The Dangers of Riding Shotgun
 

Or specifically, reclining your seat. Very interesting article. I had no idea.

http://www.slate.com/id/2173446/nav/tap3/

So much for naps while someone else drives. Oh well. Not worth a ruptured spleen. I'd rather be tired and cranky. Hurts less.

GR: just wondering if the injured person had an auto that has airbags? Maybe that would have changed the result. Or wedging 4 pillows around you if you really need the ZZZZZ's;)

air bags wouldn't affect where the seat belt was located due to a reclining seat.
should i add this new danger to the list of things to worry about? or should i just live my life and hope for the best- to die in my sleep rather than the million-odd other places i could breathe my last.....mmm, yeah. life is full of ifs, i'll continue to recline when the mood strikes.

LOL, I agree (except when I'm driving :eek: .)

Mini-vans with the soccer ball in the window are a bigger threat to America

but yeah seatbelts are not without faults

One of the women mentioned in the article didn't die; she ended up a paraplegic. Is reclining in a car worth that to you? Not that most paraplegics I know don't live full, useful lives, but I doubt anyone would argue things are a lot harder for a person when he or she has limited mobility. Is that worth a nap to you?

Reading the article, I don't think it's a "worry" per se, I think it's something that should be a well-known risk (like not looking before you cross the street or eating food from a squishy can), but isn't because car companies don't have an interest in making it known that it's risky to recline a seat.

I agree; bad things happen in all kinds of ways, but in this case, for me, reclining a seat isn't worth the risk of unnecessary injury, now that I know the risk involved. Other things are.

BTW, Timm, Danzig's response to you was right; the injury isn't from lack of air bags; it's from the seat belt being moved from the optimum position for safety. Speaking of seat belts, I wish I could find the slate article on the myth of being "thrown clear" of a crash- that was truly horrifying, as it went into pretty graphic detail of what happens to a body thrown through a windshield or under the dashboard. Yick. Again, not a risk worth taking for me.

there are risks involved in everything. you ride horses, right? i'd imagine there are more serious injuries caused from that past time then there is from reclining in a car. there's a risk in getting in a car anyway. a freak accident is not something i'm going to stress over, i have enough real issues to deal with. not the gee, i'm sleepy, but if a lie back i might have a ruptured spleen as tony might have a wreck scenario...not worth the worry. i went to six flags this year, risks in that past time. look at the football player who might never walk again. you think that will keep the other 1800 football players home this weekend?

on long peaceful cross country drives i like to wait until my passanger is asleep on a stretch of open highway. i look for a place where i can see miles of road with little traffic in either direction.

that's where i slam on the brakes while screaming at the top of my lungs.

the look on their face is priceless.

Oh, I totally agree that horseback riding trumps a reclined seat in terms of risk. I've broken a knuckle and done some kind of permanent damage to my knee while learning to do it :) What I think it comes down to is risk versus reward (as do many things in life)- if reclining in a car seat was one of my great pleasures in life; if I just lived for the long road trips where I could put my seat back and doze, then the risk would be worth it to me. It doesn't mean that much to me, though, so it's not a risk worth it to me. Horseback riding, rollerblading- those are worth the risk for me, though not enough to do without a helmet! For other people, they aren't worth it. Clearly you love to recline in the car more than I, so the risk is worth it to you. I'm sure I do some risky things you wouldn't do in a million years, but they're worth it to me.

My grandmother took miserable care of her diabetes and I spent some years pretty angry at her about it, especially after she died and my grandfather just fell apart without her. But then, food was her big pleasure in life, and a life without sweets just wasn't worth it to her. Risk versus reward there, too.

In any event, though, forewarned is forearmed, so I think it's good to know if there are risks involved with a behavior, so you can make an informed choice about them, don't you?

(Though on the bad side, if you or I or anyone who posted on this thread do ever wind up seriously injured as a result of reclining our car seats, this thread will probably mean the end of any sort of successful lawsuit we might bring, as these days I imagine the defense could manage to dig it up and use it as proof that we were making an informed decision. Curse you, internet!)

i wonder if that guy in front of me on the next long flight would be interested in the article.