Comments on: The Official Shotgun Rules

By: Buffalo Bob

Buffalo Bob — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:02:09 +0000

Plain and simple, I carry a silver dollar in my pocket. I have two teenagers and they constantly fight for the front seat. So the simple thing to do is flip the coin. Looser of the last toss gets to call it.
If they fight while driving they both get evicted to the back seat and i sit up there alone. Cures the fight very quickly.
Sucks on a long trip but hey, live and learn…

By: Skipweasel

Skipweasel — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:21:25 +0000

When we used to drive round France in the late 60s early 70s Dad used to sit me down with a map the night before and tell me our objective for the next day – and I had to get us there. He taught me how to orient the map and how to make route cards, but if I told him a wrong turn he’d take it and just keep going until I noticed we weren’t hitting villages in the right order and then I had to fix it on the fly.

By: Luvneatorama

Luvneatorama — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:26:58 +0000

In our family, with 4 girls, we traveled by car on our annual vacations. We only got to go shotgun if we could navigate. All four of us now have excellent map reading skills (we never get lost).

During my first shotgun, at about 12 yrs, my Dad was pulling a trailer, and I had to navigate Hwy 101 through San Francisco. Yikes!!!! I think we made it through without intervention from my mother (the official family navigator.)

FYI Hwy 101 through San Francisco is a maze of one-way streets.

By: Skipweasel

Skipweasel — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:54:15 +0000

Lewen – not all of us have passenger-side airbags. Hey – I got my first car with an airbag only five years ago.

The UK has rules about kids in front seats…
http://www.childcarseats.org.uk/law/index.htm

By: Seattle

Seattle — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:43:47 +0000

Other spots in the car have names too. “Cobain” is the rear seat on the passenger side (behind the shotgun).

By: johnnybluejeans

johnnybluejeans — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:43:07 +0000

Wow, fun how we all have our own interpretations. For my group of friends in high school it was simple. If indoors, when the driver said “Let’s go” then shotgun may be called. If we were returning from a movie or somewhere outside, shotgun could be called once the car was visible.

By: Ali S.

Ali S. — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:46:25 +0000

Back when I used to live in residence the guys I used to live with would have a rule where when two or more of you call out shotgun…you drop your pants and shuffle towards the car. The first one who makes it to the car wins the seat. Of course, we learned the hard way not to do this in public and only on campus where one doesn’t think much about 4 guys shuffling towards a car with their pants around their ankles.

By: Miss Cellania

Miss Cellania — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:36:09 +0000

Lewen has a point. I didn’t let my kids ride in the front until they were 5 feet tall. My husband’s vehicle does not have air bags.

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:35:44 +0000

Instead of “shotgun,” we call “Chewbacca,” as in the movie Fanboys.

By: Lewen

Lewen — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:56:03 +0000

Kids don’t belong in the front seat period.
Air bag will break their little spines.

I told my neices no one under 16 in the front seat.

By: Fran

Fran — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:43:34 +0000

We didn’t have money on the dash, but our dad would offer us coin for the first sighting of a particular type vehicle going in the opposite direction. It was always a different car (whatever he could think of). One time he offered $100 to the first one to spot a Stanley Steamer. None of knew what this was, but we were quiet for some time eagerly looking for something that fit the description. We were very young.

By: Skipweasel

Skipweasel — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:05:19 +0000

“Are we nearly there yet?”

We put a stack of 10p coins on the dashboard. Every time the kids are annoying on a long journey we take one away. Whatever’s left at the end they split between them. It rarely amounts to more than a pound, but when they see “their” money vanishing they suddenly stop poking each other.

By: Tim Giachetti

Tim Giachetti — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:26:15 +0000

I thought the only “shotgun” rule was:

“He who has the shotgun rules!”

By: sky

sky — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:13:12 +0000

I always like the chauffeur rule. If one player calls shotgun another eligible shotgun player may call chauffeur in order to force both he and the shotgun caller into the back seat leaving shotgun open for another. This rule is awesome when there is only 3 passengers because the front seat remains open making it appear as though the driver is a chauffeur.

By: Crazyhorse

Crazyhorse — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:15:29 +0000

I had not tried this kind of game when I was young.

By: pwscott

pwscott — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:51:26 +0000

I just put both kids in the back so there would be no fighting. Then they fought over which side.

By: C.F.

C.F. — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:10:09 +0000

We have a rule concerning the radio. The driver always gets control of the radio. Everyone else already has their own music player in our car. The driver doesn’t have that benefit in order to be safe.