Fasten your seatbelts or up against the wall and spread em'

Great Debates
61

Then go build yourself a boat, and sail into International Waters (although without a country you are setting yourself up to be apprehended as a pirate). Cecil wrote a Column on how to renounce US citizenship if your are not interested in the rights and responsibilities that citizenship entails.

Beyond that, you are subject to their whims. The good thing is that in the US the “power” doesn’t come from midair. This mysterious “power” you speak of is given by the people. You, too, can participate by voting and become politcally active. Admittedly the system is not perfect, but it is hardly a dictatorship.

Please save your protestations. At least not paying your taxes doesn’t run the risk of getting yourself killed.

Of course if you really want to, you can buy some land, pave it, and drive around without a seatbelt as much and as fast as you want. You can even do it without a license! See, the government isn’t “forceing” you to use a seatbelt at all times, they are merely stipulating that if you want to veer off from your private onto roads in the public realm, you are resposible for following public law.

62

Sam Stone: Here in Canada, we’ve had seatbelt laws for a long time. Once we opened that door and granted that the government had a right to protect us from ourselves, it wasn’t long before we had bans on public smoking, mandatory helmet laws for motorcycles (and now Bicycles), and a host of other nanny-state laws.

How fascinating. Had no building codes prior to that, did you? Or did you somehow manage to survive years of the intolerable nanny-state dictatorship making rules for the fire safety of your home construction without realizing that you were being smothered by the authoritarian state?

*And it’s going to get worse. I fully expect that 10 or 20 years from now we’ll be sitting around arguing about whether or not the anti-Frito law should be repealed. *

I’ll take that bet. Honestly, this is really laughable. Wearing helmets! Wearing seatbelts! Not being allowed to breathe smoke at other people in public! We might as well be in China!! (Do you realize, by the way, that cyclists in the PRC aren’t legally required to wear helmets, and as far as I can make out, seatbelt use in cars isn’t mandatory either—at least, many travelers report seatbeltless taxicabs? Feel a little more friendly towards the place now, do you?) People, do you realize how hysterical you sound?

Now mind you, I’m not blind to the dangers of state encroachment on individual rights: I get cold shivers when I read of the high-handed things that have been done to take people off the voting rolls, or to railroad them through criminal trials, or to shut them up with SLAPP lawsuits. I know that liberty is fragile and must be continually fought for. But the places you’re choosing to fight for it seem to me suicidally (in more senses than one) mis-selected.

*So, let’s start by banning black diamond ski runs and heli-skiing - both are statistically far more dangerous than driving without a seatbelt.

While we’re at it, we should ban motorcycles, since driving a motorcycle is statistically about four times more dangerous than driving a car without a seatbelt.

Extreme sports, gone. Ice hockey, gone. Skateboards, gone. No more SCUBA diving. No more private airplanes, which are about as dangerous as motorcycles. *

How tragic. Imagine my surprise and relief, though, when I found out that black diamond ski runs, heli-skiing, motorcycles, extreme sports, ice hockey, skateboards, SCUBA diving, and private airplanes are actually all still perfectly legal in Canada! Hmmm—just the last brief flicker of the candle of liberty? Or could it possibly be that some of those in the “nanny state” have actually devoted some thought to this issue, and agree with the principle that mandating safety always has to be balanced with the need to preserve personal freedom? And that perhaps they’ve come to the conclusion that AS LONG AS YOUR GODDAMNED FRITO-FATTENED ASS IS PLANTED FIRMLY ON A SMALL SQUARE OF CAR SEAT FOR THE DURATION OF THE RIDE ANYWAY, IT’S NOT SUCH AN INTOLERABLE RESTRICTION OF YOUR PERSONAL FREEDOM TO BUCKLE A GODDAMNED SEATBELT AROUND ITS BULGING EDGE???

sailor: But I am dead set against imposing something, no matter how good, without a very compelling public interest, which does not exist here.

? It’s not a “very compelling public interest” to save the lives of members of the public, which seatbelt-wearing most certainly does? Especially when the sacrifice of personal freedom that the individual must make to comply with the imposition (during an activity that is, as has been mentioned before, not a right but a privilege) is so unbelievably trifling? (By the way, I quite agree that it is not necessarily trifling for those with certain physical handicaps or conditions like claustrophobia, and I support making medical exemptions from seatbelt laws available for people with such conditions, as they do in France, for example.) I can hardly think of anything more compelling.

The idea that this is the sort of thing that can get so many people passionate to the edge of hysteria about the intrusion on their “rights”, when so many people’s actual civil rights are seriously infringed every day in their workplaces, their schools, their communities, in ways that I bet you don’t know or care anywhere near as much about although they have a far greater impact on people’s actual lives, is unbelievably sad.

63

Maybe I’ve been misreading people’s meanings, but I don’t think anyone has disagreed with this.

No one (I don’t think) has come out and claimed that mandatory seatbelt laws are unconstitutional. The claim put forth (that I tend to share) is that, while permissible under the constitution, it’s a bad law. The kind of law that we are stupid to allow our elected representatives to enact. Not a law that it was illegal for them to enact - just dumb.

Of course everyone must abide by the laws as they currently exist (or be willing to face the punishments). I, along with some others, feel that mandatory seatbelt laws are counterproductive and unwise, and that society would be a better place without them (The infringement upon personal freedoms that they represent outweigh the perceived social benefit.).

Am I making the distinction clear here? Yes, driving on public roads is licensed by the government, and as such some regulation is of course permissible. However, just because something can be regulated (legally) does not automatically mean that it should. Such a “something” is the mandatory wearing of seatbelts.*

    • Minors are another matter entirely. I have no problem with the government mandating seatbelts/restraints on those not legally of age to make the decision themselves. A person can endanger their own life (IMO) all they want, but that sort of recklessness should not (IMO) be permitted with someone else’s life.
64

Because you have no choice. You’re too late.

It is so very difficult to catch a lion that has sneaked out of the cage. For this lion, your puny pathetic dart guns are nothing.

As to how the lion got out of the cage to start with, credit the Machiavellian shrewedness of politicians who understand this quote from Adolf Hitler all too well: “It is lucky for rulers that men do not think.”

65

This thread has grown tiresome and boring, but I feel the need to jump in nonetheless.

I would fully expect that the immediate response from a forward-thinking group such as this would be that mandatory seatbelt laws are a direct infringement of the liberties of our society. However, as has been mentioned previously, driving is not a constitutionally supported activity. That being said, consider a few things before you spout off about the law:

NHTSA is responsible for reducing deaths, injuries and economic losses resulting from motor vehicle crashes. This is accomplished by setting and enforcing safety performance standards for motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment, and through grants to state and local governments to enable them to conduct effective local highway safety programs. They are not out to get you so stop being so fucking paranoid.

Ever been on an airplane? Do you buckle-up before take-off and landing? Of course you do. And probably not because “Barbie” the flight attendant told you to. Are you aware that American Airlines requires all passengers to keep their seatbelts on while seated during a flight? Where’s the upheaval for that?

In 1999, 32,000 occupants of passenger vehicles were killed in traffic accidents. That’s nearly 90 per day. 4 per hour. Since 1975 it is estimated that nearly 125,000 lives were saved by simply buckling a seatbelt.

I am, by all means, a seatbelt advocate. I’ve seen crash tests first hand and I’ve lost friends and relatives in vehicle crashes. I am a firm believer in personal freedoms and the rights of the individual. I have no problem with mandated seatbelt laws. If you don’t want to wear one, don’t. I’m not the one who has to scrape you up off the pavement after you’re launched through the windshield.

**dixiechiq: i don’t wear a seat belt cuz i don’t feel a need to. **

Wise up, dummy.

66

I don’t think the figures are in dispute. I don’t think the argument that seatbelts are a good idea is in dispute. I think that the argument that you should be compelled to wear them is.

I am fervently against government legislating in these sorts of areas. I would agree that the government can and should inform the public that wearing seatbelts is a good idea, possibly quite graphically.

The argument that I should lobby my MP (Congressman, whatever) for changes to these laws is unrealistic. Neither the US nor the UK have political setups where this is going to work.

I am, by all means, a seatbelt advocate. I’ve seen crash tests second-hand and I’ve lost friends and relatives in vehicle crashes. I am a firm believer in personal freedoms and the rights of the individual. I also find the 1st and 3rd sentences in your quote to be mutually exclusive.

67

My apologies; what I should have said was ‘I find the idea of compulsory seatbelt laws and your 3rd sentence mutually exclusive’…[sub]rats[/sub]

68

I think the seatbelt laws are great, honestly. Before the law, I knew nobody who ever wore a seatbelt, nobody. Now, basically everyone I know thinks it’s stupid to not wear one. Coincidence, I don’t think so. By mandating it, the gov’t got people to realize that seatbelts are not overly restrictive, and do a great job keeping you safe in an accident. If they repealed the laws, most everyone I know would still wear them. If the law never existed, I doubt that would be the case.

I said the same things as many of you when the law went into effect. ‘Damn gov’t, sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong, harumph! I should decide whether to wear a seatbelt, blah, blah, blah.’ After a few months of ‘government oppression’, I realized that the belt wasn’t all that bad. You all think belts are a great idea, but if the gov’t didn’t mandate it, millions of people would never wear them, and many thousands would be dead as a result.

Any law that can claim to have saved tens of thousands of peoples lives, with no more disruption of the citizenry than buckling a freekin’ seatbelt, is a fantastic law in my book.

69

Perhaps there’s a difference between the US and the UK. I wore a belt long before it was law (and the majority of people I knew did too).

Yes, I agree that most would continue to wear them. Most would wear them because they are proven to be a good idea, not because it’s the law. If the law never existed and most people didn’t ‘belt up’ then I would say that the government and other road organisations were not doing their job in educating the public. Making it mandatory (coercion rather than education) is a cop out.

Well, your book and mine are different. The difference is that I’m forced to read yours, and you are at liberty to ignore mine.

70

Here’s some thoughts for those of you arguing that not wearing a seatbelt only affects the one who chooses not to wear it:

The selfish viewpoint

If I fuck up while driving and cause a crash, I do not like the idea that my error will be compounded by the other driver not wearing a seatbelt. It may be a selfish viewpoint, but I am happy that the law means that in such situations I will not have to carry the guilt my whole life of knowing that I killed someone.

You don’t wear a seatbelt, I crash into you, you die, I carry the guilt. Your loss is of course immeasurably more than mine, but there is no need for either. Wear the seatbelt.

Of course, this can still apply even if the crash is your fault. I’ll still have that guilt that I might have been able to do something.

So I disagree that the mandatory wearing of a seatbelt is only benefiting/inconveniencing the driver. It affects other drivers too.

The knock-on affect

Airbags were originally a response to the widespread non-use of seatbelts in the US. However since they were designed with the attempt to save the life of those too stupid to wear a seatbelt, they needed to explode open very quickly. This has consequently lead to some deaths from the airbags themselves.

In Europe however and in the UK in particular, seatbelts were already almost universally used by the time airbags were introduced. Rather than an alternative, they were therefore constructed as a complement to the seatbelt. They explode outwards with far less force. As such the dual system is very safe indeed.

To those of you in the US who wear seatbelts - the knock-on effect of widespread non-use has been an airbag system that is potentially dangerous and doesn’t complement your usage.

You have therefore been adversely affected by other people not using seatbelts.

pan

71

Our books are apparently very different. Lives saved, tens of thousands. Price paid, minimal. I am in favor of that.

The gov’t is requiring of you (via a potential traffic ticket) something that everyone, even you, agrees you should do anyway. I do not consider that oppressive. When driving you should also:

Obey the speed limit
Abide by traffic signs
Say ‘Hi, Opal’ regularly
Not drive recklessly

These things are also punishable by traffic ticket. Heck, I know how fast I can drive safely, is the gov’t oppressing me by having a speed limit? NO! I may be very pissed off if I get a speeding ticket, but I did break a driving regulation. That’s all a seatbelt law is.

72

If the basis for seatbelt laws is public safety, it makes me wonder why there are not laws against high fat/cholesterol foods. Why criminalize someone who poses little or no harm to society?

Would the “buckle up” campaign been as successful without legislation to make seatbelt use mandatory? Probably not, but I think the message would have gotten through.

If public safety IS the impetus for these laws, why not skip the intermediate steps and go directly to mandating full roll cages, five point harnesses, mandatory helmet use, and nomex suits? Guaranteed to greatly increase the survivability in a crash. Shouldn’t full leathers, gloves, and boots be required of motorcyclists in addition to mandatory helmet use? So you say I am taking this to extremes, that these measures would be inconvenient. Why does the law concern itself with convenience? If it is a noble and just cause so what if it inconveniences people.

If it is nothing more than a potential revenue stream and another opportunity to pull over and search a “suspicious vehicle” then we shouldn’t accept it just because it is of minor or no inconvenience and may save a few lives.

73

I’m not trying to be sassy here, but (with the possible exception of #3) are you really equating seat-belt laws with

o Obey the speed limit
o Abide by traffic signs
o Say ‘Hi, Opal’ regularly
o Not drive recklessly

Lots and lots of things are a ‘good idea’. Some would save lives. Many are popular in the sense that most people choose to follow them without them being mandated.

I suspect that quite a few people are against the idea of mandated seatbelt laws not because of the law itself, but rather the uneasy feeling that government is moving inexorably down the slippery slope from what it does well to a nanny state in which it considers the people who elected it too stupid to be allowed to think for themselves.

If that’s the case then the only difference between some of us is where we’d draw the line. Clearly you don’t happen to draw it here. Others do.

74

Even though the topic appears to be about seatbelts I think the op had a different Question in mind.
I believe that question is should the police have the right to put you in cuffs for an infraction as small as a traffic violation.
Apparently the supreme court thinks so.Why???
Could it be that they believe the law reads the same for every crime. They have been giving the police the option of how heartily they want to pursue lawbreakers.Maybe they were saying that the police had that option all along.

Still it seems scarey.

75

LokiTheDog, I think we both agree but have misunderstood each other.

My point (targeted at no one in particular) was primarily that a seatbelt law itself is completely valid legislation.

I do acknowledge the court decision as a very bad thing, but I simply do not see what relevance seatbelt laws themselves have with it, apart from being one of a multitude of offences the decision affects.

76

A little research reveals that we’re both, ummmm, wrong.

From the Tennessee Code:

So, things other than being drunk can get you convicted of vehicular homicide; it would, however, probably take more than just speeding or failure to yield.

Here’s to fighting (my own) ignorance, and to wearing a seatbelt 'cause I want to.

Tenn-Ben

77

**Tennessee Ben **
Thanks for the Tennessee code. I see that I should have modified my remarks with a ‘this is true in Michigan, YMMV’
State of MI code

point being, of course that there’s no apparent specification that the driver must have been drinking etc. Simply causing the death of another person, in addition to the feelings of guilt expressed by kabbes, can get you a felony charge in my state, which, AFAIC, makes for a compelling interest.

78

wring
Glad to have gotten past all that. Now to the argument:

Our definitions in place, I don’t disagree with this point. I do, however, think you gloss over the critically important point of what it means to cause a death in the eyes of the law.

Yes, the accident was the cause-in-fact of B’s death (were it not for the wreck, B would still be alive). I’m not sure, though, that B’s failure to wear a seatbelt would not constitute a superceding cause of his death–i.e. that A’s negligence would not be the proximate cause of B’s death.

In other words, A and B have a wreck; B, not wearing a seatbelt, is killed; A is not the proximate cause of B’s death, and therefore has not committed vehicular homicide (in either Tennessee or Minnesota).

The next question is what all of this has to do with mandatory seatbelt laws. I’d argue nothing. I find no compelling interest in keeping A out of unwarranted trouble, since that is exactly what the cause requirement of the statute does. If B would have lived, had he been wearing a seatbelt, then A should not (emphasis on “should not”) be found liable (since B’s failure to wear the seatbelt caused his death). If B would have been killed, seatbelt or no, then A should be found liable. A’s rights can be protected in the absence of mandatory seatbelt laws.

Respectfully,
Tenn-Ben

79

TennesseeBen you have more faith in the Cj system than I.

While you and I may agree that the lack of seat belt usage would be a contributory cause and may even be substantial, I have an easy time believing that I’d still be needing the services of a good attorney in the meantime.

While one can look at stats and say with relative certainty, that seat belts saved roughly x number of lives, in individual cases, it’s a bit trickier to play out. Dead victim, due to crash, may have survived with seat belt, we may or may not be certain - and there I’ll be on trial, if not for manslaughter, at least for a lesser included.

80

Not really. The court still has to decide whether driver B would have lived avec seatbelt. The analysis is exactly the same, except that your lawyer gets to bandy about the phrase “comparative negligence per se,” instead of plain old “comparative negligence.” That may be worth something, maybe not.

**
Here in Tennessee (and I’d wager in Minnesota), there is no lesser offense included in negligent manslaughter, unless you mean the traffic violation / DUI / etc. that we went 'round about earlier. And why shouldn’t driver A be tried for that offense?

I realize that this has become something of a digression, (and a tedious one at that) but I think it’s important to make clear-- mandatory seatbelt laws provide minimal (at best) protection from liability in cases like these.

I had one other thought over dinner: It seems odd to say that the state’s compelling interest here is to protect (somewhat) innocent people from the power of the state. If the state wants to protect me from prosecution, doesn’t this seem like a round-about way to do it?

If the state really wanted to protect people from VehicHom prosecution incurred because some other goober wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, the easy way to do it would be to say, unequivocally, that a wreck isn’t the cause of a driver’s death if that driver isn’t wearing a seatbelt. This policy, of course, would last exactly as long as it took a notorious drunk to plow into a soccer mom, and the world to fly (justifiably) into outrage. So we’ve still got to determine cause, dadgummit. And whether there’s a mandatory seatbelt law or not is totally irrelevant to the dispositive question of whether Driver B would have lived through the wreck with a seatbelt.