So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[sheeplady]

I think the problem is that there are bad drivers all around: car drivers, motorcyclists, bikers, etc. In a car, if you are a bad driver, or encounter a bad driver, you have some amount of protection. (Some.)

It's gotten so that I'm less afraid of driving in bad weather because of the weather and more because of the other drivers. Although getting up the hill into work today I was sliding a bit (it was unplowed and mushy). Thankfully I only passed one car coming the other way.

 

[ChrisB]

Motorcycles look like fun, but I have heard too many bad stories to ever want one myself. My cousin's husband was hit broadside by a car making an illegal left turn, breaking his femur into multiple pieces. He required a lot of hardware and rehab, but eventually recovered. A former colleague of mine told a story that ended " and when I came out of the coma, they started the skin grafts". Some drivers are reckless, and many more just careless, so I prefer to have metal around me, instead of me around the metal.

 

[tonyb]

Every day is a risk. Getting out of bed is a risk. So is staying in bed. And we'll all end up dead eventually.

Still, people ought to know just how significant a risk they are exposing themselves to in their daily choices. And, we would hope, what risks their choices expose others to.

I see kids on backs of motorcycles and I say a little prayer.

Twenty-some years ago I borrowed my brother's '62 Vespa GS160, with the promise I would return it in as good a condition as I found it, if not better.

Long story short: the engine seized (which isn't such a big deal on those old single-cylinder two-stroke Vespas). So I paid to have the engine rebuilt, and while it was in the shop I had 'em put on new tires and brakes and cables, etc.

My brother's kid, who was still little back then, loved riding on the Vespa. I told my brother, when I returned his scooter, that if that kid were ever hurt on that thing I would never forgive myself. I doubt the Vespa has covered a hundred miles since. He fired it up every now and then and putted around the neighborhood, just to keep seals from drying out and the piston rings from sticking.

He's gone now, as is his wife. But his kid still has his Vespa, and his '65 Lambretta, and his '62 Chevy Nova, and ...

 

[Trenchfriend]

Motorcycling itself, 1.000 times turns out all right and the 1.001st time...

 

[2jakes]

Every day is a risk. Getting out of bed is a risk. So is staying in bed. And we'll all end up dead eventually.

That realization began when I first ventured out of home to attend elementary school.
With more awareness of the latter as I reach an age where I feel good to have made
it this far in one piece.

 

[ChrisB]

Remember when people refused to wear seat belts because they wanted to be "thrown clear" of the accident? You don't hear that lame excuse anymore.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My grandfather would cut seatbelts out with a pocket knife rather than use them.

 

[tonyb]

Remember when people refused to wear seat belts because they wanted to be "thrown clear" of the accident? You don't hear that lame excuse anymore.

Some people actually believed it. Some still do, I bet.

 

[Fading Fast]

My grandfather would cut seatbelts out with a pocket knife rather than use them.

My dad had the "wire pulled" for the seatbelt-not-on noise in several cars. Nobody on earth was going to tell that man he had to wear a seatbelt.

 

[tonyb]

I like to think that people would do the reasonable and prudent thing without a law compelling them to. Maybe most people, or at least some people, actually do, most, or at least some, of the time.

But I know that I rarely used seatbelts until the law told me I had to.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ the real question is what is prudent? What is prudent in my eyes isn't necessarily so in the next person's.

My dad knew the risks of smoking and of not wearing a seatbelt and actively chose to do both and expected no sympathy or help if something happened to him. When he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, he never complained or blamed anyone. He knew he had done it to himself and he expected no sympathy or help. He was a tough but fair man or at least a man who honored his own code.

In his mind, he had the right to chose the comfort tradeoff of not wearing a seatbelt to the risk of greater injury in an accident. To him, that was freedom - real personal freedom - and he demanded it, but he also did not expect anyone to pay the consequences for his decisions. If he didn't have money - his own money - to pay for a doctor, his answer would have been to "let me die in the gutter. " To him, that - all the above - was prudent.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In my grandfather's case it was more the sense of something he didn't trust. This was before shoulder belts were common, and the flimsy and uncomfortable lap belts of that period did not inspire confidence. There was no law requiring their use, and I don't remember him ever getting in any trouble at inspection time for having cut them out, so one must keep in mind that the attitude about belts at that time was nowhere as militant as it is today.

I go about 50-50 on belts, myself. The Plodge, which is my daily driver in the summer months, predates belts by over twenty years, and when the time comes to switch to the Subaru for inclement weather or winter driving, it always takes me some time to get used to the idea of using a belt again. Often I'm already at work before I realize I didn't use the belt.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ I, personally, am an all-the-time seatbelt wearer unless I'm in an old car that doesn't have them - then, que sera sera.

 

[tonyb]

People are bulletproof. Until they aren't.

We all know that smoking is deadly dangerous. But most of us don't really believe those ill effects will happen to us. Not really. Until they do.

I thought I'd never quit smoking. And then I had a heart attack. Quitting became effortless at that point. Call it magic.

One of my closest friends died of lung cancer on Jan. 22 of this year, about five months after diagnosis. He had quit smoking about a decade ago. He didn't complain.

It isn't exactly mortality denial that we need for a happy life, but it's something akin to it. Call it disregard, maybe. Sure, we know we're gonna croak. But I question if we really believe it, all the best evidence notwithstanding.

 

[Zombie_61]

...But I know that I rarely used seatbelts until the law told me I had to.

I didn't even start wearing them when it became law here in California in 1986. "They're uncomfortable, they're this, they're that, blah, blah, blah..." I just didn't like being told what to do, and saw it as a victimless crime. And I did that until California implemented the primary enforcement law in 1993 and I got cited not long after for not wearing one. After paying the fine and spending four to five boring hours one Saturday morning in a "Seatbelt Safety" class being lectured by two soccer moms who seemed to be only marginally more interested in being there than I was, I started wearing them. I think it took me all of five minutes to get used to it.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Maybe we're like little kids who would rather run around naked.

Nudity IS more comfortable, indoors, anyway, or out, under the right weather conditions.

Seatbelts aren't uncomfortable, once you get used to them. Certainly not as uncomfortable as standard business attire.

I typically don't buckle up until I'm rolling forward. As I back out of the driveway, or any parking spot, I find that the shoulder strap restricts my movement as I twist my head and shoulders to the right to better see what's behind me.

 

[2jakes]

I don't have an option on the Ford Suv.
I'll get a warning sound if I don't strap the seat-belt on.
If there's a door ajar, I'll get another warning.

But it's not as bad as a coworker.
He has to blow into a tube so that his car can determine
the alcohol content in his body before the engine starts.

At work in the parking lot when I'm ready to go home
and find I'm low on gas.
I'll ask him to blow into the gas tank to get it going so I
can get to the nearest gas station.

My VW beetle starts in all kinds of weather every time.

 

[tonyb]

...

My VW beetle starts in all kinds of weather every time.

The "all kinds of weather" you get in SoCal anyway, eh?

I rarely had any trouble starting my air-cooled VWs, even the ones with the 6 volt electrics, even in the Seattle winters. (Which admittedly ain't anything nearly so severe as what they get in Minnesota, say.)

 

[Zombie_61]

Maybe we're like little kids who would rather run around naked...

My friend, that's an entirely different conversation for a completely different type of forum.

 

[tonyb]

My friend, that's an entirely different conversation for a completely different type of forum.

The one all about living with toddlers, right?