Sydney Schwieder riding a horse without a helmet!
According to Bryce Glenn’s February 8th Post Register column “Looking Back,” a bill was presented in the 1937 Idaho Legislature to ban the use of radios in automobiles. This got me thinking of some of the bills that are presented and passed with our present Legislature, and maybe some things that should have been made into laws.
I am aware that hooking up seat belts and wearing helmets when riding a motorcycle are safety measures, but I’m not sure we need laws for things like that. The person injured is the person refusing to do these things, thus they are the ones to take the consequences of not following safety precautions. Why do our lawmakers need to spend time making laws to protect us from ourselves?
What about all the times I washed with the wringer washing machine? I always had the kids helping me and they liked to put the clothes through the wringer. I would put a chair for them to stand on and one would put the clothes into the wringer and another one would be on the other side taking the clothes out. Many times my girls, with long hair, got their hair caught in the wringer. I never left them alone to do this, so we were able to reverse the direction of the wringer and get the hair untangled quickly. Maybe the legislature at that time should have made a law requiring anyone using a wringer washing machine to wear a helmet.
We never wore helmets to ride horses or bikes when I was young. And we often fell and got scraped and skinned up, even broke a few bones. Once when heading for the swimming hole on Sand Creek, I rode behind my sister on her bike. We weren’t wearing shoes as we were dressed to jump right into the creek. However, I got my foot caught in the spokes of the back tire of the bike. I certainly felt that painful consequence of not wearing shoes when on a bike, and I didn’t need a law telling me to wear shoes next time.
One time, before the advent of seat belts, I was driving to the ranch with the kids. Our youngest was sitting next to me in one of those car seats that hooked over the back of the seat, and put him so he could see out the window. I had bought groceries and the kids got some candy. Well on the way, the little one swallowed a piece of candy and started choking. Pulling the car over to the side of the road, I grabbed him out of the car seat, put him upside down out the window, held onto one leg and gave him a couple of good swats on his upper back. The candy, plus breakfast, came right up. Pulling him back into the car, I put him back in the car seat and we went on our way. One of these newer car seats wouldn’t have prevented the choking. Do you think a law making it illegal go give children candy before riding in the car would have helped?.
The other day we watched a DVD of a parade of old tractors, combines, threshing machines, and other farm equipment. The thing that really got my attention was the lack of safety shields over moving parts of these machines, and only an iron seat to sit on – no fancy upholstery, no padding, no springs to make the seat flexible, just cold iron. Those first machines were rough looking, just the basics to get them going. But they sure made a difference to the farming communities. And things have been made safer as new machines are developed. I’m not sure if laws were passed to put those safety shields on the equipment or not, but could have been.
I guess my question is: do our law makers need to spend their time creating laws to protect us from the stupid things we do?
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