What are you prepping for though? That’s kind of what I’m talking about. Emergency preparedness for things like natural disasters is prudent, but prepping for some sort of collapse of civilization isn’t.
In 20 years, you haven’t had a tire pick up a screw or other piece of road trash and deflate on you when you weren’t in it?
I’ve had that happen a few times in the past couple of decades, and once in the past year. It’s not nearly so dramatic as a blowout, but it’s still worth having a good spare when that happens.
I picked up a screw once, but it didn’t deflate. I was able to drive it two hours home and then to a shop for repairs.
But in the case of a slow leak, an air pump that runs off the electrical system of my truck is probably a lot easier to use than changing a spare tire, and I can also use it for my bike.
@wguy123, you blowhard!
Stranger
My goofy hammer/seatbelt cutter also has a tire pressure gauge, so it gets used all the time. I’ve also used my tire plug kit way more than I’ve ever needed the actual spare tire.
People joke about prepping for the zombie apocalypses because the majority of people don’t prep for one thing. Prepping works for just about every possible scenario. Natural disaster, power outage, water contamination, disease. The end of civilization might be a low probability event but needing supplies for a week seems to be a every 5 year event.
Quite so - a typical approach to risk assessment might be:
- List every risk threat and its outcome
- Give each risk threat a probability score (say, higher number = more likely)
- Give each risk outcome a severity score (higher number = more severe)
- Multiply the two scores
- Sort the list in descending order of compound score - the risks nearer the top are usually a higher priority for mitigation than those nearer the bottom.
In my personal experience, it’s been more common for ‘flawed risk assessment’ to comprise people saying “but that’ll never happen - don’t even worry about it!”, about things that can happen (albeit rarely), but are relatively simple to mitigate.
I’d call it reverse black swan phenomenon. The risk of scary dramatic but very unlikely things happening (eg being attacked by a serial killer) it’s consistently over estimated compared to more mundane but far more likely risks (like dying in a car crash).
It’s definitely related to reporting, so there is probably a term related to that. E.g. how much more coverage will a serial killer who kills 5 people in 10 years get than a dangerous junction were that number of people are killed in the same period?
Or, you could just do an FMEA like we used to do with our critical products:
I’m not a ‘prepper’, but I have hobbies that keep me stocked on a few things. However, this year we took several steps: We bought a freezer, in part to stock up on bulk foods because of inflation and supply chain issues, and in part for emergency food supply. I also bought a 2000W suitcase generator that can run on gas or LP.
We have had several power emergency alerts already this year. Our grids are destabilizing, and right now the biggest risk we face, IMO, is a power delivery disaster in December or January when demand is high and power generation from solar and wind at a minimum.
Losing heat in January in Canada can be a life threatening event, and cause pipes to burst and all kinds of other badness. So a generator that can keep the furnace igniter and fans going for a few days is my #1 safety device. For a bonus, you can take it camping or to a remote work site and power a few tools or charge your cordless tools. Finally, I bought one now because I figured that once we have any kind of serious power outage those things will fly off the shelf and be unavailable.
I would consider backup power the #1 emergency investment today. Ten times so if you live in Europe. Power failures can happen for many reasons, and are always miserable. I remember during the California wildfires someone saved their house because they had a generator and a waster pump, and they left the generator running and pumping water onto the roof of their house. When cinders from the wildfire rained down, all the other houses in the area burned down, but his did not.
If I had solar power, I would definitely invest in a grid transfer switch. It would suck to have the power go out and have kilowatts of unusable power on the roof.
One little gadget I like in the car is a ‘tactical pen’. This is just a long, thick pen made out of hard steel. It has a glass breaking tip on one end, and it can be used as a regular pen. It’s also an excellent self-defense item (a ‘Kubotan’) that can be very effective with a little training. And it can be used for digging out things, prying stuff open, and also sort of things. That and a good multitool are excellent accessories for the car.
Finally, don’t feel stupid for prepping for a disaster that never comes. The odds are that one never will. But spending $1 to save your life if a 1-in-a-million event occurs is worth it if you value your life at more than $1 million. And there are lots of potential disasters that are FAR more likely than that.
Re- Window Hammers
You’ve clearly forgotten the existence of Florida- filled with seniors who really shouldn’t be driving and filled with canals, lakes, ponds and a high water table. The odds of my 78 year old mother driving into a canal (they often run paralel to roads) are not too high. But, a window hammer/seatbelt cutter is definitely worth the cost.
I carry a fire extinguisher in my car and have never used it. When I was driving a truck, it was mandatory to have one and I used them twice - on other people’s cars. Apparently, this is the most common situation.
Its not really a poor risk assessment to prepare for a break down in utilities and emergency services, particularly if you live somewhere prone to earthquakes or hurricanes.
I think that almost every time I drive across the Hood River Bridge.
this seems about right.
I don’t prep, but I think I should.
this was my attempt at multiquoting - how’d I do?
You never know when the Air Force base down the road might have an accidental nuclear detonation.
(Yes, that is Joan Allen and Joe Mantegna as the married couple, Jonathan Gries as the employee, and Danica McKellar as the daughter.)
Stranger
Well for those who have the youth and health to do it, investing in a de-centralized lifestyle where you’re as independent of the grid as possible can be a sort of life-hobby. I rate preparedness in terms of how long one would be okay with no outside help for heat, light, water, food, medicine, etc. I’d say I’m prepared for a 30-day interruption of civilization.
That’s pretty much how we used to do it. The final matrix would be shaded into three colors, of high, medium, and low risk, and a commensurate amount of attention would be given to developing mitigation strategies.
But, I think I was missing the point with my earlier posts focusing on organizational strategy as the OP was more interested in individual behavior. Sorry, @bump. I was posting in the middle of the night as a coping mechanism for insomnia - while I think I sounded fairly coherent under the circumstances, I wasn’t really alert when I was writing earlier.
I was once in an accident, car turned sideways between two trees. Seat belt would not become unbuckled, but my phone was in the floor and I couldn’t reach it. Car came along a minute or three later and fellow cut my seatbelt with pocketknife. So that did happen. No water, though. And the seat belt did it’s job - no injuries. My aunt did get me one of those little hammer/blade thingies later and I did carry it. But it also had a tire pressure gauge, and that’s the only part I ever used. I suppose the question is whether, with it kept in my center console, I would have been able to reach it - can’t recall whether that stayed closed or orientate whether/how it would have fallen out if I opened it after.
We are preppers. Toilet paper was never a worry and we have enough food stocked to easily weather any supply chain issues. We have the means to prepare hot meals if the power goes out and we have water barrels in case we need water.
I would very much like to live in your world. No supply chain issues ever, the power never goes out and water lines never break. It must be very nice.
I don’t know if there is a precise term for this effect, but I know that otherwise smart people can succumb to it. When I was in college, the guys across the hall (friends from high school) refused to wear seatbelts because they had once been in an accident and ended up upside down. They said that if they had been wearing seatbelts at the time, they wouldn’t have been able to get out of the car, and would have been killed if the car was hit. I pointed out that they were lucky they weren’t ejected and killed, and besides, how many more times did they plan on getting into accidents that left them upside down? These were two engineering students at Carnegie-Mellon, so presumably not stupid.
I also like to point to people who both smoke and play the lottery. Here they are betting that their odds of getting lung cancer from smoking are very small, and the odds of winning the lottery are very large.
I’m reminded of some advice for lottery playing I once read & analyzed for accuracy. To wit:
If over age 50, never buy your Powerball tickets more than 10 minutes before ticket sales close shortly before the drawing. Because if you buy them any earlier, the odds of you dropping dead before the draw exceed your odds of winning. Do not tempt Fate that way, for she art a Certified Bitch.
Do I follow this advice? No. Should I? Yes. Apparently I too suck at risk analysis.