only do movie cars always park right in front, but they are never locked. Even convertibles with their tops down, in NYC, are still there hours later.