Those who have been around here before know that whenever the topic of keeping knives in the car comes up, I feel compelled to recount my major accident. If you've read it before, then skip this post.
In a nutshell, the road veered left, but thanks to some ice on the road (and my foot on the accellerator a little harder than it should have been that day), the car did not. So, the car (a 1989 Oldmobile Cutlass Supreme (what else would a knife collector drive? Well, maybe a Mercury Saber.), and I went flying off the road. But not just any road. This one has a rather abrupt shoulder. Only a few feet from the pavement, it abruptly drops about 15 feet into a field. So, when I say we went flying, well, it was more of a carrier take-off than anything. Unfortunately, the car was not designed to fly. Try as I might, I couldn't get the nose up. Gravity exceeded lift and down we went. But, with a bit of "English" from coming around the curve, the car did manage to flip 180 degrees in the air and so landed on its roof. It then rolled two and one-half times on the ground coming to a rest upright with the engine still running. Had the car not promptly sunk to the axles in the mud, I'm convinced I'd have driven it out. I don't think the CD player didn't even skip a beat. I opened the door and stepped out. It's highly significant that the door opened normally after such an incident and gives strong witness to the structural integrity of that car. (I was distraught when the insurance company declared it a total loss. But, my grief turned to joy when I checked the want ads and there was another 1989 Olds Cutlass for sale. So, I still drive an '89 Cutlass to this day.).
Anyway, having been kept securely in my seat by automatic seatbelt tensioners, and suffering no injury at all, I got out of the car and realized that all of my stuff was everywhere. Every compartment in the car, the glove box, the arm rest, the map compartment, had come open and everything that I had stored anywhere in the car was now loose and had been loose and floating around in the air as the car turned over and over and over.
Even my briefcase which had been on the floor in the back seat area had come open and spilled its contents into the fray.
I found my Benchmade 970, which had been closed and in the glove box, locked open and stabbed into the back seat. That's right: among the many things flying around my head during the accident there was a BM 970 locked open.
I very quickly realized that it was amazing that I had not been stabbed or hit on the head by anything.
Folks, if you have never been in one, take it from someone who has: a roll-over accident can be a very violent event. Expect everything that is in the car to be flying around you.
My new rule: I don't care what it is; if you wouldn't want to get hit in the head with it, then put it in the trunk.
Also, be especially carefull about anything that "mounts" in your car with suction cups or double-sided tape or Velcro. They will come loose. Getting hit on the head with a radar detector or cell phone could easily knock you unconscious.
If you want to keep a knife or other such dangerous object in your car, then make very sure that it very securely mounted (screwed into a structural member) so that it will not come loose in an accident.
Also, please wear your seatbelt. Without mine, I'd have been flying around inside that car too.
Oh, and one more thing: Think W!
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Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.balisongcollector.com