Seat Belts

[Bird]

You smoked until you were 65 or so? Is that what you're saying? I'll bet you're on meds.

Smoked a pipe for 5 years, then cigarettes for 42 years. Now what kind of meds do you have in mind? I never routinely or regularly needed any medicines until I quit smoking and gained weight.:laughing: So now I do take a 12.5 mg capsule of Hydrochlorothiazide daily (doc tells me that's the lightest dose of blood pressure medicine he can prescribe) and I take a 20 mg tablet of Simvastatin daily (doc says that the lightest dose of cholesterol medicines he can give me). Do you reckon smoking caused the need for those, or was it quitting smoking and gaining weight that caused that need?:laughing: And of course before having this right knee replaced 2 weeks ago (nope, I don't believe smoking had anything to do with it), they wanted chest x-rays, EKG, blood and urine tests, physical exam, etc. and as I expected, they found no problems.

Their faces look like prunes

I can show you some people who never smoked in their life who look like that, and I can show you some lifelong smokers even older than me who do not look like that at all.

The claim is that smoking is way up on the list of causes for premature deaths and chronic illness.

And I believe that MIGHT be right, but there's been far too much exaggeration/overkill to be sure. I'm sure you're too smart to believe everything you read, but if the overwhelming volume of material is big enough and if it agrees with what we're predisposed to believe, then I'm afraid it's human nature to accept it as fact without actually having many facts.

Incidentally, we went to visit and have lunch with some former next door neighbors yesterday. They have a little girl who will soon be 6 and a boy who is about 2.5 years old. Dang, those kids have lots of asthma and respiratory infections. And would you believe the parents don't smoke, grandparents don't smoke, no one smokes in their house. Just makes it impossible for the doctors to figure out those kids are gettin' all that second hand smoke. I have a theory, but I'd never put it forth as fact. I wonder if the air pollution in the Dallas/Ft.Worth area isn't worse than tobacco smoke.

 

[Rob-D]

Smoked a pipe for 5 years, then cigarettes for 42 years. Now what kind of meds do you have in mind? I never routinely or regularly needed any medicines until I quit smoking and gained weight.:laughing: So now I do take a 12.5 mg capsule of Hydrochlorothiazide daily (doc tells me that's the lightest dose of blood pressure medicine he can prescribe) and I take a 20 mg tablet of Simvastatin daily (doc says that the lightest dose of cholesterol medicines he can give me). Do you reckon smoking caused the need for those, or was it quitting smoking and gaining weight that caused that need?:laughing: And of course before having this right knee replaced 2 weeks ago (nope, I don't believe smoking had anything to do with it), they wanted chest x-rays, EKG, blood and urine tests, physical exam, etc. and as I expected, they found no problems.



I can show you some people who never smoked in their life who look like that, and I can show you some lifelong smokers even older than me who do not look like that at all.



And I believe that MIGHT be right, but there's been far too much exaggeration/overkill to be sure. I'm sure you're too smart to believe everything you read, but if the overwhelming volume of material is big enough and if it agrees with what we're predisposed to believe, then I'm afraid it's human nature to accept it as fact without actually having many facts.

Incidentally, we went to visit and have lunch with some former next door neighbors yesterday. They have a little girl who will soon be 6 and a boy who is about 2.5 years old. Dang, those kids have lots of asthma and respiratory infections. And would you believe the parents don't smoke, grandparents don't smoke, no one smokes in their house. Just makes it impossible for the doctors to figure out those kids are gettin' all that second hand smoke. I have a theory, but I'd never put it forth as fact. I wonder if the air pollution in the Dallas/Ft.Worth area isn't worse than tobacco smoke.

Pollution might exacerbate the issue but what do you think happens to someone who lives in that area that also smokes? Who's better off an non-smoker or a smoker there?

Look, we know that smoking breaks down cardiovascular systems. It's a given with years of data. Got a bad heart? Smoke and it's worse, has to be. Eat a poor diet, you'll get sick, has to be. Eat a poor diet and smoke? Worse yet.

There's no free lunch, you don't get to smoke and walk away Scott free. Newton's Third Law: "for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction." You smoke something filled with burning nicotine, chemicals and pesticides and you have problems. That stuff coats your lungs, your organs, throat, etc. What no problems? Impossible. You think you smoked for 42 years and you're fine? That's the guy riding around without his seatbelt thinking it won't happen to me.

So do I think you're a lot worse off for smoking now that you need meds for cholesterol? You bet, you've already done damage to your arteries, the cholesterol just makes it worse. So the answer is yes.

The reason I'm so adamant about not smoking is because kids hear you talking about smoking all those years and they think they can get away with it regardless of what you say. They watch your action not your words. They think he smoked for 40 years so I can for another 10 with no problems.

And why do you think you gained weight? You gained weight because the environment around your system is healthier than it's been for 42 years and your organs are not under the stress of the chemicals and nicotine that has been taxing them all those years.

I don't want to be hard on you, I think you're a nice man but think about what you're saying.

Rob

 

[Qapla]

Do people who do not smoke get cancer? Yes.

Do people who are not in a smoking house get cancer? Yes.

Does the fact that there are some people who smoke and live in a smoking house that don't have cancer mean they never will? No.

Does that mean that smoking does NOT cause cancer? No.

There are many things that cause cancer and smoking is one of them.

There are exceptions to many things. I'll illustrate:

I have four children and like most kids, mine all had chicken pox. My brothers kids also had chicken pox. In fact, they all had them around the same time. Many would say that they all came down because chicken pox is a highly infectious disease and they probably gave it to each other. Also, one of them probably got it at school.

Most would not argue with that.

However - I have NEVER had chicken pox and neither has my brother (for that matter, neither did our mother).

Now, since I am evidently immune to chicken pox, as is my brother and mother, I could argue that chicken pox is really not that contagious, after all, I never got them and I did NOT avoid my kids when they had them.

So, should I tell others that they have nothing to fear from chicken pox because the contagious factor of the pox is exaggerated ... after all ... I never got them.

The fact that I am immune does not change the contagious state of chicken pox any more that the fact that since SOME smokers have not gotten cancer, smoking is safe.

 

[Soundguy]

but more importantly.. which is better.. gear or HST trans

soundguy

 

[Bird]

And why do you think you gained weight? You gained weight because the environment around your system is healthier than it's been for 42 years and your organs are not under the stress of the chemicals and nicotine that has been taxing them all those years.

Rob, actually I agree with most of what you're saying, but not this.:laughing: I don't have to think about why I gained weight; I know why I gained weight. Less exercise living in town, and where I used to sit and have a smoke when I wasn't busy, it became sit and have a snack.

I said earlier that my dad smoked all his life. That wasn't completely true. When he was about 42, he quit for a year, gained about 40 pounds and went back to smoking. He lost some of that weight, but never got back down to where he'd been when he quit smoking.

 

[dcyrilc]

but more importantly.. which is better.. gear or HST trans

soundguy

Gotta be gear:thumbsup: Can't be anything else 'cause that's all I got.:laughing:

 

[The Haymaker]

I spent a mere 5 years on the FD before my current job (15 years ago) forced me away from it. Spend a little time doing one of two things, and you may reconsider the choice to not wear a belt.

1: Spend a few minutes picking a dead mans teeth from the freshly fallen (and flattened) snow while listening to his girlfriend screaming it was her fault, causing the argument that caused him to loose it at 45mph in the slick conditions, go off the road and roll once on an embankment, causing his head to come out through the roof of his car which had a t-roof. Coincidentally enough, she was wearing her belt.

2: Spend a few more minutes consoling and trying to calm your bride to be's cousin that you graduated with while the rest of your first responder crew tries to stabilize her Cavalier, which is currently over an embankment, laying on it's side and propped against a tree only 3" around..... With the top of the door frame laying on her neck pinning her to the ground. She'd been there an hour before we showed up.

3: A month ago on my last trip to Syracuse with the Big Truck I witnessed a Honda Civic do a barrel roll in the highway median. Four teenagers walked away (well, stumbled) with minor bumps and bruises and a little hyperventilating. Their belongings left a trail that resembled the entrance video to The 5 Million Dollar man. Are you surprised when I tell you they were all belted?

Don't tell me belts don't work. Also don't tell me you can keep yourself behind the wheel during an accident without one, and don't tell me you don't wear it because you don't like the gov't telling you what to do or because "25 years ago you had a friend of a friends 4th cousin's friends mothers best friends sisters daughter get killed because she was wearing one."

Get right out of the seat belt battle amongst the rest of us and do some reading on Newton's Laws. Understand them, and then rethink a belt.

I think I just broke my soap box.

 

[jcims]

Just burning off a little morning caffeine.

I was a casual belter until I was hit nearly head-on at about 45mph by some kids taking a 'break' from some kind of retreat for reforming drug abusers (they were high).

I recall the seconds leading up to impact with crystal clarity, the front tires of the oncoming Continental bouncing in the opposite ditch as they tried to negotiate a sharp turn, the wheels turned to lock and literally plowing the car around the corner in the soft dirt, the car reaching the asphalt of an intersecting road and, wheels still turned, launching across directly at me. I can still see my left arm instinctively fly up to protect my face and my right arm pull straight down and around on the wheel. There was no actual time to change the path of my car, which was impacted at about 45 degrees on the drivers side front quarter.

The next thing i remember is looking up from the ditch, my friends aunt from up the road looking over me, saying 'he's awake', and an eerily vertical column of thick black smoke rising into clear blue skies. I dozed in and out of consciousness in the ambulance ride, couldn't remember the date, had a mild alarm when i couldn't remember if anyone was with me. Still remember the searing panic in my mom's voice when they pulled me out of the back on a stretcher, and her raw fury when they tried to stop her from getting into the ER.

Turns out my left arm went through the windshield, and the rest of me slammed up against the door and ricocheted across the dash. I had a big bruise on my head where the A pillar knocked me out, and tore the meniscus in my right knee as my leg somehow got wrapped around the steering column. The car was on fire, and the stoners actually pulled me out.

A few years later, as i was dozing off in lecture at OSU, this overwhelming sound of a horn invaded my semi-concious. At once a stream of memories of that same day flooded in, when the horn on my car was stuck on from the crash, and people talking about disconnecting the battery. It was odd, like a tape recording, i couldn't see anything in my mind, but i could feel the grass and i could recognize all the voices. I didn't know anything about the horn, nobody had mentioned it, but i confirmed it later with my brother, who heard the crash over a mile away and came with friends to help whoever it was that needed it.

I wear seatbelts now, religiously. The forces at play in a car accident are orders of magnitude beyond anything the human body can control, and the belt just gives you a fleeting chance of staying in the sweet spot that automakers are spending millions of dollars every year to maintain for you. Even if you don't have a full impact, the belt keeps your hands and feet within distance of the controls, so you have a shot at avoiding additional hazards.

I disagree with seatbelt laws, as I do helmet laws, but in both cases I think you're playing with fire if you don't use the technology available to keep you amongst the living.

 

[The Haymaker]

You should talk in front of people at seminars! Vividly written. brings back memories of my totally unrelated accident, but of observances, dreams, and others reactions.

Scary thing is some just won't get it.

 

[jcims]

Scary thing is some just won't get it.

I think it's just part of the human condition, especially when we are young, but the 'it won't happen to me' seems to always be with us in some form.

I can't say avoiding seat belts is all bad. If, fifteen years prior to this accident, my mom's boyfriend had strapped in prior to playing tag with a telephone pole, she may have never met another man, who subsequently became my step-dad, who got a transfer to Ohio, which allowed me to meet the woman of my dreams, who has put up with me for 14 years now and has given me two beautiful daughters.

Speaking of seminars, I have long wanted to put together a kinetic energy demonstration for high schoolers about to get their wings. There are all sorts of things you could do. Put kids in a car seat on a merry go round and see how long they can stay planted. Put a car seat and controls on a bucking bronco and do the same (lol insurance). Put dummies on a rail and slam them into the interior of a car at 50mph. Get the class strong man to chuck a 50lb rock, then launch said rock with aforementioned dummy rail. Put the whole thing in a 40' container and do a road show.