(Submitted by reader John Meuser)
I grew up on a farm in a rural community in Indiana.
The high school I went to had been consolidated from several small town schools in the area, so almost all students were bused in being picked up from houses which were widespread. Even though our house was only about 15 miles from the school, it took about an hour for the daily commute. Pretty much all students get their driver’s license as soon as possible so that they don’t have to go through this lengthy process every day.
My younger brother is mentally handicapped so was unable to get his license at the same time all of his friends did, but my parents didn’t want him to miss out, so they allowed him to drive an off-road utility vehicle, best described as a large golf-cart, to school every day. The brand was Cushman, but I have no idea of the model. He probably had a longer commute than if he rode the bus, but my brother loved the independence.
He also had problems with the combination padlocks on the lockers, so the school allowed him to use a padlock which takes a key. This is a very rural area where no one locks their doors, so the only two keys that my brother ever carried were the key to his locker and the key to his Cushman. He was unlocking his locker one morning, and realized that he had accidentally gotten the two keys mixed up, but was surprised to find that both keys were completely interchangeable. His Cushman key could unlock his locker and vice versa. What are the odds that the only two locks in the world that my brother needed to use took the exact same key?
Below would be the extended notes provided by Barbara Drescher for use in Skepticality Episode 204. But as you may know from the podcast, the most Barbara could share is that she’s had a similar experience. This one’s just too tricky, and requires too much specialized knowledge, for her to assist.
So that’s where you, our faithful, generous, and brilliant readers/listeners come in. Do you know anything about the elements of this story that could help us solve this question? Are you, perhaps, a Cushman enthusiast? A locksmith? A trivia know-it-all who found a Cushman manual in a library and read it front to back in hopes that one day a Jeopardy answer would hang in the balance? Whatever the case, if you’ve got info, we want it. Please comment below the story and let us know what you think we need to know. There will be fame and fortune in it for you. Also, probably neither of those things.
Many keys are interchangeable. Standard locks and especially farm equipment. For instance… if you own a John Deere tractor it will likely fit any other John Deere product that takes a key to start. The point isn’t locking others out. It is for engaging the ignition without a child accidentally pushing a simple button. Many of these keys fit other “cores”. The Core system is the mechanism inside the “lock”. As long as the mechanism accepts the key… boom… you’re in business. One way to prevent a guy with a John Deere from steeling a Case tractor would be to change the size of part of the key so that it won’t go in all the way on the other tractor.
As far as the lock… It may have just been made by the same company and have the same core. Quite simple actually. House keys and car keys aren’t all that different either. But in a parking lot full of cars…. you’d have to check every single car for the door… AND then the ignition. The same with regular locks like used on school lockers. Would you go through the entire school to find the two lockers that fit your key?
Oh… and to add from my previous message… regarding the lock versus the Cushman. As long as the two cores were similar enough to accept either key, there’s no problem. There are only so many configurations you can use on simple lock systems. Not like house keys which are still limited… but they have side slots too, and many more variations. Carts, Tractors and locks don’t usually go that far except Masterlock.
When I was a senior at Virginia Tech (over 40 years ago), the key to my father’s station wagon fit the car owned by my room mate. It happens.
By the way, the facebook profile photo I see as I type this is my photo from a few days ago. My actual facebook photo is identical to that of Michael Goff. What are the odds of that?!
Seconding Michael Goff.
Following Hurricane Katrina, it was discovered that the vast majority of the keys used to lock FEMA trailers were interchangeable because the manufacturer of the locksets that the trailer builders used only bothered to make a couple of dozen key combinations. So until this was made public and FEMA started a program to replace the locks, there was a high likelihood that hundreds of people in the New Orleans area had the keys to your trailer.
Unfortunately the news articles about this went stale long ago, all I could find with a quick Google was this old forum thread: http://www.myhattiesburg.com/forums/showthread.php?12053-Awww-I-locked-my-keys-inside-my-FEMA-trailer-does-anyone-have-a-spare-key