After being taken down twice by Blogger within a single week, we got the message Its Time To Go. Gates of Vienna has moved to a new address. Mexican list is an ancestor of 2. Century inventor John Fitch, inventor of those garbage cans filled with increasing amounts of sand that keep you from crashing into bridge abutments, who Ive written about before. He was motivated to come up with his innovation when competing in the 1. Hours at Le Mans auto race when his partners Mercedes sports car flew off the track at 1. Fitch tested his invention by repeatedly crashing into his trash cans at speeds up to 7. But perhaps an even more awesome safety inventor than Fitch was Col. Dr. John Paul Stapp, the rocket sled guy who made himself into a human crash test dummy to discover how pilots could survive partial crashes and bailing out. He decelerated from 6. After he retired from the military, Colonel Stapp campaigned to get American motorists to wear seatbelts. Seatbelts were considered unmanly. My father, for example, didnt start wearing a seatbelt until his 8. Th Planet Be Blatant Racism' title='12Th Planet Be Blatant Racism' />There was a widespread belief that your best bet was to be thrown clear of the crash. Indeed, Fitchs partner was thrown clear at Le Mans, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, didnt survive the landing. Colonel Doctor Stapp, however, who had volunteered for his own craziest tests, couldnt be accused of unmanliness, so his campaign was influential. It took human beings a long time to figure out it was a good idea to invent safety devices. Perhaps school children in the future will be taught the extraordinary stories of Fitch and Stapp. But probably not, because who has room for remembering heroes like Fitch and Stapp who have saved maybe 1. Who has time, when there there is diversity to celebrateOpinion. Weve noticed youre adblocking. We rely on advertising to help fund our award winning journalism. We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future. Thank you for your support.