Excellent post! I am 57 years old. I was raised in rural PA. We rode bikes around the "block" (actually 5 miles long), rode skateboards down the road on the hill because you went faster, roller-skated down the hill on the road. Skied on the road in the winter, made our own trails at the ski area and packed a lunch- maybe-/ We were out ALL day (after our chores of course) ALL over the neighborhood until the cowbell rang for dinner. When older and we started driving, we had a blue VW bug shared between 3 of us. The brakes worked fine... but the pedal got stuck until we tied a piece of rope to it to pull it back up after applying brakes!! I can't believe that we thought nothing of that!! I couldn't imagine my children driving around in something like that- EVER