When I worked on a massive hiring project, we were trying to learn about peoples’ thought processes for their personal safety, and we asked in the interview if they wore seat belts or not. Most people replied that they did, and stated the law required it, but many people still offered that they didn’t. They had a lot of interesting reasons why not.
- Seat belts wrinkle my clothes
- I don’t need to, I have airbags
- It’s uncomfortable
- I’ve heard of people trapped in a burning car who couldn’t unfasten their belt
- My parents never wore them
- There’s dust on them that gets on my clothes
- I don’t believe there should be a law requiring me to wear them
- I’m a good driver
Would we hire someone who said they didn’t wear them and offered these excuses? Maybe, if they showed some level of flexibility in other portions of the interview. But when you take a job in a factory with required protective equipment and specific procedures, there is little room for personal comfort or opinion.
Do you wear your seat belt? Have you convinced yourself it’s OK not to do so?
Let’s be careful out there.
Always. My mother was a safety nut, so we always wore seat belts and even had car seats back before they were required by law. It feels weird to sit in a car without a seatbelt!
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Reasons 4, 5, 7, and 8 = excuses purely intended to justify doing what you want to do anyway
Seatbelts are not inherently uncomfortable. What’s uncomfortable is what you’re not used to. Once I get used to wearing seatbelts, I no longer even noticed I was wearing one.
Airbags and seatbelts each protect you from different types of accidents. For certain accidents, they both protect you, but the 2 of them together protect you even more.
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Tim
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April 8th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
Thanks for your views Mark. We can have action, or we can make excuses. Some people see excuses as a sort of reasoning, but it falls way short of a true “reason”.
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