Every day defense

[MasterPain]

So you've learned to defend yourself in a scientific manner. You've drilled your reactions to attacks in a principal based manner that adapts easily to different situations. Great.

So you're done with practice and leave the dojo. You hop in the car, light a smoke, drive home at 80 miles an hour without buckling up while texting your meth dealer and putting on your makeup and changing the radio station with one foot. You get up the next day, take your motorcycle to work with no helmet. You spend the workday lifting heavy objects by bending at the waist and moving them to the side in a twisting manner. (Or in case of more white collar work just bad posture) When you get home you go hunting with Dick Cheney. But at least you can defend yourself against muggers.

I present this in an over the top fashion, but at the same time I'm very serious. I've known one person who was killed in a violent manner. But there have been several who died in accidents and by extended use of tobacco and alcohol. Work related injuries have left some people I know unable to do things to the extent that they would like to. Anyone who practices self defense should consider it to be another safety precaution. What good is knife defense if you run with scissors all the time? Smokey the Bear belongs next to the Bruce Lee poster.

[JiuJitsuNation]

Awesome!

[Wastelander]

Agreed, and I wear my seatbelt every time I get in the car and make everyone who rides in my car wear theirs.

[joesteph]

When growing up, the cars first had no seat belts, then they were in the car but no one used them, and eventually more and more people, laws to wear them or not, began to use them regularly.

What I don't follow, and as a teacher on the high school level, my classes are filled with teenagers who grew up with the emphasis on seat belts, is how so many teens simply don't use them. I don't give them a lecture about it; instead, I ask them why not. They don't really have an answer; in a sense, they haven't really thought about it, even if they've had driver's ed.

[GeoGiant]

Buckling up is the law where I live, but i don't have to wear a helmet when i ride my motorcycle

For the record I wear a helmet when I ride.

[wolverine uskf]

There is no defence against accidents, but you can improve your odds. I wear my seatbelt, i don't smoke, i don't drink, and my cell phone is turned off in the car. With all of that i was still in a car accident that destroyed my left arm and nearly ended my life. The point is i did everything the way i should and i still got hurt, because someone else lost their focus for a second and looked off the side of the road. Just remember it's better to be safe than to try to be tougher than a truck.

[sensei8]

Solid OP across the board and your point is right on the money!!

[perhaps]

Agreed, and I wear my seatbelt every time I get in the car and make everyone who rides in my car wear theirs.

My car makes everyone wear their seatbelt! It would drive anybody nuts with the beeping! I'd wear it anyways, it's just an automatic reflex now.

[BDPulver]

having a 10 yr daughter which I addore. I make it a habit to always wear a seat belt. Alot of times she reminds me even if we havent left the parking lot yet. She was in one accident with me and all I can say is thank god for it. The car cut in front of us and didnt have enough time to stop. And reaction of my hand on her was so fast she told me to let go that she was fine just scared.

After that she always wears them and reminds everyone to buckle up cause she remembers that accident also.

[JusticeZero]

I generally don't wear a seat belt because I generally am NOT DRIVING IN A CAR IN THE FIRST PLACE...

Cars PERIOD not only kill over fourty thousand people every year in the U.S, equivalent to plowing three jumbo jets into a mountain every week. Globally they are the #1 cause of death for everyone between the ages of 3 and 30. Cars and the infrastructure we build for them are the primary reason why we are losing farmland and forests. The estimated public subsidy cost of free parking spaces alone is larger than the entire national defense budget. They drive for free on the largest taxpayer-funded socialized (for those who care about such things) infrastructure in the country, which they do not come anywhere near paying for with fuel taxes.

Every time someone drives their car alone in the US, they are committing treason against the country. Seven percent of the oil that we use in our cars, after being traded back and forth and mixed in big tanks to become untraceable, is sold to us by the governments of the Persian Gulf, some of whom are blowing up our soldiers with the proceeds.

I take a bus or ride a bike where I need to go. On occasion i'll ride a cab, because it's uncommon enough that I really can't justify the massive expenses I would need even to maintain a free car, even if the fuel was also free.

Furthermore, the DoT keeps track of bicycle safety. It's actually safer to ride a bicycle than to sit in a car, especially if you ride predictably and follow the road rules. Then there's the health benefits of exercize, and the neighborhood safety benefits of having more people out on the street paying attention to goings on in the community.