My local fire department is doing som PSA that if your smoke alarm is over 10 years old, you should throw it away.
You bugged me all that time to put up a smoke detector, now you want me to trash it? Ok. Wish you'd make up you mind.
The car people made us get air bags in our cars, then they told us the airbags kill children and now they are recalling them completely because of shrapnel. Apparently they kill more people than they save, and notice they don't put em in motorcycles. Another expensive add on I didn't want that they are now taking out of cars. Well, too late! I always disable to airbags on any car I own. I don't even fasten my safety belt. I remember when dad brought home the 1978 Bonneville, having traded in the 1960s era LeMans. This was the first car I had sat in with a lap and shoulder belt. I grabbed the belt to buckle it when dad grabbed my hand, "I'd rather see your sister in a whorehouse than you in a seatbelt." Then he beat me bloody with a sjambok. That was my ninth birthday.
My father, born in 1925, was a StockCar racer in his twenties. (dirt tracks then) He always refused to wear seatbelts. As he pointed out, over his lifetime he had survived a fair number of vehicle crashes, all but the last one not being his fault, that would have killed him if he had been restrained. Some of them involved him being able to dive into the passenger footwell to avoid decapitation.
ReplyDeleteThat last crash was due to him blacking out due to a medical test that required him to fast for a day prior. He didn't bother to eat before heading home, a 1.5-2.0 hr drive. Halfway there, he coasted through a stop sign and got t-boned in his door by a car at 50mph+, which deposited him in the passenger area. There was no driver area left, so he thought he would have been crushed if strapped in.
Myself, I've been a passenger in a couple crashes that I walked away from due to being strapped in. One, I clicked the belt just seconds before we crested the top of a hill that turned out to be a sheet of ice. Long, steep hill. That 396 Chevelle was totaled when it hit the object in the middle of the "Y" where the road split at the bottom. I didn't always wear a belt prior to that, some vehicles didn't even have them back then, but I got religious about them afterwards.
Forgot to mention, the radioactive element is gone after 10 years. So, the pushbutton alarm test will still work, but the detector itself no longer functions.
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