Myths and Legends About Red
- It is a common belief in the United States that red cars are stopped for speeding more often than other color cars. However, there is no statistical evidence that this is true. Many police departments have denied it, saying their officers stop drivers for their behavior, not the color of their cars. The one survey that was made on this subject in 1990 by a St. Petersburg, Florida newspaper showed that the number of speeding tickets given to drivers of red cars was about the same as the proportion of red cars on the road in the community.
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Famous quotes containing the words myths and legends, myths and, myths, legends and/or red:
“Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men’s reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of “the rat race” is not yet final.”
—Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)
“The poets were not alone in sanctioning myths, for long before the poets the states and the lawmakers had sanctioned them as a useful expedient.... They needed to control the people by superstitious fears, and these cannot be aroused without myths and marvels.”
—Strabo (c. 58 B.C.–c. 24 A.D., Greek geographer. Geographia, bk. 1, sct. 2, subsct. 8.
“What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors. It’s astounding to me, for example, that so many people really seem to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn’t stay there any longer and had to go someplace else to make it. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“Therefore our legends always come around to seeming legendary,
A path decorated with our comings and goings. Or so I’ve been told.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Oh we drunk his “Hale” in the good red wine
When we last made company,
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere
But a man o’ men was he.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)