You can be the safest driver on the road, but what about the OTHER driver who messes up and ruins your day...
Appropriate username
You don't even need to be in an accident. Some kid suddenly wandering in the street and you need to do an emergency stop. The car stops well before the kid, so no harm no foul right? Except the person in the passenger's seat has been launched against the windscreen and now has permanent brain damage.
Wear your seatbelt always.
Well, the driver is always responsible. Put on your seatbelt or you are walking, you tell them.
Yup. If you're the best driver on the road, everyone else is automatically worse than you are.
I'm probably not the best, but do appear to be a local maximum.
Felt. A friend of mine from another state once genuinely asked me if we even had to take a test to get a driver's license here.
So you're entirely surrounded by relative idiots is what you're saying?
100% why I never got into motorcycles. Not judging people who choose to ride, but that's not a risk I feel comfortable taking on myself.
I really wish there was such a thing as a safe motorcycle, but they're just outside my risk profile. They look so fun
You get a a motorbike or ebike and ride it where there are no cars, eg mountain biking
Mountains. Now that's a safe place!
My great grandfather had a saying, you drive for every other idiot on the road.
Aa someone with ADHD, pretty much anything that requires planning stresses me out. But this feels infantilizing more than anything
Hey neurodivergents....
spoiler
OOGA BOOGA
Yeah, so, wearing a seatbelt is overstimulating to me. As is clearing the snow from my roof. And I need my headlights as bright as possible because of my bad eyes - i mean astigmatism. The radio also needs to be as loud as possible. And my adhd makes me forget to turn off the high beam. I also have jittery hands because of my arthritis. And there is a bomb that explodes if I drive less than 80mph.
You really ought to consider that the other person might certain conditions, but still needs to get to work. And don't say I shouldn't drive and maybe should take public transport instead, I'm not a chump! /s
"public transport" you lucky chump! I'm taking a piss at you lol.
Though I do think your take is a bit funny, the speed "limit" is 80 in Colorado so yeah it's 100+ an hour; I guess Speed would have been a comedy. And snow is the least of your concern lmao. Imagine waking up and it looks like an apocalypse where everyone left their cars in the street--everywhere--because of ice. And public transport is a myth in most places in the US; don't worry I love public transport overseas. But yeah at 100+ your seatbelt saves the fire department from cleanup duty.
In the past children were taught fire is hot by intentionally giving them a small burn.
In much the same way, one can end non seatbelt usage by using your break pedal to engage your non compliant passengers forehead with the dashboard, in a controlled setting. (Empty road/parking lot)
This is the way.
I'm usually pretty good about seatbelt usage.
>90% as a passenger, 100% as a driver.
Recently I had a carload of people, we were doing 55mph, and a car pulled out in front of us, crossing the road. I have no idea how we didn't hit them. I absolutely stomped on the brakes, thank goodness it was dry pavement, the wheels still locked up (ABS pulsing), but it was a very aggressive maneuver. Had it been winter we'd have t-boned them at-speed.
Also thankfully, everyone in the car was wearing their seatbelts. So while all the drinks and papers and random stuff around the car ended up on the floor, everyone was ok.
This has renewed my convictions about passenger seatbelting, both mine and others. I'm back up to 100%.
Edit: formatting
Edit 2: highlighting the relevant part people keep missing
Anything below 100% is not pretty good
When me and my wife first started dating she'd pretty much never wear her seatbelt. I had to ride her so much to wear it. Started not even putting the car in gear until she put it on. Finally she got the message when I asked her if she wanted her son to grow up without her.
my dad used to not wear his seatbelt when i was a little kid so my mom got me and my brother to scream at him to put it on until he put it on. hes been putting his seatbelt on ever since
The shape and height of my body means the seat belt digs into my neck, instead of going across my chest and over my shoulder. Low key, sometimes I wonder if I would be decapitated in a crash because of it
Safety features are designed for a 5’9 man.
A lot of people don’t know that the seat belt anchor on the B pillar is adjustable (in some cars).
If it’s not, the only safe way to fix the problem is to raise the seat or use booster cushions, and then pedal extenders if your feet don’t reach.
The clips make it more comfy, but also more dangerous in a crash.
I'm 5'1" and even though I slide the seat belt anchor all the way down and sit on an extra cushion the belt slides towards my throat as I drive. I think shoulder width and boobs have an effect also, (mine are sort of medium) and of course when I was heavily pregnant that raised other issues (put it across your hips, not your belly! And drive carefully so you don't have to slam the brakes because your bladder is already ready to burst!) but of course manufacturing engineers take the lazy misogynistic way out by pretending women don't exist.
It was all of last damed year that the first explicitly designed female crash test dummies were approved for use.
So yeah.
Hopefully we’ll start to see better outcomes for women in the near future.
This is bait
it's bait, but it's also real in the sense there are lots of people who are delusional about how 'oppressed' they are by ordinary everyday reality.
because they have no context of how good they have it.
Do they do pre-prints for Darwin Awards?
I'd prefer people not die or get mangled but it does remind me that some forms of autism include touch oversensitivity. Is there a solution to that?
Trains
For real though, there are padded covers you can buy for seatbelts that might help. I am pretty sure I have seen people make their own, and an extra layer of clothing kr a blanket might help too.
Seatbelts are not one of my particular sensory issues, but in general with stuff I try to remind myself that some things are worth being uncomfortable for. It's an evaluation: how long will I be uncomfortable for, and how uncomfortable? What am I getting out of it? How hard would it be to reduce or eliminate this discomfort? Will I be able to take some time to collect myself soon?
Don't drive in a car.
