Consumer Reports was a ten part series of humorous articles appearing in the 1972-73 WHS Lantern. Alas, the first, fourth and tenth and final report have gone missing.
For posterity and your enjoyment I post the surviving articles.
Part seven in a growing report of consumer hazards. Hello America, I'm Mike Gilroy and today I'd like to review that common American mishap the road map.
Fact: 3% of all road maps are common, the rest are highly complicated.
The road map monopoly enjoys a booming business alongside another monopoly, the gasoline trust. Service stations across the nation hand out maps free of charge to their patrons. I have found though that you do not receive “something for nothing” and that holds true in this instance; you don’t receive something, you receive a road map. The poor markings of back country roads on maps has been experienced by many a teenage girl.
Fact: 32% of all out-of-wedlock babies are a direct result of badly published road maps.
One shortcoming of the road map is its failure to indicate interstate exits. One couple was reported to put two thousand miles on their vehicle while trying to find their exit in New York City. When they finally exited they found they were actually in Boston, Massachusetts. Maps are not entirely to blame for their inaccuracies. If State officials would let road map manufacturers know which bridge will be out when, it would simplify matters considerably.
Road maps still are a hazard in and of themselves. I have put together highly intricate computers easier than I have road maps. Folding and unfolding road maps is a danger second only to the drunken driver on the road today.
Fact: 41% of all accidents on America’s roadways are committed by the sober map folder.
The solution as I see it is for the government to create a new department to coordinate the actual roads with the roads shown on maps. Better yet, let’s leave Washington bureaucracy alone and really discover America, the hard way, by asking a farmer for directions.
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