Stop making it easy for idiots

Posted by: MattJ

Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 12:31 PM

I am starting to get tired of well intentioned people jamming safety stuff at me. In the USA, there is talk of making stability control mandatory for all new vehicles sold here.



Driving is a SKILL, yes? So why are we making it easier for morons to drive. If you can't control your vehicle, I don't want you on the road. I suggest removing ALL safety equipment from cars, and putting a big sharp spike in the middle of the steering wheel, aimed at the driver.

I bet that would have a much greater effect on driver safety than high mount brake lights, ABS and the like.
Posted by: Tezza

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 12:57 PM

Thats a pretty intense view Matt. I would be interested to see your view on speed cameras ha ha
Posted by: Ed_Morris

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 01:12 PM

haha...good idea. remember the lame 'warnings' people used to put in their windows? "baby on board", "senior citizen driver", etc ...as if that changes the rules of how safe people are going to drive when near them. I'd think the opposite philosophy would work much better: "light sensitive, near-sighted, prone to seizure, narcoleptic, crack addict on board."

I know I'D change my driving habits around such an anouncement...hell, I'd pull over and wait until they are into the next town.

in the spirit of the thread...I never understood the obsession with helmits. I saw a 4 yearold riding a plastic electric toy-car that went about 1.5 miles an hour... he was going less than walking speed. The parents donned their little top gun with a helmit that was so big, it prevented his head from moving freely within the dome of his 'D' battery operated plasti-pod racer.

My software professor in college used to say: "If you try to make software 'idiot proof', then only idiots will find it useful."
Posted by: Eric4444

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 01:25 PM

Well of course there are many people who feel that adding more safety features to cars will cause people to drive more recklessly. That's a major argument against Dynamic Stability Control. However, there was the same argument when seatbelts were made mandatory. Well guess what? Now they save thousands of lives per year.
Also, it's not in talks, Dynamic Stability Control WILL be mandatory for all cars after 2010....or 12, can't remember.
Posted by: MattJ

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 01:31 PM

Quote:

However, there was the same argument when seatbelts were made mandatory. Well guess what? Now they save thousands of lives per year.



I'm afraid you have missed my Darwinian point, young padawan.
Posted by: nekogami13 V2.0

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 01:52 PM

At the age of 5 or so, everyone should be issued a gun. If you make it to adulthood, congratulations!
If not, be comforted by the fact that your sacrifice made the world a better place.
Posted by: MattJ

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 01:54 PM

Quote:

At the age of 5 or so, everyone should be issued a gun. If you make it to adulthood, congratulations!
If not, be comforted by the fact that your sacrifice made the world a better place.



Now you've got it!
Posted by: clmibb

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 02:00 PM

I agree Matt. I can't count how many times I try to light my BBQ pit with even a lighter and I can't work the blasted thing because of the child safety button. What happened to making sure it's out of the kid's reach? People are driving faster now than they did back in the 60's (was that about the time seat belts were manditory?). I won't argue with them. In fact, it's the law here the if you are on public roads, you have to have them on no matter how fast or slow you're going. I think the fine is somewhere around $300 for your first offense. Not real sure though. Some safety I understand but there are times I think common sense is being bred out of people.

Casey
Posted by: clmibb

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 02:23 PM

I was just reading some of the posts to my husband and he brought up a good point. Why is it the the school bus driver has to wear a seat belt but the kids on the bus don't? Doesn't make sense. Some of these kids just got out of their booster seat in mom and dad's car and now they ride around on the bus sometimes twice a day and no seat belts. Something's wrong here.

On the other hand I remember back in the 80's when kids in the back seat didn't need to be in a seat belt. We had a Delta 88 that I would lay in the back dash and wave to the people behind me. My dad would slam on the brakes and I'd roll off and sometimes land on the seat and sometimes landed on the transmission hump in the back floorboard. Great times! Kids these days have no idea what they are missing. Also, my dad told me a story of his childhood. They had a 1950 Bel Aire. My dad was standing up in the front seat (he was about 2) and my grandfather told him several times to sit down. He didn't listen so he slammed on the brakes. My dad smacks his head on the dash (solid metal at the time) and had Bel Aire written backwards on his forehead for several years. He still has a small scar and he's 53!

Casey
Posted by: Eric4444

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 03:59 PM

Quote:

Quote:

However, there was the same argument when seatbelts were made mandatory. Well guess what? Now they save thousands of lives per year.



I'm afraid you have missed my Darwinian point, young padawan.



Yeah, I tend to get caught up in facts a lot sorry.
Lol.
Posted by: Chen Zen

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 06:50 PM

Stability Control? Thats nothin. There making cars park themselves now. Before too long the cars will drive them wherever they want to go, like little retard taxis.
Posted by: JKogas

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 06:52 PM

We are gradually taking natural selection out of the equation. Which IMO, isn't really a good thing.


-John
Posted by: Eric4444

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 07:58 PM

Quote:

We are gradually taking natural selection out of the equation. Which IMO, isn't really a good thing.


-John



So if one of your family members is a bad driver, they either should never drive, or if they do drive, it's a ok that they die....just natural selection right?
Posted by: tkd_high_green

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 08:17 PM

Ah yes,

When I was a kid, we used to go sledding at this really cool sledding hill in town. It took quite a bit of athletic ability to get to the very top, and most everybody would wipe out before making it to the bottom. At the bottom of the big hill was a kids hill, with trees and a huge rock separating the two. If you managed to make it all the way there without crashing, you would then have to try and make it between the trees and the rock to get down the kiddie hill. Extra points for every kid you took out on the way down.

Now the trees and rock are gone, you can't go all the way to the top, and there is a snow fence and hay bales separating the big hill from the kiddie hill. Absolutely no fun anymore at all.

Laura
Posted by: Saisho

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/16/06 08:31 PM

I'm all for rules/laws that are intended to make others safe from my actions (i.e. smoking bans, speed limits, no firing a gun within city limits). However, I can not stand laws that I am made to obey to protect my own life only (i.e. seatbelts, helmets). I ALWAYS wear my seatbelt and helmet (not at the same time ), but why should I be required to? If I am that stupid not to wear them, the world is better off without me around to procreate.
Posted by: crablord

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/17/06 12:27 AM

saisho, 100% agreed. I always say that
Posted by: ButterflyPalm

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/17/06 10:11 PM

Quote:

Thats a pretty intense view Matt. I would be interested to see your view on speed cameras ha ha



...or condoms
Posted by: ButterflyPalm

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/17/06 10:29 PM

Quote:

However, I can not stand laws that I am made to obey to protect my own life only (i.e. seatbelts, helmets). I ALWAYS wear my seatbelt and helmet (not at the same time ), but why should I be required to?



You are 100% wrong.

It is not only to protect you or for your own good. It is for the general public's good. If you are seriously injured, which you will be if you do not wear or put on seatbelts, helmets, your medical treatment at the emergency room, stay of a period of time at a hospital, will use up and deplete public funds and resources, thus depriving or reducing public medical resources to other more deserving members of the public.


Quote:

...the world is better off without me around to procreate.



This holds true only if you die instantly (or the procreating part only is rendered unprocreatable) which, regrettably, do not always happen.
Posted by: JKogas

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/17/06 10:31 PM

Quote:



So if one of your family members is a bad driver, they either should never drive, or if they do drive, it's a ok that they die....just natural selection right?




Its not ok, but it IS life.


-John
Posted by: Saisho

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/18/06 12:32 AM

Quote:

You are 100% wrong.

It is not only to protect you or for your own good. It is for the general public's good. If you are seriously injured, which you will be if you do not wear or put on seatbelts, helmets, your medical treatment at the emergency room, stay of a period of time at a hospital, will use up and deplete public funds and resources, thus depriving or reducing public medical resources to other more deserving members of the public.




I understand your point on the economic aspects. However, I don't see how an opinion can be 100% wrong. Actually, it wasn't even an opinion but a question.
Posted by: ButterflyPalm

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/18/06 07:16 AM

Quote:

However, I don't see how an opinion can be 100% wrong.




...because crablord agrees with you 100%
Posted by: crablord

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/18/06 09:32 AM

Posted by: Saisho

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/18/06 10:45 AM

Quote:

Quote:

However, I don't see how an opinion can be 100% wrong.



...because crablord agrees with you 100%



O.K. Just as long as I know the rules.
Posted by: RazorFoot

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/21/06 09:57 AM

Sorry guys, my job is safety and saving lives. Only problem with letting the idiots kill themselves is that they tend to take ten or fifteen intelligent people (sometimes more if you look at factory explosions, train wrecks, or huge fires) with them when they cause the catastrophic incident that kills them. So, to keep you and your family members alive, unfortunately, we have to save the idiots as well.

Feel free to take them out in the woods, shoot them (mercy killing), and then bury them in a cave somewhere though. That would make my job easier.

Just a thought,

Scottie
Posted by: crablord

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 12/26/06 07:56 AM

*shoots Dauragon c mikado, takes him out to the woods and buries him
Posted by: migo

Re: Stop making it easy for idiots - 01/05/07 05:27 AM

Quote:

It is not only to protect you or for your own good. It is for the general public's good. If you are seriously injured, which you will be if you do not wear or put on seatbelts, helmets, your medical treatment at the emergency room, stay of a period of time at a hospital, will use up and deplete public funds and resources, thus depriving or reducing public medical resources to other more deserving members of the public.



Easy solution. Euthanize anyone who is hospitalised after an accident where they weren't wearing the seatbelt or helmet (unless, in the case of helmet, there was no head injury).