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Here’s an article in Wheels that reviews some side mirror-adjusting advice I saw several years ago. I don’t know many people who adjust their mirrors this way – and it takes a few drives to get used to – but I don’t worry much about blind spots now.

Start with the rear-view mirror. Adjust it to get the best possible view out the back window.

Next, roll down the driver’s side window, stick your head halfway out and adjust the left mirror so you can just see the side of your car.

For the right mirror, lean over almost completely into the passenger’s seat. Adjust the mirror so you can just see the right side of your car. (Obviously, you should do all this while parked.)

The only caveat, on some older cars (like my wife’s Nissan Altima), the mirrors don’t go out far enough for this.

Also, if you have something big in the back (like your cousin Nimmo)  blocking the rear view mirror, obviously you may need to readjust a bit, too.

I’ve posted a few times before about Lenore Skenazy’s book Free-Range Kids (she has a blog, too). I read Tim Gill’s book “No Fear: Growing up in a risk averse society” which basically has the same point. Mr. Gill is a lot more… British… in his writing, but is even better researched (or at least, footnoted). It is a damning indictement of the culture of fear we have built up, especially surrounding the impossible – and incredibly harmful – attempt at creating a perfectly safe world for children.

Since his book was (and perhaps still is) available for free on the Internet, I’ve attached it to this post. I also quote some of my favourite sections below.

No Fear by Tim Gill [PDF]

(more…)

Quick little update regarding interesting mutterings in the blogosphere:

• BoingBoing reports on a handy graph of how much health care costs in various countries. Guess who stands out?
  
• Wired has a great article on anti-vaccine hysteria & the evidence. (via BoingBoing):
  

  At this year’s Autism One conference in Chicago, I flashed more than once on Carl Sagan’s idea of the power of an “unsatisfied medical need.” Because a massive research effort has yet to reveal the precise causes of autism, pseudo-science has stepped aggressively into the void. In the hallways of the Westin O’Hare hotel, helpful salespeople strove to catch my eye as I walked past a long line of booths pitching everything from vitamins and supplements to gluten-free cookies (some believe a gluten-free diet alleviates the symptoms of autism), hyperbaric chambers, and neuro-feedback machines.

  To a one, the speakers told parents not to despair. Vitamin D would help, said one doctor and supplement salesman who projected the equation “No vaccines + more vitamin d = no autism” onto a huge screen during his presentation. (If only it were that simple.) Others talked of the powers of enzymes, enemas, infrared saunas, glutathione drips, chelation therapy (the controversial — and risky — administration of certain chemicals that leech metals from the body), and Lupron (a medicine that shuts down testosterone synthesis).

  Offit calls this stuff, much of which is unproven, ineffectual, or downright dangerous, “a cottage industry of false hope.”

• Bruce Schneier comments on zero-tolerance policies:
  

  These policies enrage us because they are blind to circumstance. Editorial after editorial denounced the suspensions of elementary school children for offenses that anyone with any common sense would agree were accidental and harmless. The Internet is filled with essays demonstrating how the TSA’s rules are nonsensical and sometimes don’t even improve security. I’ve written some of them. What we want is for those involved in the situations to have discretion.

  However, problems with discretion were the reason behind these mandatory policies in the first place. Discretion is often applied inconsistently. One school principal might deal with knives in the classroom one way, and another principal another way. Your drug sentence could depend considerably on how sympathetic your judge is, or on whether she’s having a bad day.

This is just silly. Or it would be, if  it wasn’t so depressing:

Parents have been banned from supervising their children in public playgrounds, because they have not undergone criminal record checks.

Only council-vetted “play rangers” are now allowed to monitor youngsters in two adventure areas in Watford while parents must watch from outside a perimeter fence.

The Watford Borough Council policy has been attacked as insulting and a disgrace by furious relatives who say they are being labelled as potential paedophiles.

(via BoingBoing, also covered on Free Range Kids)

You can say that againt:

I would hazard a guess that they have not nabbed a would-be hijacker for eons, but they’ve made life miserable for countless thousands of passengers, confiscating salad dressing and nailclippers (the latter are apparently now permitted, no one having attempted to use one as a weapon recently), and getting, as noted, up close and personal.

Now they want more money. One shudders to imagine what it might be for.

My suggestion? Stop this thing in its tracks. Make CATSA use its existing budget sensibly. Don’t give them another cent, either from passengers forced at the moment to pay for their own humiliation, or, gawdhelpus, the Taxpayer-General. Run your hat through an X-ray machine by all means, show your ID half a dozen times to various functionaries, package your eyedrops in little baggies, trot through a metal-detecting doorway, but let’s have the government tell these people to back off at this point. Or the next time you see the man with the latex gloves, he may have more than a pat-down in mind. On your nickel, too.

Well, the story of the abduction of Jaycee Dugard – the young girl abducted in front of her stepfather’s eyes, 18 years ago by a paroled kidnapper – is all over the news. As are a number of fear-peddling articles on ‘what to learn’ from this story (like, never be alone when going out).

As usual, Lenore has a dose of reality to add to this. You really should read the entire essay (not to mention, her book!):

Here’s one post-Dugard advice article that suggests that, from now on, we simply “never go anywhere alone.” That’s not asking too much, is it?

This is just the kind of ridiculous suggestion that leads to ridiculous situations, like parents hauled in for “negligence” for letting their kid walk solo to soccer (or wait in a car!). It leads to folks trumping any Free-Range notion with, “Look what happened to Jaycee Dugard!”

“Your child could be abducted just like Jaycee Dugard. Learning from the Jaycee Dugard situation and protecting your kids from predators like Craig Garrido and Nancy Garrido is vital to the health and well-being of your child.”

No, what’s really vital to the well-being of your child is him or her not growing up convinced that stepping  out the  front door  is the equivalent of stepping into a viper-filled pit. What’s vital to the health of your children is their learning to make their own playdates, organize a game of four-square, talk to people instead of being terrified of them. Please do teach your kids to run from anyone trying to lure them away, should that rare thing happen. But teach them to talk to the rest. That’s how they learn stuff, and make friends. That’s how they become human.

[...]

[T]here is no lesson to be learned from Jaycee’s ordeal except that sometimes, terrible things happen to innocent people, randomly. In our blame-, lawsuit- and silly advice-obsessed country, it’s a lesson we find hard to accept.

That, and people on parole should be watched more closely, I suppose (or sex offenders – real ones – not let out).

What kind of a nanny state are we living in? I’m all for safety standards, but prohibiting someone from importing, for example, lighters that don’t have a prominent “Keep Out of Reach of Children” sticker on them, or a child-resistant lighting mechanism?
Or lawn darts with elongated tips? What if I make my own to play with? For crying out loud…

(Health Canada News Release; Official Pamphlet)

… sometimes in unexpected ways.

Also, this guy is clearly taking the child safety thing a little too seriously:

Officers said the victim was riding with his wife and had his 3-year-old son in a child seat attached to his bicycle when a driver approached him.

Police said the driver, Charles Diez, claimed he was upset that the victim was bike riding with his child on the heavily traveled Tunnel Road.

Diez pulled a gun and opened fire, hitting the victim in his bicycle helmet, according to police.

(via BoingBoing)