The one great thing about Uber/Lyft/et. al. is how they forced the taxi companies to step up their game and make getting a cab less of a shithole experience, at least here in Philly. Cabs are much cleaner, the drivers are not always distracted with some bullshit, and you can even hail them with an app. Before Uber came around, taxis were well aware that they were the fastest way from point A to point B (if you don't have a bike), and they gave precisely zero fucks whether you were having a nice/safe time.
I think the mention of "some dude yelling in some foreign language" is unnecessary. A person's native tongue says nothing of their intellectual capacity, nor of their ability to safely navigate a city.
Andedotally, I've been in cars with taxi drivers who were on the phone when I got in and talked for the entire ride, whilst navigating a city traffic, while also looking at their gps to work out where I needed to go. I did not feel safe in the slightest.
If it ever happens again I'd like to think I could ask them in a polite way to end the conversation or exit the cab, but how?
Granted, when you're yelling at people on the street, it's likely roadrage and unwarranted in any language but, admittedly, that sense of rationality is slightly depressed in this situation.
When I was in Egypt, I'd get in the cab, wear my seat belt and the driver will look at me weird. "So you don't think I can drive?"
A few years later, the police started enforcing the law and most cabs didn't even have seat belts. You would get in and find a sort of belt that doesn't even tighten, hacked together only to circumvent the law.
Not to say that in the US it is any better. If you wear a seat belt while in the back seat, you are considered weird. It is a stigma that is not easy to get rid of especially for the younger generation.
Side note: I do get some dude yelling in English too. So yes, it is irrelevant.
By definition doing anything outside of "normal" is weird, but in the case of social conventions it's usually because people just haven't thought about it enough. I'd rather be considered weird than be in a crash without a seatbelt on.
Citation? I am sure this is true for some people, but this does not match my own experience or what I can find when searching the web.
Just because sometimes it does not depends on you, and even the best drivers can have an accident.
I think people expect taxi drivers to get in less accidents because they are so seasoned. They can come within inches of other vehicles and dangers but with an indy 500 driving skill.
It seems like driving on the edge like this would encourage others to use a seat belt but alas when you have 3 people piled in the car for a short ride it gets overlooked. It really should be a standard to wear a seat belt.
Only kids school buses can get away with not wearing one and that is primarily because a school bus is so huge that others impacting it does little, and if a school bus driver had to seat belt all the kids it would take forever and the trip would be over before it started.
Specifically, a complaint that the bus should have had belts can be met with the reply, "But that's the way school buses have always been." In contrast, there is no similarly-reasonable-sounding reply to the complaint, "If only the supervising adult had done his job and ensured that the kid was buckled in!"
Same to the social norm of not wearing seatbelts in the backseat (which is where you usually are in a taxi).
He will be missed. Hopefully it can put focus on such a simple thing to save lives.
The basic idea is that instead of giving everyone seatbelts that unruly kids won't adjust properly and will use to whack each other's teeth out, you make really high padded seats so that in the case of an accident the passengers go flying into the seat in front of them, but its a relatively short distance and a soft, sturdy landing. The theory is called 'compartmentalization' if you're looking for a google search term. Here's one:
https://canadasafetycouncil.org/child-safety/there-need-seat...
Now, a lot comes into play here - the bus outweighs the pickup by several times, so it has the momentum to absorb the oncoming momentum and keep moving. But it's certainly not like hitting a flying bug. All that energy from the truck headed the opposite direction has to go somewhere, and it slows the bus dramatically in an instant. And these are high schoolers - no matter how many times the driver reminds them to sit down, sit correctly, they just won't. And even after all that, with no one besides the driver in a seatbelt, the students were all OK. (To satisfy curiosity: the driver of the pickup took serious injuries of which none were life-threatening; he spent two days in the hospital. He'd gotten impatient driving behind a tractor/trailer and decided to pass immediately after a curve without checking the lane first. This was a two-lane state "highway" and he was indeed in a zone that allowed passing.)
Then there's the Really Bad Accidents where the bus ends up on its side or upside down. Seatbelts are designed the hold under stress-- the button becomes near-impossible to operate and release. Smaller children will require the assistance of an adult. And there's ONE on the bus. With 50 kids. They make a safe belt cutter that a driver can carry, but now the driver has to visit every seat with multiple belts, cutting kids free, supporting them so they don't fall. This is not a scenario I'd care to have enter reality.
Both of us walked away without a single injury other than the bruises from the seat belt. I've worn them religiously ever since that day.
One of the serious accidents I was in (my grandmother turned a corner very slowly and the other driver was going 130km/h, with a pregnant lady in the passengers seat) did the exact same thing to me. I also got a black eye; apparently right as the accident happened I entered the brace position so quickly I hit my eye socket on my own knee!
The only part that saved my life was that I had stacked a bunch of HP servers right behind the driver seat, the rest of the cabin was completely crushed in ;-)
(Edit: I will never own a 4x4 or any high center of gravity vehicle which doesn't have a roll cage ever again. The day after the accident, I was sitting at the junk yard looking at the mashed ball of metal which used to be my truck, I couldn't believe I walked away without a scratch.)
Also, that was an... odd collision; getting rear-ended usually does not eject the driver out the front nor flip a bus on its side.
In the US from 2003-2012, there were an annual average of 6 fatalities of non-driver occupants of school buses[1].
1) http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/standards/hspps/1310/1310....
Cab drivers here won't drive if you don't put it on.
Seems like a good solution to me.
I treat that as an insult. As if their ego is more important than me not being launched through a fucking windshield.
It's easier than that -- just tell the driver you're not worried about him or her, but about the other drivers on the road.
Some busses don't have seatbelts, but for everything else it's just a subconscious thing that I always do (and as far as I know it's the same for almost everyone here because the penalties are quite severe - in some states, the driver can get demerit points if one of their passengers is not wearing one. For example, at certain times (usually holidays) in New South Wales when they have double demerit points, if you have two passengers unrestrained you get 12 points (at 13 points you lose your license for 3 months).
I have always wondered why its so common to find cars with the rear seatbelts missing. The common story I get from taxi drivers is that passengers who don't like sitting on top of belt buckles shove them into the seat.
I'm from the UK, where using a seatbelt is pretty much universal, and when getting into the cab I'd automatically pluck at where the seatbelt should be.
Once when I was taking a ride with our agent there, a local, and he saw me do this, he told me off quite sharply for it...
http://www.driving-law.co.uk/offences/seat_belts-exemptions....
My dad never brought that curious aspect up (ex-taxi driver of ten years) but you can pick up dangerous people. I remember when I was younger, he had to take me to the police station as he identified someone in a photo book. He said at the time it was a 'runner' but I later found out it was because of a man who he had dropped off who went on to attack his ex-wife and ex-mother-in-law with an axe, which he had the whole time in my dad's car.
Knowing about these sorts of experiences, I can understand why they would forgo protection of a seatbelt when they potentially pick up these types of people.
It wasn't all bad though. He has fond memories of picking up famous Manchester Utd footballers, his favourite team, before they were famous, e.g David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, etc.
At the beginning of every ride, it would play a pre-recorded message from you, generally from Michael Bloomberg or some other local celebrity asking you to buckle up. This got me into the habit of buckling up.
Now, the in-cab media plays a brief video message with no audio that tells you rates, who to call with an issue (311), and to buckle your seatbelt.
Maybe the lack of an audio prompt is why it's ignored now?
Interesting. I am guilty of having missed buckling ever so often. Mainly because I have had a speed are so slow, it doesn't matter attitude. I am also new enough to the city that I didn't experience the pre-recorded messages.
This is a bit off-topic. Do a lot of people use Uber? I have been here for a few days, can't seem to find an Uber. The app always says not-available. Flagging a cab seems a nightmare for a tourist. And grabtaxi works but there appears to be some level of negotiation at the end of the ride. The grabtaxi prices seem more like a suggestion.
For those unfamiliar with the NJ turnpike, where the accident happened, the speed limit is 65 mph and people drive like maniacs. Definitely a place where you want your seatbelt one.
http://www.etymotic.com/consumer/hearing-protection/er20.htm...
I think I just really like low-impact high-reward behaviors. People tend to over-insure for common and minor issues and under-insure fore rare but costly ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identifiable_victim_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudocertainty_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-risk_bias
Actually study all of them... Then after studying those, be sure to study the cognitive bias blind spot so that you don't become overconfident ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_blind_spot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Also, read Warren Buffett's annual letters to shareholders and try to emulate his approach to risk. I think he's very good at it.
My biggest problem, after becoming more risk-aware is being comfortable taking calculated risks. I often can come off as a bit of a party-pooper. Nothing says "Life of the party" quite like piling into a cab while hopping from one bar to the next and spending the first 45 seconds of a 5 minute cab ride trying to fish a seatbelt out from under your drinking buddy's ass.
I would say other behaviors that could seem odd to some people are:
* Never play lotto, but always buy tickets for local fund raisers or charity giveaways that have desirable prizes. My wife and I won a week long Black Sea cruise at a charity event where tickets were $10 each but I estimate less than 600 tickets were sold.
* Always buy things like renter's insurance (not likely to be used but will wipe you out if you need it and don't have it) but skip things like those insurance policies they offer at the store for non-big-ticket items.
* I stopped worrying about flying but I've become very pro-bicycle even though I don't bike much at all (because I'm a pedestrian and cars are a bigger risk to me than bikes).
* Pick software frameworks and libraries more based on well-trod paths than the new hotness. Avoid the very old and for the very new, wait a bit.
* And finally, on the other hand: I quit my job, moved halfway around the world, and started a startup in a country that is notoriously hard to do business in (Japan). That would seem very risky but it was the sum of a lot of very calculated moves that seemed like good bets when I took them.
There are probably a lot more. I bet you have some too.
++ advice to adjust the depth. I'm always modulating them based on the environment / band / track playing.
They were the best 15 dollar purchase I've ever made. I wear them even in only moderately loud situations.
Unlike foam earplugs, the only part that is visible is clear plastic so most people don't notice.
Edit: see below for a better definition of frequently
One of my friends was in a band and over the years that I knew him, I noticed he started to mix down his own music recordings hotter and hotter on the treble. I asked him why he was doing that and he said "I don't know, this is just how it sounds good to me." Later I realized that he probably has hearing damage and doesn't realize how much treble is in the mix for normal ears.
Keep in mind that 85db for sustained periods of time is the low end where noise induced hearing loss can begin. That's not really that loud. It's likely that your headphones can crank out over 100db and many people work in environments with loud, constant ambient noise.
Bands usually should be using ear protection as well.
Sorry to sound so melodramatic, but I think that was the point of the advert!
Also, my parents and grandparents grew up in different times in which seat belts were not required, or even present in the rear.
That video also highlights something I do too often: paying too much attention to what's going on behind. The dangers ahead are far greater.
"Like most victims, Julie knew her killer.
It was her son."
Are there seatbelts in buses?
The social norms are stupid and this would give you the excuse to ignore them without giving it a second thought (hey, the car is making me wear it!).
They should hold off on the warning until you've shifted the car out of park.
Maybe instead of a power button, cars should turn on when you buckle up after the brake pedal is depressed.
People will wear them or not. Making things more complex just means it will fail and make people do strange things.
The best the designers of products can do is "make them as safe as possible by default". There will always be people who actively work against those safety mechanisms though (like people turning off their ESP for that extra "sports-like" performance for their car - in urban traffic).
If someone makes such a deliberate and conscious decision not to wear a seatbelt, maybe you could assume they have their own reason for that.
It's not even clear that forcing people to wear a seatbelt saves lives. It may increase the risk to other people, if people are seeking out a level of risk that they're comfortable with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt#Risk_compensation
The evidence on either side is not enough to justify bankrupting fines.
I don't really give a hoot about the counter arguments against it, but at the same time I wouldn't let anybody in a car I drive without the seatbelt on.
Like many people, I never wore a seatbelt while riding in a taxi. I'm not really sure why, it just seemed somehow to be the social norm and I went along with it. Then one day, my co-worker and his girlfriend were both severely injured while in an accident crossing the east river in manhattan.
Ever since then, I've gotten in the habit of using my seatbelt while in a taxi, car, bus, or whatever. Sometimes I get weird looks from it. Sometimes I find that the seatbelt is buried in the seat because seemingly nobody has used it for months. I do the same thing here in Tokyo and I believe its still rare for passengers to care but at least the cars are cleaner and the belts are better maintained.
It's a bit odd that we (New Yorkers in this case) allow the TLC to push back on those regulations and win.