false sense of security

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Why do people put their trust into things that think will make them safe, when they really aren't? Here are some examples:

My mom will lock the storm doors on her house when she is home, yet she leaves the glass open in the door's window, like the thin fiberglass screen on a flimsy alumnium door is actually going to stop someone from breaking in!

My neighbor uses these little stops on his windows when he opens them that keeps the window from opening far enough for someone to get in, thinking they are secure. The thing is, if someone rams the window hard enough, they can easily break off the little stop tabs and fully open the window.

I see many people lock their doors because they think it's safer in a crash. The thing is, the only thing locking a car door does is disconnect the outer door handle from the latching mechanism, it doesn't secure the door any stronger to the car!

Why do people like somebody to hold a ladder when they go up one? The weight of the person, and the height of the ladder, there is absolutely nothing the person "holding" the ladder can actually do if it starts tipping over!

Of course, my all time favorite are the people who are dealthy afraid to fly, but have no problem getting into a car and speeding through congested cities in heavy traffic.

Then there's the car alarm, like a bunch of noise is really going to stop a thief, especially when the darned things constantly have false alarms and nobody pays attention to them...they are just another thing for the thief to steal when they break into the car!

Try working in the construction field for a few years and then talk to me about jobsite safety. The idea of holding a ladder is to make damn sure that it stays stable in the first place. Until you learn more about safety on commercial and industrial construction sites you should not give advice on it.

my job is in fact a "construction" type job. It involves hanging equipment from ceilings and walls, pulling cable, etc. We use ladders extensively. Recently, we did have a ladder incident. A worker had a 15 foot extension ladder propped up against a wall on a level floor. the tech on top of the ladder attempted to reach too far while pulling a cable, and the top of the ladder started sliding. The person on the ground attempted to stop the ladder from sliding by pulling back in the opposite direction. We ended up with two injured people, not just one. The person on the ground just simply made a pivot point for the ladder to flip over on it's way down, and the ladder landed on both of them. The mistake made was the tech reaching too far on top the ladder. The fact that he had someone holding it when it went down made no difference to incident, nor could have (except to tell the tech up top that he was reaching too far over!)

In NYC a car alarm doesn't protect a car at all, because if it goes off it can annoy literally thousands of people at once (in high rise buildings), and at least one of them is likely to come down and smash the windows of the car with a baseball bat, while screaming "Don't ever park here again!"

The car owner does not hear any of this of course, but hundreds of happy bystanders do.