... may result in death or serious injury

The User Manual for my new H-D contains a wealth of information in its 63 pages, including 107 WARNINGS that specified behaviour could result in “death or serious injury”. The unaware (and some would argue intelligence-challenged) buyer is duly warned that smoking while peering into an open gas tank is unwise and “may result in death or serious injury”. Likewise, running the motorcycle in an enclosed garage is not recommended as carbon monoxide is bad for one’s health and excessive quantities may “result in death or serious injury”. There’s even a warning that failure to follow other warnings on cleaning materials could “result in death or serious injury”. (I guess I’ll have to pay more attention to the labels on soap and paste wax from now on.)

Clearly the product liability lawyers have been busy, but they’ve still missed a few. Nowhere in the manual did I find this warning: “Purchase of this motorcycle without the express prior permission of your spouse/significant other may result in death or serious injury”. Or how about: “Operating this vehicle at excessive speeds while removing the bugs from one’s teeth may result in death or serious injury.” Then there’s: “The installation of excessive chrome attachments to this motorcycle may cause blinding reflections resulting in death or serious injury”.

Note to H-D: Feel free to use the above warnings in future manuals without attribution.

(Cross-posted from Views from The Lake - Eh?)