A 20% increased risk of death in an accident sounds like a good justification for requiring seat belts when there’s more than one person in the car. OTOH, it doesn’t justify requiring a seat belt when the driver is the only person in his car.
I don’t know if it’s enough of a risk to justify the recent crackdown on unbelted drivers (e.g. allowing cops to pull someone over simply for not wearing a belt), since I don’t know how it compares to other common risks like driving on the freeway instead of city streets, or driving an older car without airbags instead of a new car.
For everyone who is in favor of a seat belt law, would you care to explain why you aren’t also in favor of a forced exercise law? Or a total ban on smoking? Or how about diet laws?
If the argument is that they are the gummit’s roads and they can make whatever laws they want for their roads, would you then allow a law that says officers can pull you over anytime they want and strip search you? Why not? How about if the nice police officers can pull you over and measure your cholesterol levels?
If you are arguing from a cost/benefit perspective, I’m pretty sure the costs of medically treating cancer and heart disease far out-distance those of treating car accident victims.
I’ve always viewed the (ideal) government as being in the role of protecting my rights, not protecting me from myself. They do that through the military to assure we won’t be invaded. They do that by making killing and stealing illegal. They do that by incarcerating individuals who break the law.
The roads must be kept safe so you won’t kill me when I drive on them. I have a right to my safety. This is accomplished through speed limits and vehicle safety standards. Some might argue that a seat belt law protects you from me killing you because I’m more likely to remain in control of my car if I wear one, and thus less likely to cause further damage if an accident occurs. Maybe. It is a really, really small chance of that happening, which is why I think the law is a bad idea. We cannot possibly be protected from every bad thing which might come along, and nor should we try.
Do seat belts save lives? Unquestionably. But that isn’t the question. The question, to me, is if they will save you from me hurting you if I don’t wear one.
In this corner, the liberterians - the government has no right to protect its citizens from their own stupidity, no matter how small the imposition or how significant the public gain. Freedom to harm oneself trumps all.
In this corner those who would impose any sort of imposition if it improves health.
In this world, you know the real one that we really live in, reality, sits the balance of opposing imperatives:
People have a right to to be stupid, within limits. The government has an interest in protect its citizenship, within limits. The tricky part is balancing the two. Individual rights are not absolute. Seatbelts can be required. Building safety codes can be instituted. I’m all for imposing upon individual freedoms in the name of safety, but the burden of proof must be that the benefit of such imposition is great enough to warrent such an intrusion on individual rights. Seatbelts meet that burden so no problem. Some of which the state does, while a good idea, does not meet it.
Full disclosure: seatbelts saved both my and my wife’s lives in a roll-over car accident on our honeymoon.
Mr 2001, as to the need to buckle minors … but can’t a legal minor be capable of making an informed decision? Why presume that all minors are incapable of understanding the risks? You don’t take that position when comes to the issue of sex with the underage if I recall correctly.
So if we don’t have any seatbelt laws, what would happen?
Do we also do away with any state control that pertains to any perceived individual choice - what would that include?
Perhaps I have a hard time with this fear of government control because I have mostly lived in countrys considered welfare states.
The government is what we make it - it is not an entity like a building, it is made up of people.
If you want to end government control, what system would you have in place instead?
Is this a case of fighting for your right to fight for your rights - I am reminded of Monty Python’s People’s Judean front, with the guy fighting for his right to reproduce even though he can’t.
Zagadka -
How is saying there are inconsistencies in how the gov’t is protecting its citizens a slippery slope argument? I didn’t say banning smoking or bad food would be next and therefore it is a bad idea. I simply said that if you are going to argue for banning one you must be consistent and argue for the banning of the other things as well.
DSeid -
How did you decide seat belts meet your criteria of safety vs. imposition? Because they saved you and your wife’s life? How many lives a year would we save if all junk food were made illegal? Why doesn’t that meet your criteria?
Wereas you argue seatbelts meet your criteria, I argue they do not meet mine. Obviously, we have a disagreement on what that criteria might be. Although I totally agree that occassionally it is in the best interest of the citizens to have the gov’t tell us what is good for us and what is not, off the top of my head, I can’t think of a good example where I do think it is appropriate for the gov’t to do such a thing.
Finally, building codes are not intended to keep us from harming ourselves, they are intended to keep builders from building shoddy buildings and injuring others.
Logically. Thankfully, we aren’t logical, and we deal with things on a case by case basis.
There are no absolutes. It isn’t, “the government provides for all health and safety” vs “the government provides for no health and safety” - we look at each thing, its threats, its effects, balance them, and decide as a community what we want the gov’t to do about it.
I said “infants and children”, not “all minors”. A 16 year old is legally a minor, but if he’s old enough to drive (which is a huge risk in itself), he’s old enough to decide whether he wants to assume the additional risk of not wearing a seat belt. Ideally we would decide who can assume those risks based on something less arbitrary than age, but that’s a whole other thread.
I wear seatbelts. I had them pit in my 1960 Valiant before they were standard equipment. I thought they were a good idea. I don’t, however, like the government telling me I have to use them. Of course, we got to remember:
Driving a car is not a right, it’s a priviledge!
As such, the government can specify how we earn that priviledge.
I don’t wear a helmet on my motorcycle. I avoid riding where the government imposes this. Why? I believe helmets are a hazard while seatbelts are an asset.
This is one of the reasons I don’t trust my government. Others are:
It’s OK to smoke tobacco, but not OK to smoke pot.
oh, never mind, I don’t want to hijack this thread…
The debate is about the morality of the State protecting its citizens from its own stupidity, but I’ll bite to the specifics:
Many studies through the years document the efficacy of seatbelts at reducing death in automobile accidents. For example, this one that shows that you are more than twice as likely to survive an automobile accident buckled up in a three point restraint than unsecured - Accid Anal Prev. 2002 Nov;34(6):717-27.
Balance this halving of one of the most common causes of death in America (especially of young adults and children), and the cost to society of providing care to those severely injured needlessly, versus the minimal cost and imposition of requiring seatbelt use and I believe that the States interest in protecting its citizens is much greater than the degree of imposition upon individual freedoms. Of course where to draw that line is a mattter of debate and your milage may vary. The point is that it is not either/or, on many issues we decide given the specifics of how much benefit vs how much imposition and with what cost (presuming it is implentable at all). The moral absolute of the government having no business protecting people from their own stupidity is simplistic balderdash that few, excepting extreme liberterians or anarchists, actually believe across the board.
Now banning junk foods? I don’t know. How many lives would be saved? I doubt that an analysis would show that banning junk food would save as many lives, banning junk food would requiring defining it and junk food is as much defined by quantity as by type. Enforcing such a law would be impossible as well. Many people would feel that such a ban is a highly significant limitation of their choices. I have not seen any evidence to make me believe that it passes my test.
Banning the use of clearly harmful substances that have no beneficial function in any quantity and are addictive, like certain illegal drugs? Yes, the State has an appropriate interest that trumps individual rights. Individual drugs are open to debate however. And here implementability and cost of implementing the bans come into the analytic play.
Building codes apply even to a structure that I build for my own use. They apply even if I made an informed choice to rent a in a poorly constructed structure for less money knowing that I was taking increased risk. They are, appropriately, the State protecting me from my own stupidity.
So on according to each specific circumstance. The slope isn’t slippery but there is some mud on it so the lines have to drawn out each time.
DSeid -
You will note I never argued that seat belts don’t save lives. We all agree to that. The question is if they save enough lives to make the limitation on personal freedom worthwhile. You say yes. I say no.
From a cost perspective, we should be hoping people don’t wear seatbelts. The medical costs are actually much higher if I survive than if I die.
I see no real benefit to society as a whole in enforcing a seat belt law. Cost? We can recoup much more money by banning other vices. Because it is a good thing to do? So is looking both ways before crossing the street. Do you really want the gov’t passing a law making this mandatory?
Obviously I hold personal choice as being a whole lot more sacred than do you. I cannot take lightly the government telling me what is best for me, even if it is a really great idea. I think they can and should RECOMMEND, but not enforce these things. I don’t hold this as an absolute, but in the case of seatbelts, the benefits just aren’t great enough to warrant this intrusion into personal freedom.
Please note the bolding.
You indicate that banning junk food is nearly unenforceable and that the real danger of junk food is in quantity and type. Yet you go on to say it is okay to ban certain drugs which offer no benefits and which are also addictive. What benefits does a Hershey candy bar offer? How about deep fried chicken? If you think junk food isn’t addictive, at least psychologically, you haven’t been paying attention to the expanding waistlines of Americans.
As this is now a tangent to the original argument, I will respectfully not debate the analogy anymore. However, I will gladly read any reply, but beyond that if you’d like to make this a separate debate, please feel free to start another thread.
We do go beyond the intent of the op, so I too will limit the scope of my reply.
Societal cost is much greater unbuckled than buckled. Many do survive unbuckled accidents but with a much higher morbidity than if they were buckled. High Emergency care service utilization, ICU, Neuro ICU, and prolonged rehab courses. Long periods of being financial drains on society rather than tax paying contributers.
The point is agreed upon however: society does have a just and vested interest in protecting its members. The debate is not one of the morality of the State protecting people from themselves but one of exactly where the line should be drawn. When is the state’s interest compelling enough to warrant an intrusion upon individual choice? A more sophisticated discussion that ignores the either/or and “where does it end?” phrasologies. And one that has been, as has been pointed out in this thread, inconsistently applied (see the illegality of pot while tobacco is widely available). But that relates to the discomfort that we have upon placing a particular quantifiable value on human lives explicitly, even though we implicitly do every day. (And a host of other factors.)
Your own quote earlier shows that seat belts halve the number of deaths, and people who die do not end up in an ICU or with prolonged rehab. Therefore, if the seatbelt saved your life, you likely are facing steep medical costs, especially when compared with the cost of hauling your body to the morgue.
Where to draw the line is indeed the question. Rationalizing it with “it saves money”, “it is a good idea”, or “it is unobtrusive” just don’t seem compelling enough. The burden of proof, as you called it, goes way beyond that. It must serve a much greater good. Airport security screening is a good example. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives are at risk. Not to mention the peace of mind of knowing flying, a necessity in today’s world, is as secure as possible. Thus, we are subjected to having bags and persons searched and security screenings. For this, I give up my personal freedom of being free from such a search. (This doesn’t mean I favor the post 9/11 security implementations, it just means I support airport screening in general). It serves a much greater good.
Wearing my seatbelt will, in all likelihood, save nothing but my own life. Is that really compelling enough to allow the government to intrude on my personal freedom?
Waitaminute waitaminute! You seem to think that the only difference seat belts make is between Death and Serious Injury. But seat belts can also prevent a person from being injured at all, or keep the injuries from being nearly as serious as they would have been without a seatbelt (thus, lower costs)!
I actually had a much longer and more detailed argument about the cost savings, but as that was not the crux of the debate and in the interest of brevity in my post, I deleted it.
Seatbelts obviously aren’t a die/won’t die situation. However, if enough people are killed because they don’t wear their seatbelt, there can be substantial medical savings.
We have 3 groups of people:
No change in injuries either way (including death): Ignore. Complete wash in terms of cost.
Die if you don’t wear one, survive if you do: Money savings.
More serious injury if you don’t wear one: Money lost.
If enough people end up in category 2, the costs savings could be staggering. Given that 50% of the people who would have died without a seatbelt fall into this, it is very likely that forcing people to wear seatbelts might actually end up costing us money.
All of this depends very largely on the number of fatal accidents. If only 0.0001% of accidents are fatal, halving that does not really mean a whole lot. Without hard numbers, it is hard to say wither way. Which is exactly my point.
I’m simply trying to assert that saying “seatbelts save money” isn’t as clear cut as it first appears. In the end, it might actually end up costing us money.
Think about this: there is a reason motorcycle insurance is so cheap.
Having said all that, I don’t think the exact cost figures are going to be the deciding factor on whether or not the gov’t has the moral obligation to protect us from ourselves.
41,000 people die in car accidents each year. It is the leading cause of death for those 6 to 27 years old. Those injured in a car accident who are buckled have half the hospital costs of those unbuckled. Most of that cost is born by the rest of us, over $500 to each of us. If we reached a 90% compliance rate (we are not there yet) then 5,500 lives would be saved each year. 8.8 billion dollars would be saved annually. Compare that to the intrusion that you feel is justifiable to potentially save a thousand or so lives by airport screening.
I think the fact that potentially some asshole not wearing a seatbelt could be ejected from their car and possibly through the windshield of my car injuring me in the process would be reason enough for mandatory seatbelt laws
It could even extend to the protection of children despite their parent’s wishes. Restricted swing sets, shortened jungle gyms and roughened more shallow slides.
[sub]'cause, y’know, you wouldn’t want them to be slippery.[/sub]