My God, that's quite a story. I'm thinking about it too. And, I don't laugh at them either, but that's primarily because I've never even thought about them in the first place, until I noticed mine was missing. I sure as hell don't care about how it looks to have one, or what anyone else thinks about me having one on my bike.

I just thought of something else. The bike shop left mine off, without telling me. When I asked them about it, they told me it was not needed, and they never use them. If I crash and hurt myself, it seems like that puts the shop in a pretty bad position. It seems like this must be something they should be aware of.