As I have neighbor's homes close by both sides, I leave mine in position most all the time. For the sometimes heavy grass patches and a cuppla tight spots, I drilled & mounted an eyebolt in the deflector body - ran a 1/4" nylon rope up to the seat - then tied same off. This allows me to"manage" the deflector position on the fly while still getting projectile protection most of the mowing session... and we also hafta be aware of a new city ordnance prohibiting grass clippings left in the street curbs.

Had one neighbor a cuppla yrs ago get himself a ZTR w/o a deflector.. He did a great job of dusting up my cars sitting in my driveway every mow session until he and I had a word of prayer one afternoon.. ain't been a lot of conversation twixt us since then, but my cars stay clean.

Lotta people don't pay much attention to this subj, but back in the 70's had a 12 yr old neighbor boy cuttin grass with a push mower - no deflector - up beside his brick veneer house. He got into a short pc of elect wire - blade choppped off some short lengths mebbe 1/4" long - spit 'em out the deck exhaust - bounced off the brick - caromed right back into his bare upper arm - got into a major blood vessel - danged near killed him before the surgeons dug those shards out. Made a deflector believer outta me.

Yeah gotta have the deflector here in my state hafto take it off of corse to mount my hopper but hafto put it back on when not in use. If a city or county cop goes by and sees you mowing without the deflector shield they can actually write a nice hefty fine for it not being in place. At $1200 a pop it broke me from sucking eggs the 1st time I got a ticket. And being a lawn and landscape owner myself the reason most lawn services remove the sheild from their mowers is because they are too lazy to flip it up when they load their big mower on that undersized trailer and it gets ripped off or they take it off like I do to attach some sort of bagging apperatus and just dont bother putting it back on when they are done mowing. Who knows.

I hate chutes. They are a PIA, but I always use the chute. As a safety feature they are not infalable, but they do help deflect debree. The chute helps deflect anything that I might inadvertantly hit and keep it from breaking a window or striking a person. Even with the chute a bystander/passerby could be injured, but without the chute I guarantee myself a finding of liability and some attorney an easy payday.

I leave the chute off as it limits the trimming ability off the mower. With the chute off you can get close items on both sides of the mowing deck. With it on, you can only do that type of trimming on one side of the deck as the chute will keep the mower about a foot from the item. Having the ability to trim on both sides of the mower can significantly cut the maneuvers required to do the trimming. With these items a couple of inches will look OK but if there is an area a foot wide around every item in your yard it will look messy.

Items that are in your yard are; small tree, post (fence and other), decorative rocks and similar, lawn edgers,etc.
Of course if you are mowing a golf course there you would never have to mow close to anything.

As with all operations the most important safety device is the protuberance between your shoulders, and you all ways have to be aware of where the discharge from your mower is going.