Pat, Since you live close how about some details? "Blatant ignorance" may be why he's dead, but why he was in the creek? MikeD74T
Mike, All I know for sure (and not already reported here) is that he was last seen alive brush hogging on his NON ROPS tractor. Three days later our friend went for a walk and saw the tractor upside down in the pond and on closer inspection noticed some clothing in the water and called the authorities.
I did not go to the scene and "read the signs." Maybe he tried to mow the dam and rolled over. That is my best guess but it IS NOT confirmed by observation. I regret that he most likely lost his life through ignorance and "wrong headedness."
This is three tractor deaths in the local area in about 7 years that I know of (probably more as I do not subscribe to the local papers nor stay current on many aspects of local"news.") Two of the three were roll overs of non ROPS tractors and one was a guy working under a brush hog which fell on him.
Unfortunately, it is most likely that all three deaths were EASILY preventable. The other roll over was unloading a tractor off a trailer without removing all the tie down chains, The operator was pinned to the pavement under the steering
wheel.
What a very wide spectrum of posts. Some were even related to the topic.
I too desire personal freedom for us all but... when your personal freedom encumbers mine or your risky behavior costs me too much $ then you have pushed your personal freedom too far. (A variation on, "do your own thing so long as you don't harm others.") So long as your free choices don't directly harm me, go do your own thing. Unfortunately the motorcycle helmet thing and the crack baby thing and all the other similar things do UNFAIRLY cost me AND EVERYONE ELSE lots of $.
I regret that anyone gets hurt but if it is through personal choice (join the Pro Bull Riders Association or bungee jump or noodle for catfish or prepare fugu at home for your family...) then I want to be relatively well economically insulated against your choice(s).
The difference, to me, in where freedom of choice is appropriate and where it is not is where someone's freedom to choose meaningfully infringes on my life liberty and pursuit of happiness. If you want to dance around drinking poison while brandishing a handful of rattlesnakes that is OK with me so long as you don't cause a burden on my tax dollars should something go wrong.
This is a slippery slope! Once you infringe whatsoever on one person's total unencumbered freedom in order to protect the freedom of someone else you have started down the slope. If you mandate motorcycle helmets to save the taxpayer from the inevitable monetary costs of unprotected riding and ditto seatbelts then why not sharp table knives? Shouldn't pencil sharpeners be designed so that the sharpened pencil has a bit of a blunt tip to the lead and not a fine point? Here is where reason is involved and compromise is required.
It has been said that you can't legislate stupidity (or words to that effect in this thread.) Actually there is no need to try to legislate stupidity as it abounds naturally. The unfortunate fact is that you can't legislate intelligence. No law will make scofflaws intelligent. Here is where some practical common sense would be most useful.
Not that everything can or should be reduced to economics but time and money are two of the chief ways to account for value. Clearly there is value in seat belt legislation. In aggregate, seatbelts save us all time and money. (Please don't tell me about the one time in a million when someone's car was on fire and the belt wouldn't release or similar MINORITY cases.)
In order to live in peace and harmony so far as is practicable, value judgments have to be made in sort of a transactional analytical calculus where rules and their enforcement are employed to prevent a few from harming the many. If you want to go out away from the rest of us and do patently risky things that are likely to get you killed or injured AND society as a whole does not incur a loss then go with my and society's blessing. Break a leg!
I have a pilot's lisc. That is NOT SUFFICIENT to fly legally. I must also have a current medical certificate showing me to be free of myocardial infarction, have the necessary correctable vision( with glasses) and have recent practice in the same type, class, and category plane I am going to take passengers up in. This protects my passengers as well as anyone on the ground on whom I might fall from the sky and crush with my plane should I personally malfunction.
Should I have the freedom to fly over you and yours if I don't make the Government mandated minimum health and other requirements. Should I be allowed to fly a plane over you and yours that doesn't meet the Government mandated maint requirements? Is my freedom of choice being infringed if I am not allowed to fly over you in anything I can get aloft regardless of my impaired faculties? But I want to fly FREE!!!
Public safety. If your motor vehicle is patently unsafe you should be prevented from driving on public roads where you endanger the rest of us. Driving a motorcycle at interstate speeds with no goggles is NOT safe for the rest of us as you could easily be blinded by hitting a swarm of bugs (not far fetched) and cause a dangerous crash. Don't like laws applying to you? Don't drive on public roads!
If you want to embrace risky behavior, the consequences of which do not realistically or meaningfully impact the welfare of the non involved, then by all means go for a Darwin. When your behavior is likely to cost me many tax dollars then your risky behavior has infringed my rights and you are in the wrong.
Pat
Last edited: