The humble yet effective seat belt

From Public Citizen:

Seat belts are the single most effective traffic safety device for preventing death and injury, according to NHTSA. Wearing a seat belt can reduce the risk of crash injuries by 50 percent. Seat belts saved more than 75,000 lives from 2004 to 2008. Forty-two percent of passenger vehicle occupants killed in 2007 were unbelted. A 2009 NHTSA study estimates that more than 1,600 lives could be saved and 22,000 injuries prevented if seat belt use was 90 percent in every state.
It amazes me that there have been a few people I ridden with who don't use a seat belt. I tell them I won't move my car until they put on their belt, and they always have, sometimes unhappy about it. I should just tell those people that it is an anti-terrorist device that will save 1,600 lives every year from Middle Eastern terrorists. Then they'd have federal checkpoints to make sure everyone is belted in.

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Riding A Hobby Horse

Hobby Lobby is suing to be exempted from certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act.  The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case . . . The question at the heart of this is, should a company be forced to pay for things with which it has a moral objection? [More . . . ]

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Is speeding dangerous?

The media often asks us to assume that the posted speed limits are reasonable. This well-crafted video challenges us to think further on this topic of speeding. Consider this bit of info near the end of the video: In some cases when the speed limit is increased, the number of crashes goes down. The take-home is that authorities should set speed limits that make sense. Well worth watching.

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Duck (And Cover…)

By now those who don’t know about Phil Robertson and the debacle at A & E are most likely among those who have no access to any kind of media.  They have no idea what the world is doing, because they have no way of knowing what to pay attention to.  [More ... ]

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Ten things Americans don’t understand

This article of 10 Things Most Americans Don’t Know About America was written back in 2012, but it is still highly relevant. Here are the headings: 1. Few People Are Impressed By Us 2. Few People Hate Us 3. We Know Nothing About The Rest Of The World 4. We Are Poor At Expressing Gratitude And Affection 5. The Quality of Life For The Average American Is Not That Great 6. The Rest Of The World Is Not A Slum-Ridden Shithole Compared To Us 7. We’re Paranoid 8. We’re Status-Obsessed And Seek Attention 9. We Are Very Unhealthy 10. We Mistake Comfort For Happiness

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