Where to begin...first of all, let me say that I am sorry Emily Bazelon was injured in the accident. I myself was in a car accident in 2003 and it is a dreadful experience, no matter the circumstances (I was not injured nearly to the degree she was, was driving, alone in the car, seat upright). Almost every post in the Fray related to this article is a callous, mean-spirited screed of one sort or another, so much so that I can't help but wonder if half of them aren't meant as satire. Nonetheless, it seems to me that there is a line that is crossed that shows the authors of these posts to be genuinely hateful. Given the near ubiquity of the sheer venom exhibited, I have until now refrained from posting at all. This is because I have suspected that the posters to this topic, on this day, are not inclined to listen to their own "common sense." But here goes:

I am glad she told us about what happened to her, because it may save someone, someday, from a lot of pain, or worse. I know I won't be riding around with my seat reclined any more. Had she not written the article, I almost certainly would have continued to do so. That seems, to me at least, to have been her whole point: even if the government doesn't (or, some say, shouldn't) do anything about this, at least now we know. The truth is, you or I might've known better than to ride around with our seats back if we'd been thinking about it, but without her article we'd have no reason to have been thinking about it.