I'm a huge fan of safety glasses and in fact I pretty much wear them all day every day.
My father is a retired chemist and a huge safety hound. He had real world experience in the lab with faulty glass lab ware shattering and the safety glasses saving his sight. To add to that he was very active in woodworking. So, at a very early age I was sporting eye protection.
I got lax for a few years until the day I was modifying my car and drilling through a floor pan while lying upside down. Of course, the result was metal chips landing in my eyes, a trip to the ER and the resultant week lying around the house blindfolded.
Next situation was a few years later: I went from an office worker to full time maintenence and ground keeping, a job that involved everything from power tools to lawn equipment to heavy equipment operation. I was never one for wearing sunglasses always considering them more of a fashion statement than a necessity. After the first Summer my eyesight had deteriorated to the point of needing those over the counter reading glasses for close in work. At 57 years old I still don't need prescription glasses but that Summer I was 37 and almost legally blind. A visit to the eye doctor revealed I actually had, for lack of a more technical term, sunburned my eyes. So, the search was on for outdoor eye wear. Of all the brands and styles I tried the only sunglasses I felt comfortable with happened to be sold under the Smith & Wesson brand name. They also happen to be highly rated safety glasses. I like the fit and feel so much I order by the dozen, mixing tinted, dark lenses and clear.
I can't even remember every save to my eyes that I've experienced in two decades. I've run a brush cutter through the woods and been stabbed with tree branches, flying debris, batteries exploded on equipment, blown high pressure hot hydraulic lines, dropped overhead tools on to my face, had a bird fly right in to me in the middle of a field, a power planer threw a cutting head at me, miss by inches and shatter the windshield on my truck 30' away, grinding slag, sparks, I just don't remember all of the times. This past weekend I was building a new fireplace mantle for my house. Of all the "safe" tools I own I was using an electric Dewalt DA sander, which doesn't run at a very high RPM and the brushes came apart on the motor. Yep, pieces went straight for my eyes and messed up yet another pair of glasses.
I never shoot without safety glasses. I have yet to experience a need for them but just about the time I started getting sloppy with my eye wear I saw an incident that I thought would be a one in a million occurence. A friend and I went to an indoor range, my first and only time at one. We took up stations side by side. About 10 minutes into the session I heard him yelp a little bit, followed by a "Holy crap!". I checked on him and he was standing there with a forehead gash right above his left eye. Ricochet.
Long winded post but I just want to help drive home the serious nature and potential life altering injuries that the average person might experience. You just never know.
I've been accused of being a Bono wannabe because I'm never seen outside my house without either clear, amber or dark tinted safety glasses on.
Wear them, get used to them, make them a part of your every day attire like your whitey tighties.