I have a new definition of “old”. If you can remember when you were allowed to be an idiot, you are definitely *OLD*!
Recently someone made the comment that you’d have to be an idiot to ride a bicycle without wearing a helmet. Maybe that is true, but on that basis anyone of my age would be an idiot. From about the age of 10 I rode to school and, when I lived in Broken Hill, regularly rode on the highways to go camping. In those days *no one* wore a helmet. To the best of my knowledge the bike helmet did not even exist.
Not many years before that, racing drivers wore a leather “helmet” to protect them from the wind as they drove at speeds of over 100 miles per hour.
When I got my drivers licence, there was no speed limit on the open road, rather, the police had to prove that your speed was dangerous to yourself or others. And of course most cars of the time did not have seat belts, radial tyres, disc brakes or any of the current plethora of safety devices found on modern vehicles.
Yet when I recently drove from Melbourne to Albury and back I was subjected to about 20 speed cameras because it is now considered the height of anti-social behaviour to drive today’s ultra-safe motor cars, on today’s ultra safe divided highways at more that 80 miles per hour. The fact that many drivers (myself included) hit their brakes whenever they saw a camera, with the attendant dangers of suddenly changing speed on a highway, seems to be considered less dangerous than driving a few K’s over the limit.
Now I’m not saying that we should return to the bad old days, but a little balance would go a long way. And, it is sometimes good to *be an idiot*.
