I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.
The idea, of course, is that Graham's commands will remind him to avoid these outcomes. As Graham puts it:
The alarming thing is, the mistakes that produce these regrets are all errors of omission. You forget your dreams, ignore your family, suppress your feelings, neglect your friends, and forget to be happy. Errors of omission are a particularly dangerous type of mistake, because you make them by default.
I would like to avoid making these mistakes. But how do you avoid mistakes you make by default? Ideally you transform your life so it has other defaults. But it may not be possible to do that completely. As long as these mistakes happen by default, you probably have to be reminded not to make them.
Most driving guidelines — including those now issued by AAA and most state transportation agencies — now say you should lightly grip the wheel at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions.
By M. Alex Johnson, msnbc.com
If you're a conscientious motorist who still does everything the way your driver's-ed instructor told you to, you're doing it all wrong.
Steve Jefferson of NBC station WTHR of Indianapolis and Meredith Land of NBC station KXAS of Dallas contrinuted to this report by M. Alex Johnson of msnbc.com. Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.
For decades, the standard instruction was that drivers should hold the steering wheel at the 10 and 2 positions, as envisioned on a clock. This, it turns out, is no longer the case. In fact, driving that way could cost you your arms or hands in particularly gruesome ways if your airbag deploys.
Instead AAA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and many driving instructors now say you should grip the wheel at 9 and 3 o'clock. A few go even further, suggesting 8 and 4 to avoid the airbag mechanism as much as possible, but what formal research has been published on the varieties of hand positions suggests that this may lessen your control of the car.
Safer cars make old-school ways dangerous In its latest guidelines for effective steering, distributed by state and private driving instructors nationwide, the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association advises that "recommendations relative to hand position on the steering wheel have become more flexible."
As cars have become safer over the years, "the steering wheel and associated mechanisms (have) changed dramatically," it says, meaning the familiar driving maneuvers "needed to turn the wheel have all changed." Principal among the changes is the incorporation of airbag modules in the steering column, which are designed to deploy upward to protect your head and chest.
Where to put your hands
The American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association, the trade group for driving instructors, gives this advice:
- Both hands should be placed outside of the steering wheel on opposite sides.
- Your grip should be firm, yet gentle.
- Use your fingers instead of the palms of your hands and keep your thumbs up along the face of the steering wheel.
- Never turn the wheel while gripping it from the inside of its rim.
That means the higher up the wheel your hands are, the more likely they are to be directly over the plastic cover when it opens — that is, when superhot nitrogen gas flashes and inflates the bag at 150 to 250 mph.
Among the injuries the NHTSA reports from improper placement of the hands when an airbag deploys are amputations of fingers or entire hands, traumatic fractures and a particularly stomach-churning injury called "degloving," which — trust us — you definitely don't want to look up.
AAA says the bags can also slam your hands directly into your head, causing broken noses and concussions.
"If the bag is going to go, it's going to take my hand and put it into my face — either one of my hands," Bob Hendrickson, head of AAA's network of driving schools in central Indiana, told NBC station WTHR of Indianapolis.
Experts also say new research in ergonomics suggests that what's called "parallel position" makes for safer driving in general.
Parallel position "improves stability by lowering the body's center of gravity and reduces unintended and excessive steering wheel movement which is a primary cause of young driver fatalities," the Texas Department of Public Safety says in guidelines for new drivers (.pdf).
In plain English, that means "9 and 3," said Dallas police Sgt. Paul Hinton, who teaches law enforcement officers how to drive safely in emergencies like highway chases or when facing a wrong-way driver.
"That way I can go 180 degrees (one way), 180 degrees back the other way and then back to center," Hinton told NBC station KXAS of Dallas. "That's the way I'm going to be able to change lanes (safely)."
One other thing You're also turning wrong. That ship captain's-style "hand over hand" thing is now out.
Instead, you're supposed to "push-pull" — that is, push the wheel up with one hand and pull it down with the other, without crossing over.
"Hand-over-hand maneuvers during turning should be avoided to prevent arms from being in front of a deploying airbag in the event of a crash. Serious injuries may result during such occurrences."
Conversations like this are the bane and joy of a tech support operator's life. They seem fake when you read them, but I've had many that are just as crazy.
Yes, the tragedies in Japan are awful, but before anyone gets too up in arms about nuclear power, they should remember that radiation is all around us. If anybody understands how to handle this stuff safely, it should be the Japanese.
Whether or not the photos on this site were actually taken by Google's Street View cameras, there's still some fascinating, sad, and just plain strange things here.
Always fun when you can find your name in history. Apparently I started 131 matches for Everton FC in the 1920s. Didn't score once, but you know, it's not about the glory.
