We have returned to Cleveland for a pit stop. \u00a0 Last night my daughter Sarah was reading from a book about the economy. \u00a0 It noted that until the 1960s, hardly anyone used seat belts. \u00a0 Then, thanks to consumer advocate Ralph Nader, seat belts became mandatory. \u00a0 Interestingly enough, you’d think people would be safer. \u00a0 Wrong. \u00a0 Without seat belts people had a tendency to drive slower and safer. \u00a0 With seat belts people started thinking they were bullet proof and began driving faster and more recklessly. \u00a0 This, ultimately, \u00a0produced more accidents. \u00a0 There are currently some 33,000 vehicular fatalities on the nation’s roads every year, and many more maimings. \u00a0 (By comparison, we’ve lost about 3,500 soldiers in Iraq in the past four years.) \u00a0 Our highways are war zones! \u00a0 We just don’t look at it that way, because we are \u00a0motor vehicle addicts in denial… \u00a0 Sarah and I concluded that speed limits should be lowered considerably (20 mph in the city and 40 mph on the highways), in tandem with seat belts still being mandatory. \u00a0 With these speeds, most everyone would be so much safer. \u00a0 People also \u00a0wouldn’t drive as much, which consequently would considerably curb global warming gases. \u00a0 What’s more, people would start looking for jobs closer to home, which would curb global warming gases even more, etc., etc., etc…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We have returned to Cleveland for a pit stop. \u00a0 Last night my daughter Sarah was reading from a book about the economy. \u00a0 It noted that until the 1960s, hardly anyone used seat belts. \u00a0 Then, thanks to consumer …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}