Strictly anecdotal evidence here, but as one who does a lot of off-roading (no rock crawling, either. Think “World Rally” type stuff!), I can guarentee you that I would be in the ditch pretty often if I wasn’t strapped in. One roll-over I had was directly a result of not wearing my seatbelt at the time. I hit a rock and was sitting in the passenger seat so fast, I couldn’t react to prevent from rolling.
I have a lot of fun out here in the desert! 
Because my parents explained it to me. I believe my parents are smart enough to know that seat belts are important for safety, even without a legal mandate to wear them.
I’m pretty confident the law had nothing to do with it.
Commercials and posters are great - I’m all for safety education. But you don’t need to make unbelted driving illegal in order to have commercials and posters explaining why it’s dangerous. The government already has commercials and posters explaining the dangers of smoking, even though smoking is legal.
The proper way to protect those people is to make them aware of how seat belts save lives, and let them decide for themselves whether saving their own lives is worth the minor inconvenience of wearing a seat belt. You can make people aware that something is dangerous without outlawing it.
With all due respect, you’re in no position to tell me why I do the things I do.
Mr2001 - I’m suggesting that there are influences other than your intelligence at work. If your parents had decided it was a bad idea to wear a seat belt, then there is a good chance that you would feel this way too.
But I see your point.
Anyway should people and their dependents be penalised (car safety wise) for having the misfortune of being born with less intelligence?
Penalized?
In the absence of seat belt laws, someone who chooses not to wear a belt isn’t being punished; he’s making his own decision that convenience is more important to him than safety. Considering assumed risks to be penalties is absurd, and lends itself to a slippery slope argument.
Isn’t it also unfair to “penalize” someone who pokes his eye out by running with scissors, or breaks his leg by skateboarding without proper equipment, or gets fat from eating too much ice cream, or loses his money by investing it unwisely? Shouldn’t we pass laws so that someone who doesn’t know when to stop eating ice cream isn’t “penalized” by obesity? The question makes no sense, because that’s a natural consequence of his actions–a risk that he chose to assume–not a penalty being assigned by some outside party.
This isn’t a question of whether the law is legal or not. It is a question of whether it is ethical. Did you not read the OP?
Even if you wanted to argue it from a legal perspective, it is incorrect to think the seatbelt law is legal simply because driving is a privilidge and the gov’t owns the roads. They simply cannot pass any law they wish based on that. They cannot, for example, pass a law which would allow a random stop and search of you and your vehicle.
The government’s power to make laws is bounded by the Constitution. Is the seatbelt law a violation of our rights? In this case, there doesn’t appear to be any violation so this is most likely a legal law. That still doesn’t make it moral or ethical.
My only argument against that this is for profit is this. How many roadblocks do you see for the purpose of catching speeders. (If you sit in line in a roadblock long enough and get caught for not wearing your seatbelt, you’re a whole new class of stupid). Also, here in TN, seatbelt infractions are now a primary offense, ie, you can get pulled over for only not having your seatbelt on. However, not having every taillight on your car is not for some reason, nor is having only one headlight. You have to be doing something else (at the officer’s discretion) to get pulled over for this. If, like me,you drive something like a 68 Impala, which only has lap belts, they can’t see that you are belted. I was pulled over three times in a month before someone higher up got the idea that maybe old cars don’t have shoulder belts. Also, belt tickets are as much or higher than speeding tickets, and which is more dangerous to society? I think originally the idea was to save people from themselves, and it was realized as a means to gain (even a modicum) of revenue. Some places have cameras that take your picture and mail you a ticket if you’re not belted.
For the greater good of the community we need to protect people who may make bad decisions and if that means legislation, then okay with me (and obviously many others). I am happy to abide by these laws, even though I personally don’t necessarily need them. It’s about ‘community’ (as well as personal responsibility), which seems to have been lost in many places. Here you have to wear bicycle helmets, not sure about skateboarding gear and they are talking about a ‘fat tax’ on foods. We have ad campaigns on safety around the home and gambling. Also bartenders have a legal limit for the alchohol they can serve individual customers.
And obviously, not many others, hence this thread. I don’t see a need to protect people from their own bad decisions. “The greater good of the community” is just not important enough to me, and many others, to be pursued at the expense of individual liberties.
A “fat tax” is a perfect example of what happens when you pursue “the greater good of the community” without caring about individual rights. You can get fat from eating too much of anything, whether it’s french fries, pasta, apples, or chicken… but of course the tax won’t apply to all those foods, right? In this case it is a penalty, not for unintelligent people, but for people who like certain foods the government decides are “unhealthy”.
Well, if there are many others who don’t see a need to protect people, then why is there no great numbers of ‘anti seat belt’ lobbyists in the public eye? It is certainly not an issue here - or if it is there is a media conspiracy to stop it.
This attitude of individualistic liberties being more important than community is very sad for society.
…from themselves…
You mean, why isn’t it an issue in New Zealand? I’m not surprised that it isn’t. My understanding is that valuing “the good of the community” over individual freedoms is a lot more common outside the US.
You are, of course, free to hold that opinion, but there are millions of Americans who disagree.
Now, you might ask (and perhaps you were asking) why there isn’t more public campaigning to repeal seat belt laws in the US, or here on this largely American message board.
And the answer is probably that there isn’t really much opposition to the law except on principle. There is no large group of people who are unable or unwilling to wear seat belts. Even though they might agree on principle that it should be their own choice, hardly anyone would actually choose not to wear a seat belt, and so the law has no practical impact on them.
There is more visible opposition to motorcycle helmet laws, because apparently motorcycle helmets are more cumbersome and interfere with a rider’s vision. The law actually does have a practical impact on the people who would rather not wear a helmet. (I don’t ride motorcycles myself; that’s just what I’ve heard.)
Well, the issue here is less a distrust of government than the American self-image of individualists making their own choices. It is an integal part of the American psychology. The key image in American mythology. “Give me freedom or give death.” The cowboy on the open plain. All the movies about the individual taking on the system and winning. All that stuff. I read a survey somewhere recently (please don’t ask for the cite) that Americans are much more likely to believe that their success in life is up to them rather than the result of forces outside their control than any other extant culture. The American self-image thus has an aversion to being told what to do. The case for the benefits over costs has to be quite strong before the general public would give up on being their own individual agents of choice, even of bad choice. (I have of course already made my case for that being the case in this specific instance. And the silliness of phrasing the debate in absolute terms, as many on this thread persist in doing.)
Motorcycle helmet laws are an interesting case. I think there the issue here is less how much of an imposition the helmet is, so much as motorcyclists are a selected sample of Americana - a subpopulation a bit skewed even farther than the typical American to that American story of the rugged individualist, so they are very vocal in opposition to any infringement upon their making their own choices.
Now as to American distrust of government - well you only need remember that the country was founded upon a throwing off of an oppressive governement and that the key to the American system is that no branch of government can or should be trusted, rather they must be balanced against each other. Much of our history is based on our discovering how much our distrust of government is well founded. Or more accurately how much our distrust of individuals within government is well founded. And how important it is to keep checks on that power.
Are you so sure that it is ‘millions’ of Americans who disagree?
Anyway would this obsession with individualism have anything to do with the poverty, drug, needing a gun to protect oneself, and general fear of being robbed/mugged issues in America? (Not that I’m saying these issues aren’t in other places too).
Well, I don’t have a cite for it, but that’s my impression.
No, I don’t think so. It’s probably related to the lack of enthusiasm for social programs (which may be perceived as making people dependent on the government), but I don’t see a connection with the issues you named.
(Bolding mine)
Um, Yeah I’m pretty sure they can. They wont however because this is not what the general populace wants. What the general populace DOES want is cheaper insurance rates. Hence the seatbelt law.
Oh come on, there is an obvious link between communities that know each other and work together and lower crime stats, people have somewhere to sleep and eat etc.
OK, but what makes you think respecting individual rights and knowing the people in your community are mutually exclusive?
They are not, I grant you, but we were talking about the ‘greater good of the community’ and you said that you don’t care about this, protecting your individual rights were your concern.
Surely, if you don’t care about your neighbour, this is closely related to saying that you don’t care abour your neighbour’s individual rights. What if your neighbour thinks it is his/her right to do something that clashes with something that you think is your individual right?
Let me get this right; you don’t care that people are maimed and killed, through their own right not to wear a seatbelt but you want to protect your right to legally not wear one, even though, you will wear one because you recognise that it may stop you from being maimed or killed.
It is possible to be concerned about both, you know. There’s a balance between individual rights and the good of society, and I (and, I suspect, most Americans) just prefer it to be weighted toward individual rights.
Who said I don’t care about my neighbor or his rights?
We have a saying: your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. If my neighbor thinks he has the right to do something that I think infringes on my own rights, then one of us must be wrong.
Yes, exactly. I personally think the minor inconvenience of wearing a seatbelt is worth the added safety, but if someone else thinks differently, I will not force him to think or act the same way I do.
Now, as has been brought up earlier in the thread, there are some cases where a seat belt protects other people besides the person who’s wearing it, and I could support a law that requires seat belts in those cases - because it would protect people from each other, rather than themselves.
I’m sorry, you’re wrong. Americans do like their government telling them what to do. They like their government telling them they need to be licensed to drive a car, they like their government to tell them that for the first three years of adulthood they must not drink alcohol, they like their government to tell them that they must not shoot heroin into themselves. They like their government to say that they can’t sell food that isn’t safe to eat. They love their government to tell them that they must not show boobs on their free to air tv stations at the half time of football games. It seems they also like their government to tell them to wear seatbelts, if the 49 out of 50 states requiring them to do so is any guide.
Whether the law is moral is quite another thing.
There are those of us whom are libertarians, who argue that for society to mandate anyone to do anything is immoral. These people are commonly referred to as idiots and I shall not bother myself with them in my post. One need not argue against extremists every time one wishes to make a point.
Clearly, most societies in the western world are perfectly happy to nominate a group of people to place some restrictions on the way they live their lives. Sometimes these restrictions are too harsh, and I would consider that the people’s representative has overstepped its bounds. This does not mean I don’t think the government should not interfere at all in one’s life. The world is not black and white. I simply feel that the times at which a government should interfere in someone’s life should be kept at a minimum.
We are discussing what happens on the road. Governments already uncontroversially mandate that people exhibit a minimum amount of driving skill before they are allowed on the roads. This is called licensing. Governments also mandate that citizens remain sober, to some extent, while they are on the roads. And further, they require them not to exceed a certain speed.
The only quibble is whether an additional requirement - wearing a seatbelt - is an ethical requirement. Given the minimal - practically non-existant - inconvenience caused by mandating seatbelts, combined with the safety benefits, it does not seem at all unethical to legislate in favour of seatbelts. A society where people are dying for no good reason is not desirable. Let’s not curtail liberties, but let’s also not be so pigheadedly in favor of freedom so as to to lose sight of why we want to be free.