I decided that I, and all my passengers would wear seat belts a very long time ago, and I doubt that I have gone a total of 5 miles without my seat belt on since that time.
A friend of mine started chasing a stolen car down a straight, rural road one night. For some unknown reason, he decided to pull alongside the stolen car in the Ford Torino patrol car he was driving. The driver of the stolen car steered into the side of the patrol car and forced it off the road into a large pine tree. The pine tree didn"t give much at all, and the cars had probably been doing about 100mph. I never heard if the stolen car was recovered later or if an arrest was made, but that was really all that important.
What was remarkable was that my friend survived the accident, and in fact he was back to work a couple of nights later. The front of the Torino was smashed back to the windshield, and the engine and transmission went under the vehicle. The doors all jammed shut, but my friend rolled down the window, unbuckled his seat belt/shoulder harness, and climbed out the open window. When other officers got there, my friend was standing by the destroyed patrol car.
My friend always said that it was the seat belt that saved his life. Without it securing him, at the least, he would have hit the steering wheel hard and his legs might have been broken hitting the dash. At worst, he might have been ejected or killed by the horrific impact. Instead, he walked away with only some "soft tissue injuries".
That incident made a big impression on me. Before that, I had worn the seat belt some of the time, but was bothered by it interfering with all the junk we carried on our belts, and also for the confinement. My attitude changed, and I DECIDED THAT I WOULD NOT DRIVE OR RIDE WITHOUT A SEAT BELT ON.
If you get into a situation where you NEED a seat belt, usually there is no time to put one on. The only way to be ready is to get in the habit of automatically putting the seat belt on whenever you get in the vehicle.
I wear my seat belt for ME and my family, not because of some law. In my opinion, it is real STUPID not to wear a seat belt, and if giving tickets is the only way to get people to wear seat belts, then maybe that is what needs to be done.
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Today's Featured Article - Hydraulics - Cylinder Anatomy - by Curtis von Fange. Let’s make one more addition to our series on hydraulics. I’ve noticed a few questions in the comment section that could pertain to hydraulic cylinders so I thought we could take a short look at this real workhorse of the circuit. Cylinders are the reason for the hydraulic circuit. They take the fluid power delivered from the pump and magically change it into mechanical power. There are many types of cylinders that one might run across on a farm scenario. Each one could take a chapter in
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