The Return

Pathetic as it may be, I must say that I am glad to return to the etherland of blog posting. Not that I have anything important to say (come on, do I ever?). It's just that I like the clickety-clack sound of my fingers hitting the keys.

So anyway, we spent the first half of this week in Boston. It's, uh, not bad. Pretty cool city, but it really sucks trying to drive around. Especially in a big ol' GMC Yukon. In spite of that, we did some stuff. Went to Harvard Square, went to the North End, saw the old North Church. You know, tourist stuff.

The rest of the time, I sat in a conference listening to people present papers. What fun. I learned that teenagers are stupid, inexperienced, risk taking drivers. I learned that middle-aged people who die in car crashes are surprisingly teen-like in their driving patterns, and I learned that old people can't see well, can't drive well, and are very fragile. I also saw some pretty grisly autopsy photos. I think it's best to just avoid driving or riding in cars from now on. But if you must, and you have a booster seat age child (4-8, up to 80 lbs), put them in a high back booster seat, not a backless booster. That's all.

One final side note. I spent three days listening to people talk about traffic safety and injury. On the way home, United Airlines showed most of the first episode of a retarded new show called Three Wishes, starring Amy Grant. It's retarded for three reasons: heartstrings needn't be yanked so severely or often, it stars Amy Grant, and they do stupid things. Case in point. One of the three people they helped was a little girl that was severely (AIS 5) injured in an accident. She still has sections of her skull missing and thus has to wear a helmet all the time. They said that her head was hit by the bumper of the intruding car (left side impact at about 60 degrees from head on, very, very typical type of accident), but I would be a little surprised if it was really the bumper. It's far more common for heads to hit the intruding hood. Anyway, for her head to directly contact ANY portion of the intruding vehicle, I would bet that the car that hit her was an SUV (or pickup truck) because they ride so much higher. So what do the team at Three Wishes do next? They give a Ford F350 to the second of the people they are helping. Tragic irony. I guess [WARNING: Offense provoking statement coming] it just makes me angry how many people feel that they need big trucks. Do you really? They use more gas, they are a hazard to other people. What do you need it for? Yes, there are some people that actually need them. That's okay. But you, mom of three, do you need a Suburban? Why not a minivan? They're safer both for you (yes, it's true, size isn't everything) and for occupants of other cars. Have some consideration please. Also, I might note, about 25% of all traffic death occur in rollover accidents. SUVs are much more likely to roll over. You do the math.