[or-roots] Hyster safety

[Leslie Chapman]

I have to suspect that the safety of the straddle buggies was probably at
least to some extent related to the skills and carefulness of the drivers.
As a group mill workers tend to be somewhat "macho" (and I include a lot of
women mill workers in that generalization) which sometimes leads to maybe
being a little less careful in their activities than might be in their best
interest. But more important; I think driving such a contraption would
requires a certain amount of special skill in being on top of your "space"
and how the machine you are in relates to that space. I learned to back up a
trailer on the farm that was bent in the middle and also had a bent reach.
It literally was impossible to back it up in a straight line, but if you had
the knack, you could back it quite some distance down an eight foot wide
road. I would be willing to bet a lot of people simply could not do that and
in fact even if they were facing that trailer could not have pushed it down
the road. I see the same thing with people's driving. I believe there are a
lot of people that just shouldn't be allowed to drive because they just have
no real comprehension of the mechanics of moving a car down the highway
safely. My point is that because of the complex steering of the Straddle
buggy a lot of accidents happened because either the driver wasn't paying
enough attention, or did not have the basic abilities to handle the machine.
I don't think they are inherently dangerous.

Les C

> my brother Bill would go down and he would
give us a ride,never got hurt [lucky i guess].
<