Vent What makes people safety-conscious (or not)?

I commute to work early in the morning when it is still dark. Twice now I have made a left-hand turn into one of the busiest commercial streets in my city to nearly run head on into two joggers who are hanging out in the street talking. Because of the angle of the intersection, the traffic pattern necessitating quick left-hand turns, and the darkness (and the darkness of their chosen running gear), it's almost impossible to see them until I am just about to run into them.* The same two women. What's the deal?

I cannot for the life of me figure out why they would do that. There is a perfectly serviceable sidewalk just two feet away. The other vehicles on this road at this time of day are often exhausted truckers and other sleep-deprived people. And the lighting is TERRIBLE. There's no way I would stand in the street like that. Even close up against my car door. Especially if I am parked on a busy street, I get into and out of my car as fast as possible even in good lighting.

So it got me thinking -- what influences safety-consciousness? Is it the mental ability to imagine and foresee scary events (a talent which I know can sometimes make me fearful and avoidant of anything involving risk)? Is it the lack of safety awareness a "that's not my problem" mentality (as in, "it's the driver's responsibility to not hit me, so I can stand in the street and they'll have to go around me")? Or is it all in how we are raised -- like my parents drilled the rules of safety into my subconscious without me even noticing?

I'm curious as to what others think. I thought I should ask about it here since we all are clearly pretty interested in safety -- and yet often work with or talk to people who aren't so into that.

* okay, okay, it's not like I'm screeching to a stop and leaving tire tracks from having to slam so hard on the brakes or anything. But imagine you're about to make a left turn, waiting in the intersection and keeping an eye on the crosswalk for pedestrians. Everything seems pretty calm and empty except the oncoming cars and trucks. Then an opportunity for a left comes up and you go to make the the turn and get out of the intersection. And then as soon as you've completed the turn you are trying to navigate around these previously invisible people who don't even react when they see a car coming towards them in the lane which they are standing 1/3 of the way into.

I never run on sidewalks if at all possible. Concrete is way harder in the joints than asphalt. But I don't stand in the street and I'm lit up like Ft Knox when I run in the dark.

I don't know. The neighbors drive off with their kids standing. And the kids remain standing. I cannot fathom it...

They have boosters but do not use them, at least when standing!

bubbaray said:

I never run on sidewalks if at all possible. Concrete is way harder in the joints than asphalt. But I don't stand in the street and I'm lit up like Ft Knox when I run in the dark.

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I agree about the joint concerns. I think in this situation the logical thing to do would have been to wear reflective gear and run on the side streets (there are much less busy streets that run parallel to this one), or run on the grassy median of the big boulevard that's one street over (it's almost like a park in the middle of the road and there's a running path that is sort of trodden into the dirt because it's popular with joggers).

For all I know, that's what they had been doing (minus the reflective gear). It may have just been when they were headed back to the car that they stopped to loiter in an unlit spot of the big street.

bubbaray said:

I never run on sidewalks if at all possible. Concrete is way harder in the joints than asphalt. But I don't stand in the street and I'm lit up like Ft Knox when I run in the dark.

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Lol @ Ft Knox. I haven't hear Knox referenced in that way before. Haha.

Another thought occurred to me. I recently took a personality test that said I like to follow the rules and that it causes me discomfort when I don't know if I am doing the right thing. Apparently that's not something that everyone experiences. Could that cause some folks to be more safety-conscious than others?

Just two examples. I am one of those people that likes to plan out things. I try to think of everything that can go wrong and plan to make those things as least likely as possible. Especially in the car I am safety conscious. Of course we didn't have knives in our house until my youngest was 5 and even now we have only a few and they are stored high up. When it rains I go around pouring out all the water so some wandering toddler can't come to my yard and drowned. While I don't appear as safety conscious as a few you can bet that I have weighed all the pros and cons of things before making the decision. I have pretty much always been that way.

My husband has no fore-thought on what can be dangerous it seems. He won't even wear his seat belt unless one of us is in the car and it is because the kids and I nag him about it. The only thing he is safety conscious about is electricity (he works with it all the time) and one time someone had turned something back on when he had turned it off and it blew him back into a wall and hurt him so he makes sure things are turned off and at work they have a "lock out" where he has locks that only he can unlock to keep people from turning breakers on when he is working on things. Oh and my husband is careful around tooth brushes because he ran with one as a kid and it jabbed him in the back of his throat.

I don't know, but I don't think it's upbringing. I'm pretty safety conscious, but my sister is not, not even a little bit. Her kids are never in carseats unless they're in my car, actually when they're with her they're usually jumping around in the backseat. She's even been ticketed for not having them in seats and it didn't phase her.

ntrenary said:

I don't know, but I don't think it's upbringing. I'm pretty safety conscious, but my sister is not, not even a little bit. Her kids are never in carseats unless they're in my car, actually when they're with her they're usually jumping around in the backseat. She's even been ticketed for not having them in seats and it didn't phase her.

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Wow! I'm a safety conscious type. I'm always doing what I can to avoid tragedy lol! A friend of mine back in the day was ticketed for not using safety seats and had to go to a class but still didn't bother with them after that. The mom is more of a risk taker than I am. Probably some of it is personality.

Mysweethoneybee said:

Just two examples. I am one of those people that likes to plan out things. I try to think of everything that can go wrong and plan to make those things as least likely as possible. Especially in the car I am safety conscious. Of course we didn't have knives in our house until my youngest was 5 and even now we have only a few and they are stored high up. When it rains I go around pouring out all the water so some wandering toddler can't come to my yard and drowned. While I don't appear as safety conscious as a few you can bet that I have weighed all the pros and cons of things before making the decision. I have pretty much always been that way. My husband has no fore-thought on what can be dangerous it seems. He won't even wear his seat belt unless one of us is in the car and it is because the kids and I nag him about it. The only thing he is safety conscious about is electricity (he works with it all the time) and one time someone had turned something back on when he had turned it off and it blew him back into a wall and hurt him so he makes sure things are turned off and at work they have a "lock out" where he has locks that only he can unlock to keep people from turning breakers on when he is working on things. Oh and my husband is careful around tooth brushes because he ran with one as a kid and it jabbed him in the back of his throat.

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Not being snarky here, serious question, why didn't you have knives? And how did you cook or prepare food or do anything without them? I've never heard of someone not having any knives in their home.

Hmm, I don't know.
I grew up with parents who were both very worrisome! My sisters and I are all pretty safety conscious. I have bad anxiety, and that usually translates into me being overly safety conscious a lot of the time because I'm always thinking about "what if." I'm a constant planner (and back-up planner), worrier, and the like. My brain "relaxes" by running through disaster scenarios!
DH is not safety conscious... I wouldn't say he's reckless by any means (drives okay, wears his seatbelt all the time, etc), but he just doesn't have the personality to worry all the time. He's more laid back, whereas I'm kind of uptight.
I think it's brain chemistry more than anything!

"What makes people safety-conscious (or not)?"

common sense (and no common sense).

Running in the street is different than standing in the street chatting.

They must be of the "it will never happen to me" world. I cannot wrap my head around that mentality.

Mysweethoneybee said:

Of course we didn't have knives in our house until my youngest was 5 and even now we have only a few and they are stored high up.

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You've made me feel so much better about the fact that I won't take the lock off our (sharp) knife drawer when our kids are 5 and 7. The other day I noticed my DD's 2nd grade teacher lets the kids use her very sharp looking adult scissors and I'm still cringing. Is it terrible that I think it's somewhat hilarious your DH is more afraid of toothbrushes than vehicle collisions?

I always wonder why some people don't react to an oncoming vehicle (in the street, parking lots, whatever). Even in a crosswalk, I try to move along quickly, although that's as much out of courtesy as safety. I don't think it's just one factor. I'm way more safety conscious than my parents were, so it can not only be what you're taught, but also a sort of rebellion, I suppose.

I think a lot of people have different perceptions of what is or isn't dangerous. Like my mother thinks I'm a safety freak for RFing my under 2yr old nephew and keeping my cousin in a LBB until 11yrs old. But will freak out if someone stands on a chair or scrapes their knee. I also think real life experiences influence you a lot. I've been in an accident that totaled my car - I was ok but it was scary and really drove home how dangerous cars can be. My friend's cousin joked to death on a grape as a toddler so I cut up grapes/hotdogs/etc. made me longer than most. Having watched a neighbors house burn to the ground made me mentally plan escape routes anytime I spend the night somewhere.

It seems to be closely related to how conscientious the person is in general. Are they the sort of people that are more careful with things they've borrowed than they are with their own things?

I also notice some distortion of whats safe like pp mentioned. If the result of something unlikely is a scraped knee, I don't bend over backward trying to prevent it. If the result of something very unlikely is potentially death, the I do everything possible to prevent it.

Child passenger safety, drownings, and gun safety seem to be under appreciated in terms of potential severity by the majority of people that I know. Otoh, these same people are appalled that my kid would go 3 seconds in the cold in only a fleece. After all, they might get pneumonia and die.

Funny you mentioned the cold weather thing.. I babysat a 5month old baby girl for six months. She never was in her seat properly. It was an old bucket seat that's straps were completely twisted. The harness was never one time tight. It was always pulled completely out and hanging. I used my own seat of course.

Well anyway, one day the mom picked up baby girl, and she was outside with my mom in an exersauser. She feaked out because it was only 69° out. It was a beautiful sunny October day, and she was properly dressed. She thought it was irresponsible, lol.

bubbaray said:

I never run on sidewalks if at all possible. Concrete is way harder in the joints than asphalt. But I don't stand in the street and I'm lit up like Ft Knox when I run in the dark.

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Well, that explains half the people in my neighborhood running on the street... the other half who seem to enjoy the street in favor of the asphalt running path, though... they make me want to drive close and scare them off the road for good. (Really, it's a big, wide open, safe, suburban area with miles of clean clear paths and no shoulder on the side of the road... I promise, I never get close to scare them, I just curse them mercilessly as I avoid them )

I ponder this question all the time. The mom of two of the kids I watch (just turned 3 and 5) freaks out at the slightest little scrape or bruise, yet her kids are in backless boosters with the lap belt loose enough they can get up on their knees and the shoulder belts behind them. The 3 year old is only 27-28 pounds so isn't even legally big enough for a booster. She wanted me to put him in a booster in my van but I refused because it was illegal. She thinks I am overreacting. Um lady, you are the one who just freaked out and got mad at me because your 3 year old fell on my driveway and got a surface scrape on his knee, which he didn't cry about until you made a big deal about it.

We didn't have knives because my niece reached into a drawer with knives when she was 4 or 5 and as she grabbed a knife she cut her hand badly on another knife in the drawer. As in she had to have surgery to repair tendons in her hand. It happened just before our eldest was born. We just used forks and spoons and used scissors to cut up vegetables and the scissors got immediately washed and put in the cabinet over the rangehood when we were finished using them. We don't have money for things like steak so knives aren't a necessary thing most of the time. They do make pumpkin carving easier.
And yes it is very funny about the toothbrush safety over the seat belt safety.

sm1982 said:

I think a lot of people have different perceptions of what is or isn't dangerous. Like my mother thinks I'm a safety freak for RFing my under 2yr old nephew and keeping my cousin in a LBB until 11yrs old. But will freak out if someone stands on a chair or scrapes their knee. I also think real life experiences influence you a lot. I've been in an accident that totaled my car - I was ok but it was scary and really drove home how dangerous cars can be. My friend's cousin joked to death on a grape as a toddler so I cut up grapes/hotdogs/etc. made me longer than most. Having watched a neighbors house burn to the ground made me mentally plan escape routes anytime I spend the night somewhere.

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This. To be honest, it makes my hands sweat when I see kids standing on chairs unless I know that they are paying attention to that fact (like doing it carefully in order to reach something instead of just climbing around). This is because I fell off of a high-top chair when I was a kid and hurt my head really badly. So I think you're totally right about our experiences influencing our particular safety concerns.

But I too believe that it's okay for kids to get bumps and scrapes.

My MIL "yearns for the good old days" when it comes to car seat safety, but is overly proud of the fact that her kids were never injured when they were young and believes that it was the result of constant vigilance on her part. So she puts three pairs of pants on my poor sweaty baby when they go outside. And the other day I was sitting in the floor with my almost-8-month-old and I had her standing up with her hands on a couch cushion for support. She was doing just fine, so I removed my hands from her waist and let her support herself with the couch. When my MIL saw that I wasn't holding her she yelped and went to save her as though I weren't sitting right there, with my hands ready to catch her if she lost her balance and my legs on either side of her if she started to fall. Plus, we were on a carpeted floor and she's only 26" tall -- not exactly a jump off the roof. The absolute worst that could have happened was that she would have been startled.

Hmmmm....I think part of it is about your locus of control too. I know I can protect my kid when I am hanging out with her in the floor of my house. But even if I would like to trust that my neighbors won't try to run me down with their cars, I don't actually KNOW who will be driving, how tired they are, what their reaction time is, whether they are drunk from the previous night, etc. So why put my safety in their locus of control by standing in the middle of the road?