Life hammer. How many people here have one?

http://www.lifehammer.com/

My Major fear is a car accident. Every time I drive on MA highways I feel like I'm taking my life in my hands, people don't pay attention, to busy talking on their cell phones.

Opinions?

I carry both a life hammer as well as a Res-Q-Me on my belt ring.

Your not alone, and its not limited to your state. I guess all you can do it try to think ahead. Don't get boxed in if you can help it, and keep your eyes moving, to many people are either looking straight ahead or at something in the car. No one pays attention anymore. I'm always looking ahead, left, right and to the rear. Carry either your life hammer or a Res-Q-Me, a cell phone and emergency supplies and a good luck charm. We don't have any control over another drivers actions, all we can do is try to anticipate what their going to do and act accordingly, and then that doesn't always work because sometimes they don't know what their going to do. People signal left then turn right, pull out in front of you when your going 55 and they go 20 then turn 50 feet after pulling in front of you. So you have to try to stay one step ahead of them if thats possible. Just my 2 cents.

I keep one in every car and somewhere where it could be found immediately. That's one thing you don't want in the trunk or buried in a BOB.

So, will you remember to roll down the windows as your car plummets towards the icy river? I'll be too busy screaming for my mommy...

Words to LIVE by.

I don't have one, though I have looked at them many times. However I don't have a vehicle or drive yet but when I do I think I will get one as driving is statistically the most dangerous thing I do even right now when I don't drive myself. I did see that my father picked one up recently and has it in the truck!
I'm just below you in CT and my parents say that the other divers just keep getting worse and worse. Especially over by NYC.

Thanks, to all.

When you do learn to drive, focus, don't be distracted by ANYTHING, texting, talking, staring at hot chicks walking down the road, staring at hot chicks driving next to you...OH to be young and single again!! Anyway the most important thing that you will learn is to watch out for others. (refer to above)

I've got something a lot like the Res-Q-Me, I forget what it's called though, but it has the window punch and the cutter, as well as two LED lights and a loud beeping alarm. I've also got a Gerber Hinderer Rescue knife I've stashed in the stow box between the front seats. Those items, but along with some others, make me VERY comfortable driving to and from work...

Well said Shadow_oo00,

I just put a Res-Q-Me in my work truck yesterday (I now just need to put them in my own vehicles, my bad).

Mike

Fortunately I'm less likely to need a hammer. My vehicle is one of the few with manual windows. I wear a knife I can get to in the extremely rare case the seatbelt jams. I took a course on how to escape a vehicle in water. They had a nice simulator.

In some ways it is better to simply roll down the window than trying to break it. Less dramatic and heroic but better. Break the window with the water higher on the outside and that water, and glass, is coming in rather quickly. The impact can be remarkably strong and it can easily wash you well away from your escape route. Tumbling and disorienting you when it does. Pop the windshield and you may end up head-down in the back seat. It also stirs up everything in the vehicle. Greatly increasing the odds of your getting entangled.

Mats, seat belts and all that gear and trash you have behind and under the seat can be expected to be floating around. Speed-hooks on boots, the knife holster on your belt and other things you wouldn't immediately expect can seem to reach out and grab stuff.

If you do pop a window be sure to hang on and brace for the oncoming flood.

A window being rolled down is, even if the water level is unequal, far less traumatic.

I ordered a bunch of these to stick in all our vehicles and to give out for x-mas:




Benchmade ERT-1. Bright yellow color (or black), Glass breaker, water resistant LED light, seat belt cutter, and pocket/visor clip. Not bad for about $30 on the net.

We've had a few incidents over the last 20 years where people have gone over an embankment and into water and died. Most recently (two years agao) a woman went off the road and into a creek and died from drowning, this was in a neighboring community, not in our response area. I don't know if in any of these cases a hammer device would have mattered, given the trauma of the fall in the first place.

Of the fatal wrecks I've worked, there have been all sorts of factors, but the number on thing I've seen is simply driving faster than the conditions permit. the worst kind of wreck, though, is the one where a knucklehead who is driving too fast kills someone who is driving safely. There's so many ways that this is bad I can' even begin to tell you.

The advice I give to young men is simple - dead guys don't get the girls. If you want to make it to the party, it's better to be late, and alive.

Now, as far as a res-q-me tool, I think that it's a nice idea, in concept, however, unless you affix it to your vehicle in a way that is incredibly secure, and you can remove it with one hand after a wreck (not always so easy) you won't be able to find the darn thing to use it. Anything tucked, velcroed or clipped WILL come off in a wreck at any speed over 15 MPH. We routinely find vehicle contents 75 and 100 yards away from wrecks (for example, on a fatal wreck I worked last year, we found the CD player that was in the guys car 65 feet down the road.

Yeah - wrecks at > 15mph actual impact speed get UGLY, Fast. (Ouch bad pun, not intended).

Most people don't seem to realize, but that "screech" before the "Bang" tends to slow down the cars to a survivable level

Back when I was a kid, my parents lived about 50 yds from a BAD corner. In Queens, where I live (well, at least in that section of Queens), stop signs were on the North/South roads (Streets) and you had clear sailing on the east/west streets (Aves). It wasn't TOO bad on MOST Aves, because they were short and Narrow, so speeds didn't build up

Well, there were exceptions to this rule - the Ave that was 50 yds from my parents house was/is a semi Major Ave - it was the ONLY one that went through to the highway on the east, and to the industrial/highway on the west (except for the Blvd about 1/4 mile up which MOST traffic takes)

So, what we had was a stretch of fairly wide Ave with NO stop signs and NO traffic lights for about 3 miles - except for ONE - yep, on my parents corner! Due to the fact that the fire trucks and the like in our area used my parents street, the stop sign was on the Ave!

The HUGE problem was, the folks on the Ave tended to get up to about 40mph, and not even slow for the stop sign, not knowing it was there. It wasn't TOO bad when a car on the street it the side of someone coming up the Ave, but man, it got bad going the other way

We could tell how bad the accident was by sound. If you heard "screach, boom" it wasn't TOO bad - if you heard "screeeeeech, bang", you knew someone realized there was a stop sign ALMOST in time. The ones that went "BOOOM" with out the "screach" got a call to 911 before we even walked out of the house

We protested for traffic study after trafiic study - no joy. We AVERAGED 3-4 accidents/week on the corner, but still no traffic light. The week we had 3 fatal accidents in 2 days convinced the city to put in a light (when I was about 13). It was bad enough that the Tow truck companies used to park on our block!

Back onto topic - living on that corner is what made me realize that SERIOUS first aid kits were necessary. I don't doubt that Dad, the neighbors and myself saved 1 or 2 lives, and prevented some serious hospital time for others. (Mostly by preventing bleed out - something about penetrating trauma from car parts - I still shudder at some of it)

Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it.

Zechariah

Keep in mind that it is not the failure or shorting out of electronics that keep people from rolling down their automatic windows after entry into the water. It is simply the pressure the water exerts onto the window surface. (Even if it is only a fraction of a pound per square inch, the window has many square inches!) This external pressure could effectively prevent you from manually cranking the window down as well. I believe this was shown on the MythBusters car dunking episode, but I cannot remember for sure. Either way, better to be safe than sorry.

Added Res-Q-Me's to my truck key chain and also my wife's. Also have a Lifehammer in the console of my truck.

I got a three-pak of blue Res-Q-Mes from amazon.com, so I have one extra. I was thinking of putting it on my tractor key chain. No window, but I wear the lap belt as part of the rollover protection system, and if the tractor were to roll and I was hanging I could see where the buckle should get stuck and I might need to slice the lap belt to get out.

I could also use it to open envelopes while mowing ... just kidding. Of course the blade should be preserved for its intended purpose.

Ken K.

Our cars are both new enough to have safety glass in the side windows so it won't work for us.

Related question -- where is the best place to put these, and method of attachment? I bought two of the brass window punches (didn't see the RES-Q-MEs until after order placed -- those would have been better) and put one in my center console top tray, and gave the other one to my wife, who put it in her (otherwise unused) ash tray. But I know if I need it, I won't be able to find it, or get to it. It would be better if it were secured in plain sight.

I was thinking of punching a small hole through the center of the seatbelt webbing, and Zip-tying it there. Then I thought -- 1. I'd get smacked with it in the trauma of the collision, and 2. Unless I left the wrap-tie long enough, I probably wouldn't be able to remove it quickly enough.

So where do you put it, and how do you secure it so you can remove it when needed, but the kinetic force of the collision won't dislodge it and turn it into a missile?

That's a good idea, haven't rolled my ride yet. But i have managed to lift a rear tire once or twice while using the FEL.