Weak links

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks

Freedomspyder - 2013/03/05 03:32:19 UTC

Sorry, the logic doesn't compute for me.

What logic?

On the tug you have a weaklink, a release and supposedly a break away mast. And you insist the pilot side weaklink be 'the weakest practical".

For the CONVENIENCE of the tug. Yes.

Are the risks that high for the tug?

The risks for the tug - minus THEIR equivalent of a Rooney Link...



...pop - are entirely nonexistent.

Is this what I am missing in the argument.

Yeah. What you've noticed is this bullshit about how all these asshole Dragonfly jockeys who are always feeding us this crap about how close to edge they always have to go to selflessly provide the rides we pay them for have absolutely no issues while the solos on single Rooney Links and tandems on double Rooney Links are locking out and dying. And then on the way down - on the rare occasions when our Rooney Links hold all the way up (usually in glass-off conditions) - they get their rocks off by looping and spinning...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i4owd0akd0


...the really cool toys we bought them.

Have tugs been pulled down?

A couple that have lost their engines at takeoff. And - big surprise - they've still ended up in crumpled heaps despite the Rooney Links they were counting on to increase the safety of the towing operation.

How easy is it for you to release?

Ever hear of a tug release failing or a tug driver wishing he had a release he could get to in an emergency without having to let go of the controls and wind up on his ear?

It's only impossible to build in...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22660
What can be learned from this "scooter" towing accident?

Jim Rooney - 2011/02/06 18:35:13 UTC

The minute someone starts telling me about their "perfect"system, I start walking away.

...a perfect system for the aircraft the assholes who control aerotowing DON'T fly.

It's not like blindrodie added anything to this present conversation with his one liner.

That stupid pigfucker has never added a goddam thing to ANYTHING positive in his entire rotten existence.

I have noone on ignore.

Neither do I. I never tire of the amazement I get.

I'll watch for anything concrete from him.

Don't hold your breath.

As to the wrong doers side, don't worry I am a big kid and capable of independant thought.

The fact that you referred to the "wrong doer's" side makes me doubt that a bit.

PM me the creeps name if you don't feel like posting it.

What makes you think that these pigfuckers don't feel like posting anything?

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?

Davis Straub - 2011/08/26 20:10:56 UTC

Oh, and BTW, Tad is clueless as well as being a child molester (no kidding).

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/26 23:12:32 UTC

Just to back Davis up on this, cuz the person that let's the cat out of the bag always gets flack for it...

So we're clear as a bell on this.
Tad is a convicted paedophile.

This is not rumour, this is not speculation. This is straight from the horses mouth... I asked him about it.
Believe it or not, a paedophile can have no issue with telling you this stuff as they see what they do as "normal".

He was 30 years old when he had his 13 year old "boyfriend", as he puts it.
I don't know if that's the one he got locked up for, but I know the one he got locked up for was not his last.
I believe the other one(s) was younger.
I didn't have the stomach to delve into further detail.

He has been banned from every flying site he's ever set foot at and some he hasn't.

And yes, he is a deranged megalomaniac.
I had the displeasure of having to put up with him before he was kicked out of one of the flight parks that I was working for.

Good riddance.

Question... Given what Davis and Rooney are saying and doing in this current discussion just how much of this crap are you comfortable swallowing?

No harm in having that in my calculator too.

Depends on what you plan on using your calculator for...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14931
Tad's release (even more)

Freedomspyder - 2009/02/14 17:43:30 UTC

Tad,
I've found your posts on both Hookin check & releases very intereseting & well thought out.
Best of luck dealing with the ozreport forum cult & their leader.

- getting some of these problems fixed so we can spend more time flying and less time standing in lines and dying; or

- aligning with scum like Davis, Rooney, and Bob and sticking your nose into deeply personal and totally irrelevant issues that are none of your fuckin' business.

P.S. Got any good theories as to just why Rooney felt the need to throw that back in there at this particular point in time?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks

Davis Straub - 2013/03/05 03:36:09 UTC

Had a great discussion about weaklinks and the tug's weaklinks with actual tug pilots today at Quest Air.

Well that should've been real enlightening - given that none of those fuckin' douchebags has the slightest clue as to what a weak link is or what the actual strengths of anything they use are.

Had nothing to do with any of the thoughts seen on the Oz Report forum.

Yeah, really hard to imagine them discussing anything to do with the death of the guy they needlessly killed by putting him up on a Davis/Quest Link a bit over a month ago.

So what did you pick up?
- How to double the allowable towline tension by putting Quest Links on BOTH ends of the bridle?
- The number of strands you use to limit the glider to a particular out-of-whackness angle?

C'mon, Davis. Share a few pearls with us.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks

Zack C - 2013/03/05 03:39:52 UTC

Jim Rooney - 2013/03/05 01:32:20 UTC

Carful who you put stock in mate.

Putting stock in people is exactly what I'm trying to stop.

Whoa! There goes everything sacred about aerotowing.

I've already pointed out some of the fallacies in the literature used by flight parks - sources students implicitly trust. I want people to think for themselves, look at the evidence, and come to their own conclusions.

Then what use would we have for all-knowing tug drivers and people who've been at an around all this plenty long enough to understand what's what and who's who?

On one side, you're saying that 130lb line breaks at 100lbs...

Where did you get that?

Out of his ass - same place he gets everything else he feels like saying in any aerotowing discussion at any given moment.

I've said many times before that a loop of 130 has been experimentally verified to break around 130 lbs.

Or, in flight after accelerating the glider enough to get airborne, about half that.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=117885#117885
Zach Marzec

(You can add Billo and Lookout to those sources.)

So what makes you believe that 200lb line breaks at 200?

A loop of 200 lb Greenspot has been tested to break around 200 lbs. Also, load tests have shown that a loop of any material attached to a Spectra bridle will break at approximately the breaking strength of a single strand of that material. Stuart Caruk will back me up:

Typically a weaklink tied with a double grapevine will break at slightly over the rated strength of the line.

http://www.towmeup.com/weaklink.html

Speaking of Stuart and the Peter Show... There hasn't been a whole lot of discussion about this guy who just got killed by a Hewett No-More-Than-One-G Infallible Weak Link over there, right?

Also, if a loop of 200 broke at less than four strands of 130, it would be surprising that Wallaby is using the stuff for tandems (since tandems generally go up with four strands of 130).

Stop torturing him with numbers, logic, and facts. You could do irreparable damage if you continue in this vein.

Granted, I've never seen this orange stuff or had it tested, but I'd be happy to do so if anyone can tell me what it is or where to get it (a guy in our club has a load tester).

So do I. Might make it worth it to get my terminally lazy ass up and blow the dust off.

You want the strongest weaklink you can have.

I'm not sure if you're talking to me or Freedomspyder, but I'm happy with a weak link 1.4 times my glider's MCOW, in the middle of the FAA's mandated range, and matching USHPA's recommendation.

No. He's already told you what you're insisting on:

Jim Rooney - 2013/02/15 06:48:18 UTC

In your book however, anything less than the cable strength of the glider is OK?
Yeah, sorry... nope. Not behind me at least... go be a test pilot behind someone else.

Same thing he told me I was insisting on:

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2467
weak links

Jim Rooney - 2007/07/22 16:59:30 UTC

Basically anything less than the cabling on your glider?
You've got to be kidding me!

I want you to have the weakest one practical..

Naturally, considering that losing the glider will always put the tug in a better position.

Yeah. But of course the foundation of hang glider aerotowing is to always put the tug in the best possible position. It's not like hang gliders are of any concern whatsoever.

But losing the line, especially at the decision of a piece of string, may be the worst thing that could happen to a glider in some situations.

Damn near ALL situations. Run ANY routine tow video with your eyes closed, hit pause at five second intervals, open your eyes, visualize a pop. The glider's situation ALWAYS becomes WORSE.

I don't care how much it inconveniences you.

Thank you Jim - but we understand perfectly just how much contempt you have for the sport of hang gliding and its participants.

This isn't about convenience.

Sure it is.

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3600
Weak link question

Cragin Shelton - 2008/11/11 22:00:54 UTC

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what started this entire soap opera of a thread! Tad was whining that broken-link pilots at RIdgely get a preferential push to the front of the line to re-launch, delaying his turn to get into the sky.

He wanted them to use stronger weak links, not for purposes of safety, but so they would get the heck out of his way so he can fly when the sky is good.

WE HAVE GONE FULL CIRCLE!

Hey Cragin... Funny I haven't heard a whole lot of discussion from any of you CHGA Ridgely brown-nosers on this one - ya stupid miserable cowardly piece o' shit.

Do you agree that losing the line could cause a glider to stall?

Dr. Trisa Tilletti managed to write fourteen pages worth of magazine article without mentioning the word. If he says yes he violates the AT Pilot Code of Conduct and gets his rating permanently revoked.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks

Zack C - 2013/03/05 03:49:10 UTC

Davis Straub - 2013/03/05 03:36:09 UTC

Had nothing to do with any of the thoughts seen on the Oz Report forum.

Meaning the discussion didn't cover any of the same ground as the discussions here, or that the discussion disagreed with all the information seen here?

If it:

- didn't cover any of the same ground as the discussions here then why haven't they released all of their collective wisdom on this incident in the form of an advisory?

- disagreed with all the information seen here then why hasn't anyone come forward to set things straight for us? Or is that what Rooney, Blindrodie, and Brad Gryder are doing?

Davis Straub - 2013/03/05 03:52:33 UTC

It was like this thread and others like it here didn't exist.

Yeah. Big surprise. The Quest Link is being discussed as a possible issue elsewhere and they're heavily committed to the freak accident finding.

Jim Rooney - 2013/03/05 04:20:53 UTC

Zack... I'll write more when I've got a keyboard, but I suspect you'll find that we agree on more than we don't.

Don't count on it - MATE.

Freedomspyder - 2013/03/05 04:46:21 UTC

One pebble drops, and there's a few little ripples in a the pond.
I'm not surprised at all your recent chat group at Quest and these posts don't overlap. A lot of the net is completely dysfunctional nowadays. Many have turned away altogether, or just have better things to do.

And let's not forget the one's who've been turned away.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=592
Linknife

Davis Straub - 2010/04/03 12:46:26 UTC

Tad is gone.

You think these assholes are getting chewed up as it is?

I know you have said the weaklink was not a factor in the recent fatality Davis. Do you think that is the consensus at Quest.

Goddam right. Freak accident. All the way.

William Olive - 2013/02/27 20:55:06 UTC

Like the rest of us, you have no idea what really happened on that tow.
We probably never will know.

We'll probably never know what REALLY happened on that tow. Maybe some kind of medical event. A Pygmy Rattler in his harness boot. Could've been anything.

Are they leaning to pilot error instead?

They can't do that. He was one of the cool dudes. Works best for brand new solo pilots like Roy Messing who "just freeze".

Surely this is some of the reason they are even talking about weak links?

Probably trying to get 130 pound Greenspot in orange. That's been a very fashionable color lately.

Hey Davis... Just how much intelligent stuff about weak links can we expect to hear from a bunch of douchebags who install weak links like THIS:

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks

Jim Rooney - 2013/03/05 05:15:25 UTC

Zack C - 2013/03/05 03:39:52 UTC

This isn't about convenience.

Nonsense.
It's completely about convenience.
People like to argue about it and in their arguments, they dig up rationalizations of it not being about convenience, but sorry... it very much is about convenience.

OK, it's about convenience.
- Name one other aspect of hang gliding in which everything isn't optimized as much as possible for convenience?
- Give me an example of anything in hang gliding in which optimization for convenience doesn't also optimize for safety.

Take if from the other angle... if it were about safety... if you are truly concerned about your safety... why are you towing?

Because he likes to fly like a bird and lives in Texas and wasn't interested in driving a noisy, draggy, gasoline sucker up and down all day long.

Why are the people that are arguing about weaklinks towing?

'Cause they're tired of losing airtime, getting crashed, watching people get crippled, and having their lives needlessly endangered by the cult of brain dead incompetent pigfuckers who've hijacked the sport out from under them.

The answer of course is that it's not actually about "safety".

Well, it's not actually about YOUR "safety".

People get pissed off not because the weaklink breaking made their lives scary... it made it a pain in the ass. They missed the thermal. They had to relight. Etc.
I'm not saying that these are invalid feelings.
I'm saying that they're not about safety.

Can you slow this down a little, Jim? I wanna make sure I get everything you're saying down accurately.

I'm happy with a weak link 1.4 times my glider's MCOW, in the middle of the FAA's mandated range, and matching USHPA's recommendation.

We're mostly there... add... You can't have one stronger than mine, and it has to be a manufactured item and we're pretty much on the same page.

Fuck you.

Tad being the obvious exception with his sewn together dentalfloss stronglinks.

- Like the ones Sunny, Campbell, and Rich Cizauskas are using?

- How the fuck do you know how strong MY Shear Links are? None of you flight park shitheads even has the slightest fucking clue what YOUR OWN weak links are. (And - unfortunately for YOU, asshole - Dr. Trisa Tilletti documented that in the magazine...

This article was peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the USHPA Towing Committee.

...last year.)

Granted, I've never seen this orange stuff or had it tested, but I'd be happy to do so if anyone can tell me what it is or where to get it (a guy in our club has a load tester).

Call up Morninside or Wallaby.

Yeah. Take their word for it. Then call up Ridgely and find out that single and double loops of 130 pound Greenspot blow at 260 and 520 respectively and apex angle has absolutely no bearing on the equation.

I've said many times before that a loop of 130 has been experimentally verified to break around 130 lbs

So then how can you claim that a double link of 130lb = a 200lb link?

Yeah Zack, it's pretty obvious that it blows at 260 - or 520. Whatever some flight park asshole feels like saying.

Do you agree that losing the line could cause a glider to stall?

No.
Losing the line is the same as losing power. Loss of power does not cause stalls. That domain is strictly AOA.
When suffering a loss of power, if you do nothing, your AOA will change... but you have caused the stall, even if quite simply by your inaction, not the loss of power.

You're right. That Zack Marzec guy was a REAL FUCKUP. Caused a stall. Right as he got slammed by a monster thermal and his Rooney Link popped.

Donnell Hewett - 1980/12

Now I've heard the argument that "Weak links always break at the worst possible time, when the glider is climbing hard in a near stall situation"...

Simply by his inaction. NOTHING to do with the combined thermal blast and loss of power. WHAT WAS HE THINKING?!?!?!

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=17404
Aerotow barrel release - straight or curved pin?

Jim Rooney - 2010/05/31 01:53:13 UTC

BTW, Steve Wendt is exceptionally knowledgeable. Hell, he's the one that signed off my instructor rating.

[Zack C]

Speaking of Stuart and the Peter Show... There hasn't been a whole lot of discussion about this guy who just got killed by a Hewett No-More-Than-One-G Infallible Weak Link over there, right?

Not a word.

Zack

[Tad Eareckson]

Yeah, big surprise. And do let me know the moment Peter comes out with any refinements to the Birren Pitch and Lockout Limiter. I wanna keep mine up to state of the art standards 'cause I no longer have the confidence that I used to in my Rooney Link to provide protection from excessive angles of attack, high bank turns, and the like for that form of towing.

Kinda bad news from here...

I have to majorly wind down starting right after my previous post and preferably several days before to prepare for an eight day trip starting Saturday morning to rendezvous in Utah with my sister's family.

I'm climbing the walls because never in the history of hang gliding has there been such a target rich environment as the one on The Davis Show now. These assholes have been setting themselves up beautifully for years and they're STILL DOING IT! It's like showing up at a snowball fight with an assault rifle with the opposition all dressed in international orange and constantly confident in victory and charging your position - you can keep mowing them down as fast as you can keep slapping in new clips.

You guys know how to tear these idiots and lying pieces of shit to shreds. Keep it up and concentrate your fire on Rooney. Pump a couple of extra rounds into his head after he's bled out then drive a stake through his heart to make real sure. And DAMN is he making our job easy for us.

Zack...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks
Page 5
Your 2013/03/05 15:16:23 UTC post, last video...


Premature release
password - red

There's no password.

[Zack C]

There's no password.

Not following you. Do you mean it's not prompting you for one? Can you still play the video? Or are you referring to the fact that the password is not listed near the embedded video? If the latter, there's nothing I can do about that. I did list the password with the link (above the embedded videos). You can't manually embed videos in the Oz forum...it just automatically embeds all linked videos at the end of your message (and in this case out-of-order, as it appears to put all the Vimeo ones after YouTube).

Enjoy your trip. I've got a symphony tomorrow and then I'll be visiting family myself Friday through the weekend, so I don't know how much more I'll be able to do either.

Zack

[Tad Eareckson]

I'm getting so OVERWHELMED by the volume of this stuff and was lagging too much to have given that post a thorough going over.

Yeah, I see now that you gave the password above but I got faked out by the out-of-order thing when I gave the text a quick glance.

I played it by typing in the usual password but...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks

Davis Straub - 2013/03/05 15:42:52 UTC

I love these private videos.

That's what Davis is talking about.
I don't know how much I'm gonna be able to enjoy the trip. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be climbing the walls not being able to attack and counterattack full time while we've got these assholes totally pinned down and off balance...

But the posts will still be there when we have time and, even if they're not, I have them on the hard drive.

This is critically important and major aviation history being made by a small handful of individuals.

Three decades ago a single wacked out individual from Kingsville, Texas made critically important and major aviation history by getting damn near every towed hang glider on the planet operating on voodoo physics based theory - and damn near every towing crash, injury, crippling, fatality we've had since can be directly attributed to it. We're turning that around now.

Three eras:
- Control Frame
- Hewett
- Post Marzec

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkwJ-g0iJ6w

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks

Davis Straub - 2013/03/05 12:02:50 UTC

Freedomspyder - 2013/03/05 04:46:21 UTC

I know you have said the weaklink was not a factor in the recent fatality Davis.

Please point out where I said that. I sure don't recall "knowing" that.

And DO work on sure not recalling THIS:

http://ozreport.com/12.081
Weaklinks - the HGFA rules

Davis Straub - 2008/04/22 14:47:00 UTC

Here is the requirement from the 2007 Worlds local rules (which I wrote) for weaklinks:

Pilots must use weaklinks provided by the meet organizers and in a manner approved by the meet organizers. All weaklinks will be checked and use of inappropriate weaklinks will require the pilot to go to the end of the launch line to change the weaklink.

Weaklinks will consist of a single loop of Cortland 130 lb Greenspot braided Dacron Tolling line and should be placed at one end of a shoulder bridle.

At the 2008 Forbes Flatlands Greenspot for the first time was used as the standard weaklink material (thanks in large part to the efforts of Bobby Bailey). We applaud these efforts to improve the safety of aerotowing by using a better weaklink material.

Davis Straub - 2013/03/05 12:04:14 UTC

Freedomspyder - 2013/03/05 04:46:21 UTC

Surely this is some of the reason they are even talking about weak links?

Nope. It was a conversation I started with Mark and Jim and I wasn't thinking about the accident at all.

Yeah, it's pretty freakin' obvious that all you 130 pound Greenspot assholes are bending over backwards to not think about the (freak) "accident" at all.

Deltaman - 2013/03/05 12:44:17 UTC

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30971
Zach Marzec

Davis Straub - 2013/02/09 16:45:39 UTC

I can't see how the weaklink has anything to do with this accident.

Well yeah, but he doesn't KNOW it had anything it had to do with this accident.

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?

Davis Straub - 2011/08/28 15:26:28 UTC

Then again, Russell Brown had us double up behind him after six breaks in a row at Zapata. We couldn't figure out why we had so many breaks so quickly. Maybe just coincidence.

Could've just been a coincidence that the glider whipstalled and tumbled right after the better weak link material we all applaud Bobby Bailey for giving us to make sure we've got a shot at prying open the Bailey bent pin backup release he gave us vaporized at the worst possible time, when the glider was climbing hard in a near stall situation.

If you don't mind, tell us what was conclusions of the weaklink Quest talk..

They really couldn't see how the Quest Link had anything to do with that freak accident.

Davis Straub - 2013/03/05 13:43:19 UTC

And therefore I did not say that I knew that the weaklink was not a factor.

No Davis, you sure didn't. It's really amazing how well all you pigfuckers are not saying anything of any substance on this one.

There was no conclusion.

Whoa! And from the people who've been perfecting aerotowing for twenty years... Pretty obvious that we muppets don't have a snowball's chance in hell of making any progress on this one.

And yet idiot fucking Paul and Lauren seemed to have no problem WHATSOEVER identifying the four hundred pound Tad-O-Link (same tension as a double Rooney Link or the orange line) as the element responsible for damn near killing the former along with idiot fucking Russell Brown on 2008/07/20 by not preventing the lockout and failing before the glider was too far out of whack.

Davis Straub - 2013/03/05 13:45:13 UTC

The discussion was about the weaklink at the tug end and the fact that this is the limit on the strength of the pilot's weaklink.

- Don't you mean the...

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3600
Weak link question

Jim Rooney - 2008/11/24 05:18:15 UTC

Gee, didn't think we'd have to delve into "pilot in command"... I figured that one's pretty well understood in a flying community.

It's quite simple.
The tug is a certified aircraft... the glider is an unpowered ultralight vehicle. The tug pilot is the pilot in command. You are a passenger. You have the same rights and responsibilities as a skydiver.
It's a bitter pill I'm sure, but there you have it.

...PASSENGER'S weak link?

- Did any of you stupid pigfuckers discuss the brilliance of Bobby Fucking-Genius Bailey's making the tow mast breakaway THE SAME STRENGTH as what he ASSUMED was an ideal tandem weak link based upon what he ASSUMED was an ideal one-size-fits-all solo weak link...

Davis Straub - 2011/08/26 14:04:52 UTC

We had six weaklink breaks in a row at Zapata this year.

...then dropping the four-strander down to a three-strander because - big surprise...

Jim Rooney - 2008/11/24 18:54:27 UTC

That's why we use 3strand at the tug's end. Using 4 strand can rip things off (it's happened).

...the four-strander can rip things off the tug?

Freedomspyder - 2013/03/05 15:02:45 UTC

Davis Straub - 2013/03/05 12:02:50 UTC

Please point out where I said that. I sure don't recall "knowing" that.

next quote from Zach Marzec message thread:

Davis Straub - 2013/02/09 16:45:39 UTC

I can't see how the weaklink has anything to do with this accident.

The "know" was my word not yours, and refers to your statement. Sorry if my not using the exact quote lead to any confusion.

Why? The reputations of Davis and everybody else responsible for the conduct of aerotowing and their abilities to shield themselves from anything remotely resembling accountability are entirely dependent upon sowing as much confusion as humanly possible.

Davis Straub - 2013/03/05 13:45:13 UTC

The discussion was about the weaklink at the tug end and the fact that this is the limit on the strength of the pilot's weaklink.

I would conclude the same.

Is it true that the tow link of the tug can break away too? I hope Jim has a moment to answer these other question I had too.

Freedomspyder - 2013/03/05 03:32:19 UTC

On the tug you have a weaklink, a release and supposedly a break away mast. And you insist the pilot side weaklink be 'the weakest practical".

Are the risks that high for the tug? Is this what I am missing in the argument. Have tugs been pulled down? How easy is it for you to release?

Yeah Jim, whatchya got on that?

Jim Rooney - 2013/03/06 01:42:41 UTC

Oh god, I've been offensive to people that I hold in contempt.
How will I ever sleep at night?

Oh, right. He's just one of those passenger guys you condescend to pull up every now and then if it suits you - at tremendous risk to your own safety.