Of safety and safety equipment

Boat tech breaks up into two categories, safety, and recreation. For us, safety is the first and primary boat tech resource we consider. We file float plans if we are going to be on the open water for more than two hours (or well away from our maritime home base). We have safety gear that is checked every time we board the boat. All of this is to have a safe experience. Water can be scary, or it can simply be something to consider.

Boat, car and personal safety are considerations all of us evaluate from time to time. We think about safety as we walk across the street (I used to tell my kids, look right, look left, look up in case of Helicopters!). Saftey is an interesting consideration. Yesterday we wandered the Baltimore festival of lights. I was watching the four police helicopters that were flying over the festival area and kept asking my wife why do you think they are there.

Crowd control was what I was thinking, my wife said. “well these are the kind of places that get attacked.” If that had been anyone else, I would have nodded in agreement and moved on. But my wife doesn’t normally think like that, ever. It got me thinking about the reality of the new world order of safety. What we used to worry about and what we have to worry about now. It is so different now than it was. I sometimes wonder if we’ve lost a piece of who and what we were.

Fear isn’t security and fear doesn’t create safety. Fear makes us jumpy.