On January 31st, Alaska Air Flight 261 dropped from the skies and 88 souls perished.  On January 31st, approximately the same amount of souls perished on the roads of America just as senselessly and a majority of them would still be alive today had they simply been wearing their seat belt when the unexpected occurred. That was not a headline.  On January 23rd, there was no plane crash to make the headlines that day, but it was another day where all too may lives were shattered by vehicle crashes and one of them was on an icy Kansas City road where NFL linebacker Derrick Thomas was driving too fast and lost control of the vehicle when it flipped three times, as sport utility vehicles are prone to do. He was thrown from the vehicle along with passenger Michael Tellis simply because they didn’t have the brains to be wearing a seat belt.  The only person in the vehicle who was, walked away from the crash with scratches….typical…typical.  All the papers say Derrick Thomas was a great guy…that his loss is so deeply felt.  In Americas obsession with fame as a barometer of personal worth, ask any of the families of the other Jan 23rd tragedies, or the Jan 31st tragedies if their loved ones are mourned any less because we never saw them on television.  In this new century, as it was in the last 10 years of the last, it is politically incorrect to tell anyone they are “stupid” or “dumb” or “selfish!”  Well screw political correctness.  Derrick Thomas was STUPID to a degree that only his family and friends can gauge at this point.  The loss of his life and that of Mr. Tellis is a loss to more than their families and friends…to paraphrase a famous quotation, the death of any person lessens us all.  It is just some are dumber demises than others.  Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed would probably still be alive if they had been wearing their seat belts. DUMB.  Her death made a world cry….SELFISH.  Some “libertarians” yell and scream that it is their RIGHT to hurt themselves and that the only person they are hurting is themselves and that these laws requiring these restraints are intrusive.  STUPID.  What is intrusive is how ALL our lives are changed today by these losses and it is NOT acceptable to accept that tomorrow will be just another day of loss on our highways by this conscious lack of common sense.

I can only hope the latest obviously preventable death of ONE famed individual will make one other human think twice about this act of selfishness, because the biggest lie EVER told is that “the only person I am hurting is myself!” Buckle up every single time, especially on short trips, because if you’re laying in a hospital bed cause you survived a vehicle crash, will you say “It was worth it!!” NO….you’re going to say… “How could I have been THAT stupid!!”