Summertime. . . and the livin' is dangerous - Americans may worry too much about unpreventable death

National Review, May 28, 2001 by Dave Shiflett

Just when you thought it was safe to lock the kids in the car and go spend a few hours on the putting green, child-safety advocates have come forward to remind us that closed cars can turn into death ovens during the summer months. A coalition known as the National Safe Kids Campaign says at least 120 children have died over the past five years due to this type of criminal neglect, and so is unleashing a public- awareness effort built around the slogan "Never Leave Your Child Alone." In the same spirit, General Motors has unveiled a new radar device that can detect movement within a car and, should the car become dangerously hot, will start blowing a horn.

The Safe Kids Campaign is not only sending up flares about the danger of roasting children in cars, minivans, and pickup trucks. It is warning that summer itself is a time of great peril, accounting for nearly half of injury-related deaths to children-a total of 2,550 is projected for this summer-mostly due to drowning, bike crashes, and vehicular deaths. Former surgeon general C. Everett Koop says these deaths represent an "epidemic," adding that "if a disease were killing our children at the rate that unintentional injuries are, the public would be unbelievably outraged and demand that this killer be stopped."

This kind of warning rubs many of us the wrong way. Being told not to lock your children in a closed car in July seems a bit condescending, much like being asked not to throw them off a cliff or allow them to nap in the trash compactor. It is also disturbing to consider that some people make a living telling us not to lock children in hot cars, or let toddlers swim in the outgoing tide, or spend our casual hours staring into the sun.

Perhaps the biggest problem is the hysterical tone employed by safety advocates. Dr. Koop, for instance, insists these deaths represent an "epidemic." What can that possibly mean? When most people think of an epidemic, they think of a ravenous disease of mysterious origin and widely devastating impact-the Black Death, for instance. Being killed in a bicycle accident or drowning in a backyard pool is hardly the same thing as succumbing during an influenza epidemic. And while there is no discounting the huge amount of heartbreak involved, the death projections, even if correct, do not rise to the epidemic level. There are, after all, around 70 million Americans under the age of 18.

The trick to enjoying life, including the summertime, is to recognize that almost anything worth doing can kill you or yours, but probably won't. Be reasonable, but don't make the absolute reduction of risk the central goal of life. Otherwise, you will end up stuck on the sofa- which, as we shall see, is not as safe as it's cracked up to be.

First, however, the cause of harmony and enlightenment requires that a few things be said about safety campaigns and those who manufacture them. Number one, they are based on the indisputable fact that there is no way to underestimate the stupidity of our fellow man. Some people really are too dumb to hit the floor with their hat. They believe they can get in a couple of games of bingo before Junior gets too hot out there in the minivan. These campaigns might, therefore, actually save a life or two in what I like to call the "moron community."

The other thing to remember is that many people in the safety business- Koop quite clearly among them-have been driven crazy by their work. I know the phenomenon all too well. I was once afflicted myself.

The time was the mid 1980s. A savage twist of fate landed me at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, where I was placed in the job of Director of the Office of Information and Public Affairs. Trouble introduced itself my first day on the job. A couple of lifers took me to lunch. On the drive to the restaurant, they talked shop-how many kids had drowned that year, the toll from accidental ingestion of furniture polish, a rash of incidents involving toddlers sticking their fingers into electrical sockets, and the unfortunate habit of some citizens to attempt drying their hair while in the shower. The scope of disaster widened to include lawn-tractor mayhem, deaths in baby strollers, and limbs and eyes dislodged by fireworks. The trip ended with an ominous glance skyward and a brief commentary on the deadly solar radiation beaming down upon us through a hole in the ozone layer.

In the coming weeks-and perhaps this reflects a somewhat light workload-I found myself poring over the agency's death and injury data. There were stats on the number of people killed playing golf, throwing lawn darts, placing aluminum ladders against high-voltage wires, falling down in the bathtub, tumbling down stairs, riding all-terrain vehicles onto frozen lakes and crashing through the ice, electrocuting themselves with devices designed to drive earthworms to the surface with the help of electrical impulses-even a gruesome case involving a deep-fat fryer.

Slowly but surely, the world took on the appearance of a big deathtrap. There was no refuge, not even in the bedroom, for there were statistics on the number of people killed in bed-related accidents-often children hanged between bunk-bed guardrails and mattresses, or smashed when the upper bunk crashed down upon the lower. Swing-set deaths, jungle-gym deaths, baseball deaths, football deaths, a T-ball-related death or two, plus choking on balloons and small toys. We had two young sons at the time. It was all one could do not to go out and purchase a couple of pint-sized cemetery plots, just in case.