Why, yes. One specific problem.

Last week I was talking to Hula Hoop and she asked me a pretty straightforward question:

"Does it cause you problems?"

Now, before I spill the beans on what "it" is, let me compliment my parents for a moment. I don't need glasses. My teeth are pretty straight without ever having had braces. I've never broken a bone nor had an injury more severe than ankle sprains that made me miss a high school basketball game and limp around on crutches for a week or two in undergrad.

So what is "it"?

My hair.

My hair is, at the moment, quite long (for me). I remember in high school always wishing and waiting for it to get long enough in the front for it to reach my mouth. When I got to college I had an "only in Oregon" pledge where I refrained (until I caved in my senior year, when I let my inexperienced and relatively unskilled (but well-intentioned) future ex-wife cut it and die it black) from getting a haircut in Illinois... with a resulting see-saw of partly-shaggy-to-short hair.

Fast forward X years (where X<=17) and my hair is long. As long as it's ever been in the front and much longer in the back than it's ever been. Long enough that my boss cracked jokes about it being long... two months ago. Long enough for TM2000 to make graphs about diminishing returns of hotness with hair length. Long enough for HBK to have to brush it aside to compliment my eyes.

And long enough for Hula Hoop to ask "Does it cause problems?"

My answer at the time was a firm "no". I sweat more, under certain circumstances, but that's unavoidable and not too bad. I couldn't think of any downside (other than shampoo consumption and frequent ridicule for flipping my hair out of my eyes (I CAN'T SEE IF I DONT DO THAT! IM NOT TRYING TO BE COOL! (Sorry. I'm sick of telling people that and lately it's been coming out all-caps in real life, too.)))...

Until today. I was done with work and driving home. I needed to turn left and I looked right and then left and... I noticed I hadn't got enough info quickly enough. So I looked left again. Then right.

My hair was restricting my peripheral vision to the point where I couldn't turn left with certainty. I accelerated after my looks and (thankfully) made it out safely... but I've determined that long hair is definitely safer on pedestrians.

I don't think that I will get it cut for this reason, however. Given that I am a white male below the age of 60, I have an innately superior ability to drive an automobile, so even with long hair impairing me, I expect to remain a standard deviation above the mean.

Of course, if/when I get into an accident due to my inability to see traffic the ER might have to shave my head, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.