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Safety Nazis
© Dale Franks, 1997 (see dalefranks.com/safety.asp)
What has happened to us? Somewhere in the past thirty or forty years, we seem to have gotten it into our heads that we have the duty to round off all of life’s sharp corners.
I noticed it beginning with little things, like finding a tag on my hair dryer warning me not to use it in the shower or tub. That was fairly innocuous. After all, I could just throw the little tag away, couldn’t I? And if I really was hell-bent on a life of danger, I could simply disregard the warning, and stare death in the shower every morning by simply clicking the little switch. Besides, I was secretly amused by the idea that this little warning tag would do any real good. After all, people who are so stupid as to choose a water-filled tub as their preferred place for using electric devices are probably too stupid to know how to read the little warning tag.
Unfortunately it didn’t stop there. An entire subculture has grown up that the boys over at Car & Driver magazine have dubbed the Safety Nazis. The Safety Nazis seem to have one overriding purpose in life: saving us from ourselves. The Safety Nazis care deeply about me. They care so much that they have gotten together and passed a law that says I cannot drive my car without wearing a seatbelt or a motorcycle without wearing a helmet. It’s one thing to make safety seats mandatory for children. After all, they aren’t mature enough to make informed decisions. It is another thing entirely to tell free adults when they may and may not wear safety devices. We have enlisted the police power of the state in order to make us a little safer when we drive. That kind of frightens me.
The Safety Nazis seem to believe two things very deeply. First, they believe that I cannot be trusted to make informed choices about my own welfare. Second, if anything bad does happen to me, it isn’t my fault, but rather the fault of some evil entity like big business that would rather make a little more money than look after my safety.
Neither of those two ideas are particularly compelling as far as I am concerned. As Dennis Miller says, “You can’t save everyone, folks.” Some people are not going to make good choices. As a result, they will injure themselves. So, what? As to the second idea, I would answer that it isn’t the job of big business to make me safe. It is the job of businesses to make profits for their owners. The only responsibility a business has is produce products that are free of faults or defects that make them dangerous when used normally. Having said that, however, I doubt if it is possible to design a chainsaw that isn’t inherently dangerous.
Last year, McDonalds lost a lawsuit to a woman who spilled hot coffee in her lap, and received hideous burns on her thighs and groin area. Essentially what happened was this: while sitting in a moving car, she removed the lid of her coffee cup. The car hit a bump and hot coffee was splashed on her. At the trial it was alleged that McDonald’s coffee was unsafe, because it was brewed at a higher temperature than most other restaurants.
On my radio show, I interviewed the head of the New York Trial Lawyers Association. He explained that McDonald knew its coffee was too hot, and had ignored other injuries caused as a result of customers spilling coffee on themselves. McDonald’s continued to brew the coffee at such high temperatures because it was possible to use a smaller amount of coffee grounds, and resulted in greater savings for the company. That callous disregard for the safety of customers was why the jury awarded such a huge damage award to the woman.
I’m sorry. I still don’t get it. First of all, I want my coffee to be about the same temperature as Satan’s urine. The hotter the better. If I spill hot coffee on myself and get burned, then it is because I am either unlucky or a moron. McDonald’s is not responsible in either case.
By the way, McDonalds was brewing coffee at a lower temperature than my home coffeemaker brews it.
The jury didn’t see it that way. So now McDonalds has to use lower temperature when brewing their coffee. In effect, as a matter of civil law there is an upper temperature limit at which coffee can be brewed in this country. If you brew coffee at a temperature higher than 170 degrees, you may get sued for negligence if a customer gets burned.
All this extra safety doesn’t come for free, by the way. We all pay for it. If it costs McDonalds more to brew their coffee now, who do you think is going to end up paying for it? We are. By the same token, every time another safety device is made mandatory in automobiles, the price goes up.
“Well,” say the Safety Nazis, “if it saves just one life, isn’t it worth it?” Not necessarily. If we really wanted to save lives, we could lower the speed limit to 5 miles per hour. Hundreds of thousands of lives would be saved. Or we could raise the legal driving age to 25, since younger people kill themselves more often in cars. We could even ban the manufacture and sale of alcohol. That would save many lives, too.
But won’t do any of those things. We know that even though thousands of lives would be saved, the cost would be too high. So we are reduced to making changes at the margin, where the least good is accomplished. In the end, all we manage to do is make some people a little safer.
The fact is that life is inherently risky. When I go out with my friends to play a little softball, there is always the chance that I will get beaned by a line drive and live out the rest of my life as a broccoli floret. It may be tragic, but it isn’t anybody’s fault.
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