Andrew
Active member
If you ever owned a Saab 900, you'd know that what Kramer did made a surprising amount of sense. I suspect that there was a 1/4–1/3 of a tank left when the needle first hit the E and I also suspect that it was a misguided attempt to keep people from running out of gas, because the assumption was that people would refill on hitting "empty," but that they'd have a significant reserve in case there wasn't a gas station nearby. The problem was that once you figured out that E did not equal empty, you'd do exactly what Kramer did, especially if you were a dirtbag college student. IIRC, I once drove from BTV to Mad River Glen and back on "empty." I also ran out of gas twice. Sadly Keith Hernandez wasn't with me on either occasion.
I know...too true, and probably why we straggle out of the woods many times when when the available resources says we shouldn't. I manned the trailheads many times over 15 years at Monadnock, and it was just a weird practical disconnect to encounter with the daily late hiker arrivals in the dozens per week with the same conversation: "So where are you headed so late?", "The summit", "I don't think there is enough time to make it up and back before dark, do you have a flashlight and a back-up?", "No", "How do plan to make it out in the dark?", "I dunno, I guess I I'll call you guys if I get stranded", "Well, don't you think it makes more sense to bring some flashlights so as avoid getting yourself stranded and making yourself my problem?".
This was day after day to the tune of hundreds of similar conversations over the years, I just didn't get the practical disconnect. I more frequently didn't get paid for all these late night adventures like the F&G guys, and at that time could not always rely on their help.