Sailor: “No, but I can tell you have never worn an integral motorcycle helmet or you would know better”
hmm, Sailor, I’ve been riding for about 10+ years now so your helmet argument is out the window.
Sailor: “Well, speak for yourself, everybody else in this thread seems to question it (the law). "
go back and read the original post for this thread. If you want to argue the validity of the law itself, start another post.
Sailor: “I am not impressed with the level of your reasoning skills so far in this thread”
All this from a poster who wrote this " western countries are not founded on the principle that the government should tell people what they should do”. I hate to break the bad news to you but the government tells you what to do every day. They are called laws. And to my statement “I want to know who is against people wearing seat belts” THIS was your retort? “Well, so far in this thread, everybody but yourself.” Come on. I think you are the only one against seatbelt all together
but the quesion is do you feel that arrest is too excessive for seatbelt violations. I think I know your answer Sailor.
I don’t mind seatbelt laws. I wouldn’t dream of driving or riding in a car without a seatbelt on. And I very much dislike it when other passengers in the car (especially if I’m driving) don’t want to buckle up. Several years ago I was in a car accident (in which I was not the driver) involving a head-on collision with a steep embankment. The girl in the front passenger seat had only just put her seatbelt on a few minutes before. The car was completely wrecked, and three of the four of us, although not seriously injured, did have several month’s worth of problems. I’m fairly certain that if any of us were without seatbelts, we would have been seriously injured or killed. Here in the UK there is a rather disturbing commercial of just what a seatbelt-less backseat passenger can do to a front seat passenger/driver in a collision. I don’t need seatbelt laws to legislate my own actions, but I like having seatbelt laws on my side to curtail the potentially stupid decisions that other people in my car might make. The law puts some weight behind my nagging!
You don’t need seat belt laws for this either. If someone doesn’t want to follow your rules in your car, don’t give them a ride. Do you really want to give the government the power to make your desicions for you, just so you don’t have to seem like the bad guy?
I put out my windshield with my face back in 87, then my friend did it to me again in 89. After the second time, I started wearing the belt even for short trips to the store down the block. Yeah, seatbelts are a great thing, I love em now. But it’s my decision, or the owner / operator of the vehicle I’m in.
Although most states have laws requiring passengers to wear seat belts, most do not sentence the offenders to jail time. The laws say it is punishable by a citation and fine. Yet cops have taken people to jail for it and the USSC says that’s fine.
Hypothetical…If your state says that the maximum punishment for littering is a $50 fine, no jail time, wouldn’t you find it a little disconcerting when the cops throw you into the squad car - take you down town - and throw your ass in jail? Under what authority are they doing this? Our laws are written by elected representatives, and the penalties for violating them are as well. Now suddenly it’s okay for cops to decide what the penalties are? The supreme court just gave cops the power to yank you off the street and throw you in jail with no grounds. As if we didn’t have enough cases of abuse from the pigs before.
but do you think that repeat offenders should cop the same fine over and over or should it progress to something more>
Frankly yeah, I don’t like being the bad guy. I do it, but I don’t like doing it. It’s not so bad now that I’m an adult, but as a teenager it can be difficult to stand up to your friends (not to mention older adults) when they’re in a particularly care-free, careless mood. Nb. I also meant to imply that I want the other people in the same car as me to buckle up, regardless of whether or not I’m the driver. A nagging passenger isn’t nearly so persuasive as a nagging driver.
IMHO arrest is too severe in most cases of the violation of seatbelt laws. I think that a fine for each violator, plus the inconvenience of having to spend a Saturday afternoon watching driver’s ed type movies of the potential consequences might be more effective.
I was quite uncomfortable with the policeman’s decision to arrest that woman. Whether or not it’s unConstitutional, it seems like the wrong thing to do.
In fairness, however, the policiman may have been motivated by her two young children being not belted. I think they were in the front seat.
So there is also an issue of government involvement in child care.
let me pose this to ya:
Accidents do happen. When they do happen, often one driver will be singled out as the ‘fault’ (having 51% responsability for the accident). Now, suppose the accident happens, Driver A is found to be 51% at fault, Driver B is dead because Driver B failed to secure their seat belt. Should Driver A be prosecuted for vehicular manslaughter (they were slightly more at fault for the accident, which Driver B would have survived, had they worn their safety belt)?
(FTR I think the SCOTUS was wrong when they sided with the cop arresting the woman. Seems to me, also, tho’ that they’d left the door open on that one, so if wholesale arrests for minor traffic nonesense starts happening they’ll hopefully redefine it more closely).
How many here feel that driving motor vehicles on public roads is an unrestricted right?
If it is not, then reasonable laws regulating and restricting the use of those roads are acceptable, yes?
So what part of having to wear seat belts while driving is unreasonable?
As far as I can tell, it has no effect outside of public roads, nor does it discriminate or impose any burden at all on the road user. It merely increases one’s personal safety.
The basic problem here is that there are some people who think that if something is a good idea, then it should be law. Well, I can think of lots of things that are bad ideas and perfectly legal. We’ve already mentioned a bunch of them.
The being thrown in jail if you don’t wear one part.
Smoking is worse for your health than not wearing a seat belt and they have not banned it yet. Alcohol, is a big source of health and other problems. Maybe they should ban that too. People who eat too much fat are putting their health at rik much more than those not wearing seatbelts.
The day I am elected king I am going to get you guys in line. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Special penalties for people who pick their noses or use cell phones in public. Pretty girls get a break if they are nice to me. Those are all good ideas.
Aha,
I’d regard that as a problem of law enforcement given too much power, rather than of a mandatory seatbelt law itself.
But it is a bad problem, and it was my mistake for not reading the OP well enough.
But let’s say we remove the jail part, making it a fine-only offence, as it should be and is in most places. Would mandatory seatbelts still be unreasonable?
*Originally posted by gadgetgirl *
i don’t wear a seat belt cuz i don’t feel a need to. i don’t give a rat’s ass if someone else wears one or not, i’d be a lot happier if everyone else had the courtesy to respect my privacy and minded their own damn business about my seatbelt habits.
Oh no you wouldn’t. That is just what you think but true happiness comes from doing what you are told. Having mandated the 1.6 gallon toilet which flushes without flushing, I believe they should now regulate that you can only use two little squares of toilet paper each time. And woe to you if you should hang the toilet roll the wrong way!
>> But let’s say we remove the jail part, making it a fine-only offence, as it should be and is in most places. Would mandatory seatbelts still be unreasonable?
Jaako, I believe seat belts are a great idea which save lives and everybody should use them. I was using them before they were mandatory and people would laugh at me. I am a very safety-conscious person.
But I have a problem imposing my ideas on others. I am all for education. I am all for responsibility. I would be all in favor of higher insurance rates for those who do not wear seatbelts to reflect the higher cost of their claims. I am in favor of campaigns for safety.
But I am dead set against imposing something, no matter how good, without a very compelling public interest, which does not exist here. I have mentioned other instances where there is a greater public interest to prohibit certain things and they are not prohibited.
Again, I am all in favor of seatbelts, but I am also in favor if limiting the power of government to strictly what it needs to achieve its functions.
We all recognize there is a very strong public interest in having people not smoke, not abuse alcohol, not engage in risky sports, etc. and yet we do not legislate these things.
thank you sailor for reminding me [that i do so enjoy and need to be told what to do]. i often forget. 
Good question.
Really you’re talking about two different claims here–the 51% implies a civil (or tort) negligence/wrongful death claim, while vehicular manslaughter is a criminal offense. I’ll address them individually.
In re (don’t I sound like a lawyer already?) vehicular manslaughter: First, it requires your hypothetical Driver A to be drunk. Suddenly a much less sympathetic case. Second, I would think there would be a real causation issue here–although B wouldn’t be dead but for the fault of A, B’s failure to wear a seatbelt operates as a superceding cause of his death. This argument might or might not be a winner, but it’s definitely one worth making.
In re the tort claim: The causation issue is the same here. Beyond that, however, there’s the problem of comparative/contributory negligence. In a contributory negligence jurisdiction, if B were found to be negligent in not wearing his seatbelt, then he could not recover. At all. It’s similar in a comparative negligence jurisdiction, except that parties recover in proportion to their relative negligence (i.e. if B was, say, 38% at fault for his injury, then his damage would be reduced by that much.)
Having said all that, the short answer is that, ideally, B’s behavior won’t affect A’s liability at all. Clearly this isn’t exactly the case, but it’s not as bad as you might have thought at first glance.
And chalk me up as one more person who’s (1) All for seatbelts, and (2) vehemently, Vehemently, VEHEMENTLY opposed to government paternalism.
stop the presses. I agree with you on this one. wow.
all hail king sailor.
I felt I need to clarify, smoking is bad and yucky and should be made illigal.
But that’snot the issure here, you should have to wear your seltbelt.
What else go you want to see us do gadgetgirl? What more should we do to make you happy?
How much legislation aimed at stopping stupidity do you want before you say, “Well, that law just goes too far, by gum!”? When is enough enough?