Interesting. I don't view safety precautions as absurd, but those posts haven't had the same effect on me as on you. Though I and the kids I knew did a lot of that same stuff, I knew only one person who died before graduating high school. His was a case of a drug overdose. We lost several more shortly thereafter to drunk driving and drug-related violence. So I wound up with the concept that sure, things like bike helmets were a reasonable idea, but they weren't even remotely related to the things that were actually likely to kill you.

I guess sample size is everything.