I wonder why...

I wonder why no one in the state roads department has figured out that if you use salt on the roads in winter, you are creating one giant salt lick for deer all over the state? It should be no surprise that they're attracted to roadsides--hunters have put out blocks of salt to attract deer for years. I wonder if using salt was the idea of auto body shops and insurance companies?

According to one source, there were almost 500,000 deer-vehicle accidents annually in 1995. Certainly that number has increased with the deer and auto population. Search online and you will find any number of scholarly research papers about this topic. I've yet to find one that mentions the use of salt as a possible contributing factor.

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I wonder why blaze orange was chosen as the color for safety and visibility in the woods? According to Terrace L. Waggoner, O.D., in the most common form of color-blindness, "Red, orange, yellow, and yellow-green appear somewhat shifted in hue ("hue" is just another word for "color") towards green, and all appear paler than they do to the normal observer."

(His webpage makes for interesting reading, and give easy to understand explanations for what colorblindness is and how colorblind people see color. You can even take a color test there.)

Between 5 and 8 percent of all men are colorblind, yet men comprise about 84% of the hunters in the woods (Out of five sons, three are colorblind. Two of those three are active hunters).

What those statistics mean is that a fair number of colorblind men are out in the woods in the fall when the leaves are a confusing variety of red, oranges, yellows and greens, and they're carrying highpowered rifles. It's an accident waiting to happen. So who picked blaze orange as a "safe" color?

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I heard on the news yesterday that a company is devising uniforms for combat troops that have built-in tourniquets. The idea is that an injured soldier will be able to deploy the device quickly, preventing a large loss of blood and possibly saving lives.

I am all for saving soldiers' lives. But what I wonder about is: if all the companies making weapons, and all the people starting wars were to focus all that energy on sustainable peace instead, wouldn't the soldiers benefit a lot more than putting them in harm's way with built-in tourniquets?

I know--I dream. But someone has to.

Enough wondering. Time for bed.