kevins_news2 wrote:

On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 09:25:26 -0500, warrenbo
wrote:

The big danger with running with a push mower is that they are prone
to jam or stall on onseen junk -- something the dog or the neighbor's
kid or even you dropped and didn't see until it was too late. If
you're running behind one, there's a decent chance you'll end up
tripping yourself up and landing on it.

I've tripped badly a couple of times jogging over the years, and I
wouldn't like to think what it would be like if I had landed on a
lawnmower instead of dirt.

I guess they would jam if a twig or object got stuck in the blades.
But the thing is that they won't cut grass that is too long. So
you'll never be in that situation where you're mowing through a forest
that can easily conceal these objects.

Sure you will. The neighbor's kid decides to sprinkle your lawn with a
bunch of cool green wire that he found. The dog chews up a length of
plastic and ralphs it in the grass. Your kid decides to bury his army
men in the lawn so that only their rifles are sticking up. Never
underestimate the ability of weird stuff to hide in the lawn.

Considering that they're heavy and awkward and have protruding metal
bars and such, you could really mess up your knee or shin or ankle or
wrist or face.

Which mowers are you looking at?

It's a universal fact that the nicest, softest item will sprout deadly
protuberances when you least expect it. A push mower in general is not
going to hurt you, but when you fall on it, it's pretty much guaranteed
to have a nice solid piece of metal pop you one in a soft spot.

Yes there's always the possibility of one hurting themselves. Heck,
it's possible to hurt yourself with a Nerf ball if you think about it
hard enough. But of any machine that has a cutting blade, i'd say
reel mowers are the safest i've ever seen.

Oh, I'm not disagreeing in general. It's the specific question earlier
about running with one which I'm not crazy about. At a walk, the odds
are almost nil of falling on one that's hit a tough patch. But when
you're running, you're a lot more likely to find yourself falling.