I'm waiting for this to devolve to a helmet or ATGATT debate.

I grew up with no safety anything, no street helmet until 1982, what would we do without mandatory safety laws and insurance cartels?

 

Well, some people may go through life never needing safety equipment, more power to them.

I had a pair of safety glasses that hung on my garage wall for years that had a lens blew out of them.
A piece of steel did that when it and the griding wheel shattered while grinding, no glasses I'd most likely be blind in one or both eyes.

Had several mishaps over the years and I wear them all the time, I need corrective lens and they are alway safety glass quality.

Al

 

You were lucky(if it was luck) Most will start wearing them when it is too late.

 

Several years ago I go to the eye doctor for thr first time to get me glass because it was starting to get hard to read at length. He puts the machine on my head ask me if I can see with this and that settings. Removes the machine get the big magnafy glass and touches my eye ball and ask does that hurt. I say "no". He says dont move, he gets up and comes back with a long straight needle and says again "don't move" I can feel him poke at my eye ball with the needle and it doesn't hurt. He says look at this. He pulled out a wooden splinter about 3/16 inch long that was stuck into my eye ball and the skin of eye ball was growing over it. He tells me that it must have been in my eye for months for it to grow over it. I have no idea when it could have happen or I thought I got junk in my eye and forgot about it. So wear your safety glasses.

 

In preparation for an MRI on my blown out knee, the docs had me get a head x-ray after learning of my occupation (HS shop teacher for 27 years). Said they need to check for hidden metal particles in my eyes and face before exposing me to the enormous magnetic field involved with the MRI. Better to carefully remove anything rather than have the magnet just yank it out *****-nilly.
Didn't have anything buried in my face or eyes, however so all was good.
My policy with students is that first thing to happen after opening their locker is to put safety glasses on. HS kids (we were all there once!) think they are immortal and impervious to danger, so it can be a real battle to get them in the habit; but that is the goal: make it a HABIT! In a shop setting with 20 kids it is often not a case of what you are working on, but what someone else in the shop is doing that can be a hazard to their eyes.
I wear them at home for anything workshop related or when string trimming or cutting or splitting firewood. You can replace a knee, but you can't replace an eyeball.

 

Unless medical miracles are at the Tom Cruise "Minority Report" level - you only get "one" chance w/eyesight. Would be hard navigating anything without it so eye PPE's something to take seriously.

 

I wear them all the time. My eyes are magnets for everything. Metal, plastic, paper, virtually everything. I still get **** in my eyes even with safety glasses.
Damn.