Commuting - 50 years ago.....

All my friends and I rode our bikes to school (see my avitar for the bike I rode) and never locked them. The school was located in suburban NJ. In 6 years of doing this only ONE bike was ever stolen. It was an English 10 speed and for that reason was probably stolen by pros.

In the same area, about a year ago, I had some idiot steal the 2 batteries out of my $ store scan radio at my local library. The radio was thrown to the ground but the cretin stole 2 , 8- for-a-buck batteries that were almost dead! The irony is that the library is about 35 yards from the police station and the duty officer can see the bike area from his window. So someone with about 25 brain cells stole 25 cents worth of dead batteries right in front of the cops.! No point to the story, except that public behavior has deteriorated so dramatically in a half century.

I used to think that this decline was due to the prevalence of child-proof caps. You know any kid stoopid enough to drink the contents of a container from under the kitchen sink w/o smelling/tasting same deserved to not pass on his genes. Then I discovered that a US govt. survey found that due to the use of childproof caps and parents child-proofing cabinents, parents no longer try to instill any caution in their spawn, and the death rate from "accidental" poisoning is almost EXACTLY THE SAME as it was b4 this.:thumb:: I must now return to my previously schedualed shouting at kids to stay off the lawn!:50::50::50::50::50::50::50::50:

With all due respect, this says absolutely nothing about larger sociological patterns.

I used to think that this decline was due to the prevalence of child-proof caps. You know any kid stoopid enough to drink the contents of a container from under the kitchen sink w/o smelling/tasting same deserved to not pass on his genes. Then I discovered that a US govt. survey found that due to the use of childproof caps and parents child-proofing cabinents, parents no longer try to instill any caution in their spawn, and the death rate from "accidental" poisoning is almost EXACTLY THE SAME as it was b4 this.:thumb::

Care to post a link to the "US govt. survey" you mention? Absent any sort of reference, I'll make the suggestion that the rates are affected by different reporting strategies - I rather imagine that the number of accidental poisonings was underreported (or perhaps more underreported) fifty years ago.

Thirty years ago, my friends and I rode our bikes to school, locked them, and things were occasionally stolen. Bikes were repeatedly stolen from the front porch of my parents' house - sometimes they were locked, and sometimes not, but over the years more than a couple were stolen. So don't go blaming today's parents - the decline in civility that you decry obviously happened between fifty and thirty years ago, which would have been squarely during the period when your generation would have been the parents of young children. :D

Having the batteries stolen from your radio hardly qualifies as a statistical trend. By your logic, I should point out that, since I haven't been the victim of any crimes lately, the crime rate has dropped to zero.

I'm not a believer in "the good old days" either. Granted, I haven't been on this earth for 50 years yet either.

I had an old orange single-speed beater bike as a kid. Nobody would steal that thing. I got a Schwinn Stingray for Christmas, and it promptly disappeared (yes, it was locked). I switched back to the orange beater bike.

People always have been, and always will be capable of terrible things. I prefer to look at the wonderful things they are capable of also. It makes me hate life a little less. :)

Society as a whole has deteriorated mainly because more is accepted before the "line in the sand" is crossed. This whole "no blood, no foul" and "don't sweat the small stuff" has shot us all in the collective ass. Less was acceptable 50 years ago -- I wasn't aware enough at that time to know that myself, but i surmise it, because I KNOW less was acceptable 40 years ago!

Crime and bad behavior ain't nothin' new.

Just for the record, I'm in favor of child-proof caps where appropriate and child-proof cabinet locks.