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A new story in the Inquirer (Philly - in Cincinnati, they spell it Enquirer) talks of "the nickel ride", a deliberately violent ride in a paddy wagon - "$490,000 settlement for man who said neck was broken in police van"
There was a 1974 movie called "The Nickel Ride" with nothing on IMDB indicating what it means, and the only reference I find pnline is the Urban Dictionary.
The Inquirer also did a series in 2001 about the practice (as opposed to a single incident in the new story) - "Battered cargo: The costs of the police 'nickel ride' In city patrol wagons, suspects slam into walls and slide across the floor. Paying the price are the injured and the taxpayers - not the police."
My questions: is the term used by cops elsewhere, or mostly just Philly, and did cops pick up the term from the movie, or did the movie pick up the term from cops?
It seems to be ahumorous rake on amusement park ridea. In 1972, rides at Disneyland ranfed from 10c for the King Arthur Carousel to 85c for Pirates of the Caribbean. I don't know if 5c was a price that dates back to the depression (like going the $2 route means buying a marriage license), or the idea was that you can't expect much for a nickel.
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Did you use quotes in your search? If you look up the two words: nickel, ride, you get over 8m hits; adding quotes brings it down to 32k. And if you want to ignore many references to the movie, then add -movie, and all searches with the term movie are removed. There are many references to street car lines, going as far back as the 1880s; an N-gram search shows peaks in the 1940s.
Then there's a more modern usage (besides the paddy wagon)- your first flight.
From some aviation sites:
The first day that you fly is your ‘Nickel Ride’ (a reference to an old folklore about the crusty flight school instructors who always said, “If I had a nickel for every new student I taught ….”). (http://www-rucker.army.mil/pao/armyflier/2013/10/17/Ms_and_the_hover_button/)
The Nickel Ride is a tradition long standing in the military. It signifies the first flight. Each student must obtain a nickel with their birth year on it and present it to their IP. The exact meaning of the Nickel Ride is unclear. Two possibilities are:
1. Early in the 20th century a person could get a ride in an airplane outside a convenience store. The cost was a nickel. You weren't actually flying the aircraft, it was just a ride for you to enjoy. My Nickel Ride was exactly that.
2. Back when aviation was unregulated anyone could purchase an airplane and fly around. Plane owners eventually started giving rides to folks that cost a nickel.There are other theories out there. I am dedicated to finding the true meaning, though, because I find traditions to be a very important piece of the military. (From an army flight school blog http://bucknastytc.blogspot.com/2013/12/flight-school.html)
I’ve heard a few different reasons the first flight of a Helicopter pilot is called the “nickel ride” My favorite is the historical significance. I guess the basic idea is that back in the early days of aviation, it was fairly easy to attain an airplane if you were wealthy enough, and it was not a very regulated sector like it is now. Problem is, many pilots wound up spending all their money on this plane and sort of became nomads. At each town they’d stop at, they had two ways of making income, crop-dusting and giving rides. And you guessed it, these rides would cost a nickel. Since this was the first experience of flying most aviators got in the early part of the 20th century, the first ride is now called your “nickel ride” (from an aviation blog http://pribish.wordpress.com/2012/07/)
faresomeness said
Then there's a more modern usage (besides the paddy wagon)- your first flight.
Yes, but as you point out, that's a different usage. The NY subways offered a nickel ride before 1947, and I'm not sure when they raised the fare on the Staten Island Ferry. But those weren't deliberately abusive any more than the military flights were. And barnstormers were charging a buck at the height of the depression.
In When Earl Was King Neptune by Dayton Lummis (2006) says the term came from the rides at Woodside Amusement Park. I'm not impressed by the academic rigor of that book. I'd imagine that's something Lummis was told,which may or may not be correct. Westside operated from 1897-1955, and had a number of roller coasters.
In 1958, the second episode of "Naked City" was entitled "Nickel Ride" but as it involved the captain of the Staten Island Ferry, I didn't mention it; I don't think it was talking about police misconduct. I mentioned the movie because it was about cops and robbers, and no clear explanation of the title is easily found.
In a 2002 federal lawsuit, JOHN HUGHES v DEBORAH SHESTAKOV, ET AL, the judge's decision defined "Nickel Ride" as a "rough ride" and ruled that Plaintiff fails to adduce evidence to establish that the City of Philadelphia had a policy or custom of giving nickel rides. Plaintiff relies exclusively on the deposition testimony of Police Chief Inspector Frank M. Pryor. Inspector Pryor’s testimony establishes only that he knew of “rough rides”
from the 1960s and 1970s.... He testified he had participated in such rides whose object was to
get the individual’s attention, but never to injure or hurt anybody. He testified that it was not a practice,
but that it did happen, and that he did not remember anybody ever getting injured.
So the practice, er, uh, incidents have been going on at least half a century, but it doesn't say when they started calling them "Nickel Rides", nor whether that's a Philly-ism, or if it's called that in other places as well.
From my newspapering experience, I'd venture to speculate that abuse is fairly common everywhere, and that prisoners being transported weren't belted into place, long after federal law mandated seat belts in the 1960s, and officers might find reasons for wild acceleration, braking and abrupt turns by pursuing traffic violations that, for whatever reason, were never actually pulled over. In any case, prisoners commonly suffer bumps, bruises and abrasions between arrest and trial. Whether or not the term "nickel ride" is used, I can't say; I never heard cops use that term, and cops were generally unafraid to say anything on front of me, including speculating that a female prisoner would prostitute herself for favorable treatment.
It sure made me appreciate the good cops.
In my memory, I have never heard this expression before, or if I have I wasn't curious enough to pursue it.
So just looking at everything that has been said, it seems like everything that is called nickel ride is connected by being a rough ride.
Beside the wild police ride, there are amusement park rides, first flights in planes and helicopters by pilots (likely rough), first flights by passengers (if not literally rough, surely rough in their mind.), an episode of Naked City (Reading a synopsis of this episode, it sounds like a rough ferry ride in many ways) and finally a movie called Nickel Ride. From everything I could read about the movie, they had a rough time getting through life. This is my guess and if I'm right, I will also guess that the term probably started with early amusement park rides being pretty rough, then spread into these other areas.
It seems pretty obvious that it is used in Philadelphia more than anywhere else but I don't think it is exclusive.
Dick said
It seems pretty obvious that it is used in Philadelphia more than anywhere else but I don't think it is exclusive.
The last sentence of my last post was likely too assumptive. I was led by the article that deaconB refers to, which get many hits on Google.
the rest of my post was also my assumption, but I think pretty logical.
I meant no criticism of your assertion. I was just flummoxed since I logically would have been a likely candidate to hear and remember this idiom. Now I'm trying really hard to implant a false memory of my dad telling me about "perpetrators goin' for a nickel ride."
Maybe it's because he was off the streets by the time I (the youngest) was old enough to remember his work stories. He had enough seniority to have lighter duties for most of my memory. I remember having to ask him about any time he had to fire his weapon.
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