Am I in the minority in finding this law a steaming pile of bullshit? Or perhaps I missed something about the idea of “freedom”.
I’d like to go ahead and make a few predictions concerning future laws:
[ul]
[li]Unprotected sex will be illegal. Permits will be granted to minorities and whites who can afford to pay.[/li][li]Bodies of water are off-limits. “Swimming permits” will be available for a fee.[/li][li]Leg-based transportation will be under speed restrictions. We wouldn’t want anybody tripping and harming themselves, would we?[/li][/ul]
Then again, what do I know? I’m not even intelligent enough to determine my own seat belt use. Not without some encouragement from Big Brother, that is.
Meh. I like freedom too but I can’t get worked up enough to defend someone’s right not to take easy and reasonable steps to protect himself from serious injury. shrug
One of the justifications for controlling things like this is, “If we (society) have to pay for your medical attention and/or burial due to an accident, we (society) have the right to minimize our losses.”
This argument fails if socialized medicine is not the law of the land. And I’m not saying it’s a valid argument in the first place.
I know someone else will say this to me eventually, so I’ll go ahead and put it forward: the United States is not a libertarian haven. There is no freedom. Governments of the world suck. Shut the fuck up about it and be sure not be caught breaking the law.
I’m not sure why I even posted this thread. Maybe I didn’t get enough sleep last night.
The purpose of the law is not to make you wear a seatbelt. The purpose is to generate ticket revenue and allow police to stop you and hope to find outstanding warrants, DUIs, or other offenses which generate more revenue
Since insurance companies have no way of telling when they write a policy if a person is going to wear seat belts or not, those who get themselves killed by not wearing them raise rates for everyone. Nothing socialist about it. Ditto if the idiot gets smashed up and can’t pay.
Not to mention damage to others. Seat belts keep you in control in case of an accident or mishap, which can help you recover. I’ve spun out on ice and recovered without hitting anything or anyone thanks to being kept in the drivers seat by my shoulder belt.
Now if everyone who didn’t want to wear a seatbelt agreed to personally pay for all injuries to themselves or others, we might be able to start something.
There’s no drawback to wearing a seat belt when one is available. A lot of risky things people are allowed to do would *actually *curtail freedom if they were prohibited.
In Crazy Libertarian Land, it would be legal to not wear a seat belt, and then society wouldn’t be on the hook for any costs incurred by you not wearing one, but thankfully this is not Crazy Libertarian Land.
Can’t rule out revenue as a factor. However, IIRC, statistical data indicates that laws requiring mandatory use of seatbelts are associated with statistically significant drops in numbers of fatalities.
(Fun fact: Autocorrect thinks we should have laws requiring mandatory use of meatballs.)
I also enjoy the “freedom” of not having to deal with and pay for all the dead and injured people who refuse to wear their seat belts. People who don’t want to wear their seatbelts, WHY DO YOU HATE MY FREEDOM TO NOT HAVE YOU DIE AND INJURE YOURSELF NEEDLESSLY?
See… two can play at this stupid “freedom” semantics game. Grow up and put your seat belt on
Imagine you’re cruising along beltless when BAM, a car slams into yours. Now your in the back seat and your car is hurtling toward a crowd of pedestrians. Wearing a lap and shoulder restraint is part of being in total control of your vehicle. Factor in the financial repercussions mentioned above and you have a pretty sensible law.
I don’t know why anyone would want to drive a car without a restraint. I wouldn’t weld something without eye protection either.
Driving an automobile is not a right. There is nothing in the federal Constitution or the constitution of any state that guarantees an inalienable right to operate a motor vehicle on public roadways. Doing so is a privilege which requires you to maintain a license, acquisition and retainership of which is contingen on you demonstrating that you understand and are capable of adhering to the rules of the road (which have been drafted by the people and their elected representatives for the purpose of making automotive travel efficient, hassle-free, and above all safe) and your continued willingness to obey them when so engaged.
One of those requirements is that you wear a seatbelt. It is not some draconian infringement on your God-given rights, it does you no harm, it in fact requires pretty much zero effort whatsoever, and it may very well save your life and save your family and the taxpayers from having to spend a lot of money on your medical expenses were you to be injured as a result of not wearing one.
If you don’t want to wear a seatbelt, then you have the FREEDOM to start taking the bus - not that I doubt you wouldn’t start complaining about the fascist overlords refusing to let you eat or drink on the bus.
Do car manufacturers support seat-belt laws in the USA? I have friends who design cars for Jaguar Land Rover here in the UK, and they say it’s a proper ballache to design for the American market as the safety features have to be OTT as seatbelt use cannot be assumed.
Surely it would save US-based car suppliers a fortune not having to put extra airbags etc in the cabin and just get drivers to buckle up? I believe the extra safety features are mandatory. Does that also represent a dangerous curtailment of freedom?
Don’t oversell yourself here. There is definitely a drawback, and that drawback is pretty much why anyone chooses not to wear one: they are uncomfortable for a lot of people. I personally got out of the habit of wearing one fore a while because of this.
Fortunately, this has gotten better. Nearly all seatbelts seem to use a locking mechanism that leaves you be free to move if you aren’t in a crash, and nearly all of them allow adjusting the height so you don’t cut off your neck. And, due to the increasing size of the average person, the seatbelts themselves are getting longer to accommodate. The comfort issue is less than it used to be.
Now they need to work a little more on convenience. That still seems to be spotty. The buckles are still often hard to find. If it takes longer than a couple seconds, some people just aren’t going to do it. People are horrible with the planning fallacy. Few think they are the ones who will need the seatbelt until it is too late.
You may view these as insignificant drawbacks, but your opinion is not the one that counts. It’s that of the person who needs to “click it.”
As a person who is only alive today because of a seat belt (rainy day, sharp curve, and the car flipping over a few times before coming to rest upside-down. The car was totaled, we crawled out with a few scratches.), I believe that that law exists for a very, very good reason.
(Additional anecdote- a neighbor’s husband died -because- he was not wearing one. Rainy day/highway/serious speeding.)
Question: Are you posting this because, while you always choose to wear your seat belt, the idea of government coercion rankles you? Or would you avoid wearing a seat belt, given the choice? We’ll be able to form our own opinions about your intelligence.
Eh. They keep you in position to control your vehicle during hard turns and braking, let alone crashes. Even though I’ve been bothered by seat belt chafing on my collarbone before (I’m short) I prefer being belted securely in position so I’m not sliding around in my seat.
If you want to talk about bad government safety decisions, let’s talk about airbag inflation velocity. Faced with a choice between (relatively) faster inflation, which would KILL some short people who are properly wearing their seat belts, but save the lives of some people NOT belted in, and slower inflation which would have the opposite effect, the gov’t mandated the faster inflation – choosing to KILL safety-minded people obeying seat belt laws in the hopes of saving scofflaws who can’t be bothered to use safety equipment.
