Reading the BBC news feed this morning, I came across this interesting article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/north_west/7471102.stm

This is about a man in the UK who was punished for putting 13 people in his Volvo S70 station wagon. The BBC video on that page talks about how “hard” this was to do (and failed to put 13 people into the car -- they only got to 10 and they were using infants and children).

All I can say is: They didn’t try hard enough.

Back in 1984, at a summer computer camp (hey, remember, I’m a nerd), we decided we wanted to go out to a movie. There were 22 of us high school kids. And only two cars.

No problem. One of our cars was a high capacity Toyota Tercel (example pictured below). Fortunately, we had the 5 door hatchback version.



We put exactly 13 people in that car and drove to the movies. 1 driver in the driver’s seat. 2 in the front passenger seat. 4 in the hatch area, 3 across the seat in the back, 2 on their laps, and one laying across the two on top of the 3 with feet out one window and head out the other window (he had the misfortune of being 6’ 2” tall). We drove very carefully the 5 miles to the theater.

So come on you guys in the UK. If we can cram 13 college students into that Tercel, the 13 in a Volvo station wagon should have been a snap, especially with all the babies and young kids you had....

Disclaimer: But of course, I wouldn’t try this today because this would obviously be a violation of local seat belt laws (which didn’t exist back in 1984).