Actually, I rarely use them. For one, I totally resent the gov't dictating to us, much like that insurance law that had insurance brokers everywhere dancing for joy. But more importantly, I was once stuck in a car after a wreck because no one could get the seat belt to release. I had to wait in that car, smelling gasoline everywhere, until the fire truck got there so a fireman could cut the dam thing. They make me nervous ever since then; I never forgot that trapped feeling.

I always wear a seat belt. I wear one when I'm flying an airplane. There are a lot fewer things to bump into (or get bumped into by) when you're up in a plane. Even if the engine quits, you've got several minutes to prepare for a forced landing. Seems to me that they're more needed in cars. When you're driving on the streets, you never know who is going to do what, and end up drawing YOU into their nightmare.

Yes, I wear a helmet when I ride my motorcycle too. I even did it before it became law.

I find myself using the seat belt less and less around town. Its more laziness the anything else. I always wear it on the freeway.

You're much less likely to meet someone head-on or be T-boned on the Freeway. All of the traffic is going in the same direction. It's around town and on surface roads that you're most likely to be royally whacked by some Bozo.

true but on the freeway traveling at 80 a blow out will flip you over and that's why I wear it on the freeway.......If I am in Bako I will wear it but not in Tehachapi..

Yep,   I wear mine all the time.  You never know when a Danny Espinoza will plow into you.

lol good point Audrey.......you never know....

gube, do you allow your children to not wear their seatbelts too when you are driving around Tehachapi?

Audrey, I guess you better make a dumb comment about the lady "the poor kid" killed, just to even things out.

or Donna Brinkman, whose probably going to be given another oppurtunity to kill one of us....... http://www.bakersfield.com/...

Old Blue

I've been trying (on another blog)  to make Espinoza's friends and family understand how his "poor victim" role  won't play here in Kern County.

It's been a hard struggle.

To even things out, I should say "I always wear my seat beat because you never know when a "accident waiting to happen such as Mr Espinoza" will come your way.

I've read a lot of comments here. Some are positive and some are negative.  I know Daniel Espinoza (Danny) because I worked with him.  I'm more than twice his age so we weren't pals or anything like that but more we were simply fellow employees doing similar work so we worked together on occasion on certain projects.  After the accident I spent some time at the hospital in Bakersfield and later when he was transferred to a Colorado rehab center I stopped and saw him while on a couple of different motorcycle rides I did in that area.  I'm writing this to give the Walters and others a little insight into the man because they should know.  I don't know that Dannyu or his family would even like me saying some of these things but they need to be said.

I get the impression that some think he is evil but I can tell you he is not.  Danny was and is a soft spoken guy that worked well as a team member on any project.  He didn't drink, didn't do drugs, didn't smoke, was something of a health freak with the food he ate (unusual for a youngster) and he was a rising star in our company.  Key word is was.

After the accident Danny was in and out of a coma and while out was basically incoherent with brief glimpses as though a light might still be on.  The Doctors several times tried to get his family to pull the plug.  One time in an arrogant style the doctor told his mother "There's nobody home there." meaning he's brain dead and we can use his organs.  Danny's glimpses of a light on in his brain were enough to give his family hope and the glimpses became longer and longer over the two months that he was in ICU in Bakersfield. 

In May Danny was transferred to Colorado to rehab as much as is possible for someone in his state.  This is  where he spent the next four months trying to get the brain and body functions back that he could and how to deal with what had happened to him and the life in a bed or in a chair he had in front of him.  During this time it was kept from Danny that he had killed someone because a positive attitude does more to heal than anything when you are in this state.  I should say that Danny had some brain damage with no recollection of many things including the acctident. 

In Colorado his Mother put her life on hold to spend those four months at the Colorado hospital with him and her main purpose was to learn how to care for him, how to administer his 40 some odd prescriptions drugs properly at the proper times, how to move him in a wheel chair without causing a stroke or any of what I suppose to be a couple of dozen other things that can happen during movement,  how to monitor and recognize when his body temperature was going out of control because his body no longer regulates itself properly and all the other things that come with caring for a quad.

Now the last time I saw Danny he had some side to side movement of his head, some movement of his right arm with no movement on his fingers or hand.  He had some movement in his upper left arm with nothing below his elbow and could flex some stomach muscles.  This is about it for progress I think.  If he is on a chat as some have mentioned here, it has to be done with his mouth or voice recognition software because simply nothing else he has could possibly do it.  He is a young man that made the same mistakes any young man makes while growing up.  Every single one of us that are male have made them.  A difference with his last mistake was that it cost a life.  All of us could have been in his shoes except by the grace of God.  All of us speed to one degree or another.  All of us make mistakes while driving that could cost a life .... I know because nearly every day since I started riding motorcycles some 40 plus years ago I have had to dodge one or more cages (stable four wheel vehicle that protects the occupants with a metal cage. ie car, truck, SUV, etc) that is not paying attention to their driving. 

Last year when Danny was arrested the police were totally unprepared with what they had to deal.  His medications were thrown together in a plastic bag, they didn't have a handicapped compatible transport car, he was placed in a common cell with others with no care given to him or his cathoder and while it was only one night as a result of improper care and an unemptied cathoder a bladder infection developed.  Infections are common place with him today because his body does not function properly to fight such things.  This is constant thing and if improper care is given will kill him.  This is what I expect will happen if he is sentenced.

When I talked to him after his arrest he stated "If someone was killed by me then I should have to do my punishment.  It's only right."  He said this knowing that a sentence will probably kill him and  what strikes me as here is that Danny still doesn't know what actually happend that night and while I've heard conflicting stories about racing and speed it seems to me that neither does anyone else and only a jury should determine his fate. 

Since that fateful night in March of 2006 in that same area on Stockdale several people have been killed or hospitalized with serious injuries in surprisingly similar accidents with the latest victim being a young woman two or three weeks back.  Several similar head on crashes have occured and speed seems to be the norm rather than the exception whenever I am in the area on my bike.  I am sure that if I slow to the speed limit on my bike an inattentive cage will run over me and I see many cages doing 70mph and faster, changing lanes without signal and general disregard for the law on that section of Stockdale.  It seems to me with the crash record of the area since Stockdale has been made a through street there may be a bit more than meets the eye to all of this.

Danny was in an accident that killed Mrs Walters.  Was it intentional? No.  Were drugs involved? No.  Was speed involved? Most likely.  Was racing involved? Really it is unkown.  Was a mistake made? Yes.  Is it murder? .... well if there is anyone out there that has never broken a speed limit, never made a mistake driving a car, never lost  attention while driving for an instant, then you decide.  The rest of us should count our blessings and thank the kind grace of God that it wasn't us that made that fateful mistake sometime in our lives..

I always wear my seatbelt, and my kids are always strapped in their carseats.  There is no point in risking your life to save the three seconds it takes to buckle up.  I can understand people who feel trapped in a seatbelt, but statistics show it's much safer to wear one than not.  Hear me Gube?  Please be careful.

Pink..this blog isn't about Danny just because his name was mentioned, you might want to put the long comment about him on one of the pages about him.

Gube...Long ago a 16 girl was killed in a rollover in Tehachapi when she was thrown half out the window.  Her head was crushed.  She was not wearing a seat belt.  She was my husbands cousin and Mark was an honorary pallbearer at her funeral.  Back then, no one thought they needed seatbelts either.

It's a whole lot easier to prepare for freeing yourself from locked seat belts than to keep yourself in the seat in an accident when you aren't wearing seat belts. If you worry about being trapped in your seat belt again, carry a knife capable of cutting the straps.

Yup, always wear my seatbelt! Too many wacky crazy drivers out there! And Gube, you know what they say, you're most likely to be in an accident within a mile of your own home, or something close to that!

If you are more likely to be involved in an accident within a mile of your home, why not just move? (Old Steven Wright joke).

I was talking to Mark (motopoet) this morning about this blog and he immediately said "I had a cousin killed with no seatbelt" before I could even tell him I'd told that story.

Well in 1964 when I bought my first car, my uncle had lap belts installed and I have worn a lap/seat/shoulder belt ever since.  In 1967, my mom had a child safety harness/strap installed in the back seat of that same car for my 1 year old daughter. It was a nylon harness, attached to a thick nylon strap that was bolted to the frame of my car behind the back seat.  My daughter would scream and yell as she didn't like that harness but I decided I'd rather hear her scream because she was mad instead of screaming because she was laying in the road.  To this day she wears seat belts as do her boys.  My car does not move an inch in unless everybody is wearing a seat belt!!  Don't want to wear a seat belt?  Start walking!!!

I hated wearing my seatbelt.  But now I wear it all the time.  Especially since I have kids and want them to wear theirs.  Everytime we get in the car we do a seat belt chec -- persons name is called out and if their seatbelt is on they say check, if it's not we wait until they click it and then they say check.  We take turns as to who gets to do the checking.  It's a little ritual we've started.