I’ve listened to Car Talk for over ten years and I don’t recall them ever re-using a puzzler during that time. Even when the shows are reruns they seem to cut out the puzzler section. My memory isn’t the greatest, but did anyone else have deja vu about this past week’s puzzler?
I’ve heard it somewhere before, and I thing the answer is the driver is driving a police car and the 911 person tells him to turn on his lights and siren. Harder to ignore than a horn honking.
No, they never mentioned that the guy was a cop or driving a police car. They never pull in random information like that. They’re logic puzzles usually. In this case, the last time they used it anyway, the answer was (and will be, please note that I’m posting this on Friday, before the answer will air) that the 911 operator asks the man to read the license plate of the car in front of him. Then she can find out where the owner of that car lives and most likely that will be where the man is parked.
Yes, I definitely remember hearing this question and the answer on Car Talk before. They’re really messing with my head this week, too. The puzzler that they presented on the October 10 show (Car model name scrabble) was the same puzzler that was presented on the podcast version of the October 10 show (the show with the dog food air conditioner).
Well, yes, they do sometimes pull in random information like that. But as we probably all know by now, your answer was the correct one. I’m more likely to remember the Puzzler than the calls, and the model name puzzler is also a rerun, so that’s three in a row… I wonder if the entire show has been a rerun for the last three weeks.
Someone with more knowledge then me may want to confirm this. But I thought modern cell phones have GPS tracking that gets activated in a 911 emergency. If true then that makes this puzzler obsolete.
correction. This post is in reference to the 10/10/09 puzzler
Yes, modern cell phones do have, by law, GPS tracking that gets relayed on 911 calls. However, not very many 911 call centers are equipped to receive and make use of that info.