Proactive vs. Reactive

I've been pondering the recent death of IndyCar drive Dan Wheldon.  It was a horrible tragedy and a big impact for the IndyCar series.  Similar to the impact that the death of Dale Earnhardt, Sr. had when he died in a race.  Both have drawn a lot of attention to their sport, not necessarily in a good way.  A lot of criticism followed regarding the safety of the drivers.

After Dale's death, NASCAR really stepped up their in-car safety requirements.  They already had restrictor plate racing for the faster tracks, but even more became regulated.  And what do you know, it's still good racing.

IndyCar had a safety meeting this morning - I'm guessing some safety regulations will come out of it.  Maybe even some form of 'restrictor plate' racing, however that might work for them.

The thing with racing... everyone's always trying to go faster than before and faster than everyone else.  Look back to when racing started... they went speeds that we drive now on the interstate.  Does it need to be that slow?  No... but 220mph is a little excessive.

The thing is, why do we have to wait until something major happens before we do something? They noted that many of the drivers were already voicing concerns about the speeds reached at the Las Vegas Speedway and were worried something bad would happen.  I think the death of one of their own wasn't their thought, but I think they all figured there'd be a 'big one' at some point during the race.

This goes for everything in life... why do people often ignore that little voice that says, "This might be bad" and keep pushing?  Why do we have to have all these stupid warnings on everyday products?  Most recently, some friends and I were laughing at a warning label on a hair dryer... "Warning - May burn eyes."  Really?  Sadly, you know it's there because someone sued someone over it (which takes me back a previous blog about stupid lawsuits).

Maybe this is why we're in debt... we've become a nation of reactive people instead of being proactive and thinking ahead of the game.  I just can't help but wonder if we've just become so competitive about everything that we've stopped thinking about what we're doing.  When's the last time you stopped before you did something major (or not) and asked yourself if it was a good idea, not just for you, but in the big scheme of things?