Traffic School Teacher

A few weeks back I had the opportunity to meet Franz Von Holzhauzen, the charismatic design director for Mazda.

Von Holzhauzen clearly wasn't the first to put significant thought into the naming of a vehicle. The Corvette was named after a swift World War II warship that was used to destroy submarines. The word "crossfire," which depicts lines of fire crossing at a single point, was given to the Chrysler's vehicle of the same name because they wanted to convey that the car was "the intersection of elegance and exhilaration."

Throughout history, however, many vehicles have not been so fortunate with the unusual monikers that they have been christened with.

One must wonder what AMC was thinking when they named the first subcompact vehicle ever manufactured the "Gremlin." Since the dictionary defines a gremlin as "any cause of trouble or difficulties," AMC might have fared better if they had put a little more thought into that one.

In the '70s, Chevrolet found it had some difficulty promoting its macho pick-up truck, which it had pegged with the acronym "LUV" (light utility vehicle) to a primarily male target market. Similarly, the British car manufacturer, Reliant, found that they left quite a few men uninterested in the '70s and '80s when they named one diminutive car model, the "Kitten."

Fiat discovered that they had extremely poor sales in Sweden for their "Ragata" automobile. Apparently very few folks in Sweden wanted to drive around in a vehicle whose name translated into "cow." Worse yet, it also translated into the alternative version of the word for a female dog.

Without question, some of the most eyebrow-raising car names come from Japan. Since most things from the United States are often considered "cool," many Japanese car companies have chosen to give their vehicles names with American words to increase their appeal.

Nissan offered a heavy duty truck which it named "Big Thumb," while smaller trucks such as Mazda's "Scrum" or Mitsubishi's "Guts" were also popular.

On the more delicate/cerebral side Suzuki named one vehicle "Afternoon Tea," Daihatsu unabashedly tabbed one vehicle "Naked," and Isuzu offered up a hipster mobile it named the "Mini Active Urban Sandal."

Some of the best names for vehicles are not names at all. They are acronyms that we, the consumer, have come up with for our beloved transportation. One friend said that the letters in the name of his old Ford LTD stood for "Long Term Debt." Another person decided that the true meaning of the letters in VOLVO were "Very Odd Looking Vehicular Object.

However, I give top honors to a few of the many creative explanations that have been fashioned for the letters "BMW". My favorites are: "Brings Me Women," "Born Moderately Wealthy" and "Bought My Wife."

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Sheri Shepherd doesn't remember hearing the 170 decibel explosion as her air bag inflated. She doesn't remember feeling the air bag as it was propelled into her face and chest at 220 mph.  She does remember the horrific crash two weeks ago that caused her to spend the evening of her fifth wedding anniversary being transported to the hospital strapped to a paramedic's gurney.

The traffic light was green as Shepherd was driving through an intersection coming from a Los Osos High School football game, when a teen driving a Ford Expedition ran the red light and came barreling into the intersection.

The Expedition smashed into the driver's side of Shepherd's two-week-old 2007 Jeep Wrangler and spun it with such force that it hit another car and started spinning in the opposite direction.

Within the blink of an eye (0.05 seconds), Shepherd's air bag deployed and created a safety cushion that prevented her from crashing into the steering wheel.

Simultaneously, a passenger-side air bag exploded into the body of her 13-year-old daughter, Haley. And as the car careened and spun out of control, Shepherd's husband, Michael, somehow found the presence of mind to reach over from the back seat and pull up the emergency brake to bring the Jeep to a screeching halt.

The force of the air bag left both Shepherd and her daughter with impact burns on their arms, sprained thumbs and bruised noses. Since the Jeep did not have side-impact air bags, Shepherd's left arm and leg were crushed into the door by the force of the collision, and she suffered significant tissue damage.

But she credits the air bags for preventing things from being much, much worse.

"If my nose was only bruised from hitting the air bag, I can imagine what would have happened if my face would have hit the steering wheel instead," Shepherd said.

It was a dreary, rain-soaked Valentine's Day back in 1998 when Joel Garcia was driving his 1992 Lexus through the Cajon Pass with his wife Carine beside him.

A couple of car lengths in front of him, Garcia noticed a car that was clearly losing control as it started to fishtail across the water-slicked lanes.

Instinctively, Garcia moved his car as far to the right as possible to try to avoid the out-of-control vehicle, but it was too late. As the hydroplaning vehicle transitioned from a fishtail into a full spin, Garcia was unable to avoid crashing into the side of it.

Garcia remembers feeling as if he had been punched in the chest and chin when his air bag deployed. He remembers thinking that the car was on fire, as the white effluent dust-like particles, which are used to lubricate the air bag when it goes off, filled the vehicle.

And in the days before passenger-side air bags became mandatory, he remembers that he was thankful that his wife Carine had been OK.

As of the vehicle year 1989, driver's side air bags became required equipment on all U.S. manufactured vehicles. In addition, all cars manufactured as of 1998 are required to have dual front air bags.

In 1951, in the tiny town of Newport, Pa., John W. Hetrick invented the first automobile air bag. Shepherd, Garcia and nearly 3,000 people annually may be around to tell their stories today because of his foresight and ingenuity.

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I FIRST SAW Andrea Abuege of Corona standing on the freeway overpass in Riverside meticulously weaving purple ribbons through the chain-link fence under the scorching midday sun.

At the end of July, Abuege had opened her utility bill to find an insert on a purple piece of paper. On it she read the heartbreaking story of Kaitlyn Marie Russell, a 6-month-old baby who had been left in a van by a her sitter on a day when the mercury was topping the 100-degree mark.

On the insert she read of Kaitlyn's horrific, unnecessary death that occurred in less than 15 minutes due to the devastating effects of hyperthermia.

Abuege did not toss the purple insert, like so many people would. She and her two high school children, Cameron and Keilani, decided to take action. They called the founder of the organization 4 R Kids Sake and asked what they could do to help.

The group was founded by baby Kaitlyn's mother, Tammy Russell, and maternal grandmother Laura Petersen of Corona not long after the infant's death in 2000.

Devastated by their loss and haunted by the knowledge that Kaitlyn's death had been 100 percent preventable, Russell and Petersen vowed to do everything in their power to see that no other child would suffer Kaitlyn's fate.

Exactly one year after Kaitlyn's death, the first Purple Ribbon Month began in August 2001. By October 2001, then Gov. Gray Davis signed "Kaitlyn's Law" - the Unattended Child in a Motor Vehicle Act, which went into effect in January 2002.

The law makes it illegal to leave any child younger than 6 in an automobile without the supervision of an individual 12 years of age or older.

As a result of Russell and Petersen's efforts and determination, volunteers around the world have been tying purple ribbons to trees and poles and weaving their messages into fences every August since 2001.

The ribbons are meant to serve as gentle reminders to drivers to never leave their children unattended in vehicles - even with the windows slightly opened.

When the temperature outside reaches 95 degrees, the temperature inside a vehicle can hit an alarming 120 degrees to 140 degrees within as little as 10 minutes.

A child left in a car in intense heat will sweat, then suffer from extreme thirst, and then become overcome by fatigue. Next, their body will lose its ability to sweat, and as their body temperature rises, they start to suffer from acute dehydration.

At that point the child's liver, kidney and brain are so affected that they can suffer from a fatal seizure or stroke.

It is the thought of the needless end of precious young lives that motivates Andrea Abuege and her children to volunteer their time to tie endless yards of purple ribbon under the August sun. And if their efforts have prevented even one death from occurring, it will have been worth every second.

More information on 4 R Kids Sake can be found at www.4rkidssake.org.

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