In Oregon, growing up, my father was obsessive about traffic safety. He was a professional truck driver who, literally, never had an accident or a ticket until he was in his 70s… and he started driving when he got his commercial license at age 16 (his father’s death required him to take over the family milk delivery business).

Obsessive?  Federal law required car seatbelts after 1968, but not retroactively.

Long before that, he installed after-market seatbelts in the family 1959 Thunderbird, in his own 1949 Ford pickup, and in the 1959 Volkswagen Microbus that was my first car.

He also so disliked the VW’s tiny rear stop/turn lights that he had custom “Mickey Mouse Ear” lights placed on top of the car at the rear. For years after we sold it, we would spot it driving around Portland. No mistaking it.

I was put in mind of this when I recently saw idiots driving too fast in fog and/or rain. In Oregon, we had the “basic rule:” doesn’t matter what the speed limit, never drive too fast for conditions. I thought this was unique to my uniquely enlightened home state, then discovered just now (thank you Ms. Internet) that it is universal in the United States. Ignore at your peril. And, alas, at mine.