Re: IML: Classic car safety

["Klebert L. Hall" <swampyankee@xxxxxxx>]

>Subject: Re: IML: classic car safety
>From: Christopher H <imperial67@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

    This is going OT, but it's lasted long enough that I can't help but make
one post.

> Folks, this kind of statement is, please pardon the bluntness, absurd.
>
> You could get hit by a Honda Civic at the right speed and angle and end up
> quite seriously injured or dead. Seat belts, even lap belts, help restrain
> you in the vehicle and help reduce the chances or severity of your
striking
> a hard interior surface.

    Sure. Or you could get t-boned by a semi, and walk away unharmed.
Physics and statistics favor the larger, heavier vehicle's occupants in a
crash, though.

> To suggest you'll be fine, B2 especially in a car with a non-collapsible
> steering column such as any pre-67 Imperial, is irresponsible and has no
> basis in fact.

    Not true.

   Statistically, you have to travel something like six million miles before
having an even chance of being killed in a car wreck.
   Once you're in a car wreck, your overall chances of being killed are
five-eighths of one percent. This only includes those accidents serious
enough to generate an insurance claim.
   Obviously, you can reduce or improve those odds , by taking more or less
chances with the way you drive, and the crash-safety of the vehicle you
choose to drive. Pure, unadulterated luck plays a really big part, too.

> You might not like seat belts (or laws) but driving is indeed a privilege,
> the cost of insurance and injury is shared to some degree by all
motorists,

   This argument makes slaves of us all. The greater public cost of
insurance is affected by every factor in our lives, thanks to the
unfortunate existance of the health-insurance industry. If the government
can make us wear seat belts to reduce societal insurance rates, then by
direct extension they can tell us what to eat, what to wear, how and where
we have to work, how and where we have to live, what hobbies we can
participate in, etc. - indeed, they can dictate our entire existance. There
is _no_ freedom without the freedom to make bad choices.
   We are not merely tax-generation drones owned by the government; we are
the individual sovereigns of this nation, each and every one of us.

> and making the lives of the dedicated civil servants who'll have to help
you
> or scrape you off the hood after you pass through the (not yet broken
until
> you hit it) windshield easier are all responsibilities we share.

   Those civil servants are good folks.
   However, they recieve excellent compensation for their jobs, which
involve doing a whole lot of nothing most of the time. Having to scrape our
corpses off the road is an occupational hazard that they get paid to endure.

> Seat belts work. That's not just my opinion. They might not save you in
> every possible collision speed and type, but who says you're only going to
> be hit head-on by a locomotive?

   It's true, seat belts do work. They are so vastly more likely to help
than to hurt in a crash that they can be described as entirely beneficial.
Wearing a seat belt is a good idea. I always wear them in some vehicle types
(Jeep Wranglers, for instance). When I drive my brother's '63 Falcon
convertible, I sometimes wish it had them. If I'm driving in bad conditions
(I'm in a _big_ rush, the weather's especially bad, traffic's looking
dangerous, I'm tired, all of the above) I put on the seat belts.

   Seat belts being a good safety device is not the whole of the issue,
though. Driving a car is an essentially safe activity, especially if you
drive it sensibly. Even crashing a car is a surprisingly safe activity.
   I've been hit by other cars over thirty times in my driving career (it
might be closer to forty now, it's hard to remember). Several times, I've
been hit twice in ten minutes - I must be some kind of crash magnet, I don't
know. Regrettably, three times I have caused minor accidents through my own
errors. I've had two cars totaled out from under me, and in several other
accidents, the other car was totaled.

   I'm almost certain I was not wearing a seat belt in any of those wrecks -
I certainly wasn't in any of the major ones.

   I've never suffered more than a quarter-sized bruise.


   Wearing seat belts makes you safer, and is a good idea. Not wearing them
under normal conditions is not reckless, however.
    Wearing a motorcycle helmet greatly reduces the risk of head injuries
from falls, yet few people wear them in the shower.

   Our society has gone completely insane over safety, with little or no
understanding of risk analysis - at heart, I expect the phenomenon is driven
by greed. All life is risk. I reccomend that people _live_.


   I will not post to the List on this subject again. I apologise for
departing from topic. If the List maintainers feel the need to punish me, I
understand and accept.

        -Kle.
        '69 Crown 4DHT




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