State of Fear
If you have not had a chance to read State of Fear you really should. One thread that Michael Crichton starts to develop is the idea that we live in a senseless state of fear. There is always somebody coming along sounding the warning klaxon of doom for something. With cars, for instance, deaths per 100,000 miles driven has gone down roughly 15% in the last 10 years. Things are better, but you would not think so judging by the new crazy laws and stories.So it is with my latest discovery when I made a recent trip to Germany. Apparently there is a law that requires drivers to place a safety net in the car in the event of an accident, to prevent the death of people and dogs in the car. The result is a net that is a hassle and may even contribute to accidents as your vision is reduced somewhat. My guess is that some Doggie Net manufacture is behind all this as the math does not seem to add up to me. If you look at the likelihood of even dying in a car accident it is is less then .01% of the population. How many of these deaths are cause by a flying dog in the car? It is certainly less the .01% of the population (I can only hazard a guess that the vast majority of miles driven are without dogs). So the net result is people must sit in cars feeling like they are in a police cruiser to satisfy some politician, interest group, or lobbying organization? I remember logging more miles in the back of a pickup truck as a kid and somehow I survived.
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