Most drivers never saw the pedestrian. The absent-minded fellow darted out between two parked cars and unexpectedly walked into traffic.
Motorists slammed their brakes and honked their horns, but it was too late. The hapless man looked up in shock.
Driver after driver struck the pedestrian. It happened every day on the same street for years.
Fortunately for everyone, it was just a simulation.
Older Akron residents might recall testing their skills — or lack thereof — on the Aetna Roadometer, an automobile-driving simulator that operated at local high schools and other buildings in the early 1950s.
Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. of Hartford, Conn., developed the half-ton machine as “the toughest three-minute drive of your life.” Using a “mechanical brain” plugged into a 115-volt outlet, the bulky device measured a motorist’s reactions to “sudden and unexpected problems” that might occur during a routine commute.
Inventor Conkling Chedister (1911-2010), who built a 36-call bugle machine for the Navy during World War II, designed the Roadometer while working as an engineer for the Automagraph Co. of New York.
The console resembled an automobile seat with a steering wheel, start button, accelerator, brake pedal, directional signals and functional horn.
Inside a 6-foot cabinet behind the driver’s head, the Roadometer projected a three-minute color movie onto a white screen representing the view through the car’s windshield.
Creating the illusion of driving, the film began on a tranquil street in the suburbs and gradually introduced obstacles while traffic increased. As described by Popular Science magazine in 1951, emergencies grew progressively difficult for the typical driver.
“He sits in a simulated driving compartment and ‘drives’ along a street pictured on a screen before him by a movie projector,” reporter Devon Francis wrote. “The illusion of a car is complete, even to a hood ornament. A box falls off a truck in his path, and he has to brake to stop.”
Look out!
Traveling 15 to 40 mph, drivers steered around construction, navigated a sharp curve, stopped for a passing train and avoided an oncoming truck. The unwary pedestrian, though, usually caught motorists by surprise.
If a driver failed to stop in time, a cartoon crash filled the screen, followed by a scolding note: “You needed a faster brake to avoid THAT one!”
The Roadometer made its public debut 60 years ago at the Greater New York Safety Council Exposition. Drivers heard an incessant clicking as they took the test. That was the machine keeping score.
H. Cranston Lawton (1921-2003), communications director for Aetna, told the New Yorker magazine:
“It’s a nine-part test, divided into three episodes. A falling-box episode, a careless-pedestrian episode, and a cars-passing episode. Truly a harrowing ride. Every mistake you make, the brain chalks up penalty points. A perfect score is zero, a perfectly bad score is 180, and tentatively we consider about 90 a good average mark.”
Oh, that mechanical brain! Lurking inside the cabinet were Selsyn motors, selenoid counters, a photoelectric cell, a 16 mm projector, a scorecard-feeding unit, a voltage regulator and a horn battery. After drivers completed the course, the machine printed scorecards.
According to Aetna, an East Coast housewife boasted a record-low score of 16 while a New York cabbie bottomed out with an embarrassing 140.
The road to Akron
The Summit County Safety Council and Junior Chamber of Commerce sponsored the Roadometer’s appearances in Akron. For a stationary device, it sure got around.
High school students took it for a “spin” at Buchtel, Central, East, Ellet, Garfield, Hower, Kenmore, North and South. Rubber workers tried it out at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. The general public revved up outside the Strand Theater, Eastgate Shopping Center and Wooster-Hawkins Plaza.
In 1953, Akron Mayor Russell M. Bird “hit the road” at the Akron Armory. City Council members, county commissioners and courthouse workers participated in driving duels. Newspaper reporters challenged radio announcers.
“A special feature later in the week will be testing of several persons after drinking a few cocktails,” the Beacon Journal reported. “Effects of alcohol in driving will be shown.”
As expected, the pedestrian never had a chance.
Revisions to system
Automagraph Co. engineer Chedister, who lived to be 98 years old, perfected his invention in the 1950s with the Aetna Drivotrainer, which allowed one instructor to teach an entire classroom of drivers.
That system, which also operated in Akron, featured multiple consoles situated around a large movie screen, so several students could take the driving test simultaneously.
That paved the way for fully equipped simulator trailers in the 1960s and 1970s, providing mobile units outside schools for student drivers to practice dodging crates and trucks.
In the 1950s, Aetna didn’t foresee that traffic safety — or the lack thereof — could be so “entertaining.”
The Road­ometer foretold the rise of video games and the eventual development of extreme titles in which the object was to drive as fast as possible without regard for traffic or pedestrians.
Talk about a harrowing ride.
“The toughest three-minute drive of your life” would probably seem like the slow lane today.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send email to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.