Somewhere a long time ago I got the idea that I had a fairly high IQ—140 or something, I don’t care to remember the exact number nor is it my point this morning.
In spite of my innate intelligence, I’ve also done some really STUPID things in my day. A couple of ex-wives and an ex-business partner come to mind as being some of the most expensive, but it’s actually the little stupid things that nobody else but me knows I’ve done that perhaps should stand out in my own personal “hall of shame.”
In spite of my
Take seatbelts, for instance.
I’ve always worn one--a seatbelt, that is--even back in the days when seat belts were options on cars. Does anyone but me remember old VW beetles that had not one but TWO buckles on each seat—one for the seat belt and one for the shoulder harness?
Although I haven’t had an auto accident in about 20 years, I ran my car into everything in sight when I was a teenager. I’ve probably been in at least a half dozen accidents, but I’ve never been hurt because they all occurred at low speeds and I ALWAYS HAD MY SEATBELT ON.
I didn’t need a law to tell me that it is easier to stay in the seat and hold on to the steering wheel when things go wrong if your strapped in to position while hurtling down the road at 4840 feet per minute (55 MPH).
Back in the early 1990’s when I was learning to fly airplanes, I was really serious about learning how to LAND the airplane first, because in spite of spending hours and hours in the air, landing at the end of the journey was infinitely more desirable than ending the trip with a crash.
I got really good at landing—it seems like I landed twice for every time I took off—well…maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but any way…somehow I always managed to return my rented airplane to the owner on time, and in one piece.
I got involved in scuba diving in the mid and late 90’s, and again I always studied my ass off in classes and never attempted to dive alone or in situations over my skill level. I always dove with a backup secondary air regulator and I never dove after drinking or when in poor health. My maximum dive depth was 120’ and I did several dives in the Walker’s Cay Shark Dive Rodeo, but I never did anything considered unsafe while under water.
In addition, I’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of hours in boats on lakes and offshore water skiing and fishing, but I was also a strong, expert swimmer so hanging around in/on water that was hundreds if not thousands of feet deep wasn’t a serious risk.
Like every other Georgia Tech Student in the late 1970’s I had taken a class they called “Drown Proofing” that taught me to swim in dangerous emergency situations. After mastering all of the standard swim strokes like the backstroke and the butterfly, they made you learn how to spend an HOUR in a pool with your hands and feet tied with ropes.
They should have called the class “Mafia Proofing”, but I managed to eek out a grade of B in the end. It kills me to hear news stories about people drowning after falling off of boats because THEY CAN’T SWIM.
How stupid is that?
Sort of like dieing in orbit because you can’t breath in a vacuum, I guess...Any way...
In spite of my experiences, there are certain activities that are considered “recreation” that I feel go beyond what I consider to be reasonable risks. Take skydiving, for instance. While I always thought about doing a couple of jumps just to get familiar with the process, it seemed easier to me to learn to actually LAND the airplane rather than regularly jumping out of a perfectly good one.
Motorcycles are an other fad that I’ve avoided. When I was a kid, only bad boys and daredevils rode motorcycles, had tattoos, and wore more than one earring.
Today, debutants have tattoos and multiple piercings while Lawyers and CPA’s buy Harleys and park them in their living rooms—displaying them like artwork.
Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Ben Roethlisberger got the ball rolling on the helmet debate again last week when he used his head as a wrecking ball in a car accident.
Activists and our elected politicians are second guessing the intelligence of “helmet laws.” It seems pretty strightforward to me, and the data in Florida seems to accurately tell the story for anyone with an IQ above room temperature.
A Florida Today analysis of federal motorcycle crash statistics found "unhelmeted" deaths in Florida rose from 22 deaths in 1998 and 1999, the years before the helmet law repeal, to 250 deaths in 2004, the most recent data available.
By comparison, Florida logged 270 deaths of riders without helmets during the 1990s, when riding without a helmet was illegal, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports.
What about this story is there to not understand?
Do we actually need new laws to protect IRRESPONSIBLE, STUPID people from themselves?
I say not.
All I would do if I were in charge of Florida motorcycle laws is to demand that anyone buying a new or used motorcycle sign a waiver.
What would my waiver say?
That they and their estate waive the right to sue anyone in the event that they are injured or killed as a result of a head injury and, if they don’t have enough health and life insurance to cover their expenses, that they allow the state to take a backhoe, dig a hole, and bury them where they fall.
Forget shoving tubes in their nose and throat and up their ass and allowing them to fester and shrivel away for years in a hospital at taxpayer expense.
Forget about letting their crying mother and widow and kids hire some scumbag lawyer to sue the pants off the motorcycle manufacturer.
In fact, if were up to me, I’d start a charity and give away motorcycles to stupid people if they promise not to wear a helmet when they ride.
Humans are the only animals that go out of their way to protect the imbecils in their midst...I say that we start acting smarter like lions and wolves and let the laws of NATURE run things rather than falling back on stupid manmade laws.
You can just call me insensitive, I guess...
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