Safety and extremism: the sad tale of a suburban mom

No doubt about it - I care deeply about the issue of safety... but I also know that anything taken to extremes can become a detriment to society. That's why I got hot under the collar when I read the story about Treffly Coyne, the suburban mother (right, photo from Fox News) who walked ten feet away from car with her two year old sleeping inside and was promptly arrested for jeopardizing the safety of that child.

I am convinced that whenever precautions are taken to an unhealthy extreme it alienates the majority of people and weakens the power of the message.  In my opinion, Treffly Coyne was not putting her child at risk – according to her own statements she could see her daughter the entire time she was outside her car.

By making this relatively mundane incident a safety issue, I think it makes people tune out the safety message (and who can blame them?) And that overshadows REAL safety issues - such as the lack of a good national safety rating system for businesses.

As an advocate of safety I believe that my job is to show people how living a safe life is a reasonable and common sense way to live. Living a safe life doesn’t mean you have to wear a hard hat everytime you step outside your front door!

It just means that you should carefully assess each situation, ask good questions, and make reasonable and responsible decisions. As one safety website puts it, 'it's all about taking smart risks."

I think that's exactly what Treffly Coyne did! (In the end, the charges against her were dropped, thankfully, but the damage may be done as to the credibility of safety.)