Understood!
What I am saying is, it doesn’t cost any more than anything else. I’ve seen enough motorcycle crashes where wearing a helmet would make no difference. Nice they were wearing their helmet, even though the head is no longer attached to the body. How about that effect on the rest of us? Including those they hit going 120 mph? And those that have to hose off the street?
You can make a case for other lives to be impacted by any accident, even from bicycles. Why are you not against motorcycles completely? For better guarded rail road crossings? Banning all cell phones, entirely? Built in breathalyzers for every car? Those things cause accidents that affect us all, too.
People make choices that affect everyone on a daily basis. If we’re going to “nanny state” mandates for seat belts, why not for anything that harms individuals? How about banning smoking entirely? Or drinking?
I really don’t want my payments into healthcare to fund some degenerate’s liver transplant. His drinking isn’t just affecting him, it also affects me. But you only seem to be making a case for helmets and seat belts. Where do you draw the line on personal choice? How much mandated behavior are you for beyond helmets and seat belts? And why are you not for more?
eta: If a guy drives too fast and hits a tree without a seat belt, flies through the window and dies, what exactly is the difference to the EMT’s or us if he was wearing a seat belt and still died? none! Or if a motorcyclist crashes his bike gets his leg ripped from his body, several broken ribs, a punctured lung, but by golly he was wearing a helmet! None!
There are no lines. I’m happy to take each proposal on a case-by-case basis.
But I think a good rule of thumb for any public safety law is to consider its intrusiveness to the individual and whether it unduly restricts their reasonable ability to freely engage with society, then consider the tangible benefits of the law.
The only freedom seatbelt laws interfere with is “my freedom to not wear seatbelts.” The tangible benefits of seatbelt laws, as demonstrated in this thread, are myriad. So it’s kind of a slam dunk so far as I’m concerned.
Alcohol and nicotine have tangible positive outcomes for both citizens and for manufacturers,* so it’s reasonable to expect laws regarding their use to be more nuanced. Instead of outlawing them altogether, we take steps to educate people about their ill effects, limit their usage to adults, limit advertising to minors, levy excise taxes to discourage use and reduce the financial burden of their negative outcomes, and so on.
And of course, we don’t allow drunk people to drive because there are a great many negative impacts of drunk driving, far outweighing a drunk person’s freedom to travel whenever they want.
*by which I mean stuff like “my freedom to get drunk,” “my freedom to enjoy the taste of alcohol,” “my freedom to run a bar or brewery,” and so on. There are no comparable freedoms being restricted by seatbelt laws.
We do have laws governing who can ride a motorcycle. You need to be old enough to get a driver’s license, and not only that, but you need to have a special endorsement that shows you had additional training specifically for a motorcycle. That, of course, all helps keep everyone safe, not just the person on the motorcycle.
There are additionally laws about wearing a helmet in most places. I myself don’t see how that impacts anyone other than the rider. I still support those laws.
Here is an editorial that I agree with. It’s pretty old, over 30 years ago, but I still think it has wisdom.
We have laws to protect people from themselves and from each other.
These laws are necessary because some people won’t follow basic rules of safety.
Some bristle and try to resist these attempts to protect them by saying, “You’re taking away my freedom to choose what I do.”
When we all have to pay for things like medevac helicopters, shock-trauma centers and insurance to cover these folks who are exercising their freedom to be stupid, everyone loses.
Anyone who says, people should have the right to choose not to wear a seatbelt, or a helmet, or take other risky behavior. I assume you also believe that people shouldn’t be eligible for healthcare unless they pay out of pocket. Or other social safety nets we create for people.
If you advocate abolishing safety laws, and you aren’t a ruthless person advocating for Social Darwinism, then you’re an idiot. You can’t have it both ways. If we are going to set up systems to help people in need, those people in need have the obligation to take care of themselves. If people want to play catch with lit fireworks, should my tax money be paying for the reconstructive surgery on their hands? Fuck that shit. It’s part of the social compact. Wear your seatbelt, wear your helmet, don’t go hang gliding drunk.
And I’ve known people who survived motorcycle crashes because they wore a helmet. I’ll admit that if you drive off a 500 foot cliff, your seatbelt won’t do you any good there either.
We aren’t talking about edge cases here, we are talking about the typical accident. One in which a seatbelted person will typically walk away a bit shaken up, and a non-seatbelted person is going to the ER.
That’s between them and their insurance. I’m against people riding motorcycles unlicensed and uninsured.
I’m actually pretty for that. There are a bunch of unguarded railroad crossings where my father grew up, and they have claimed a non-negligible number of lives.
But, that’s not personal responsibility, that’s either the government or the railroad not taking responsibility over a danger they have created.
Why? You aren’t one of those people that thinks that 5G causes COVID, are you?
If they were actually cheap and accurate, I wouldn’t be against it. They aren’t either, so that seems an unreasonable accommodation.
Ah, the classic fallacy of, “If you are for this, then you must be for this, or you are a hypocrite.” You aren’t the first to trot it out, but it’s always stupid, and always in bad faith.
To answer your questions far more honestly than you asked them, there are things that provide a benefit to society, and the harms they cause need to be balanced. Alcohol provides a benefit to society, so it is regulated to decrease the harm done if used irresponsibly. Same with all the other stuff on your list, society gets a benefit, and imposes some reasonable restrictions to limit the damage.
Explain to me, specifically, what benefit society derives from you not wearing your seatbelt. If you can, then tell me how that compares to society paying your increased medical costs because of your choice.
Right, and you have chosen edge cases as your examples to make a point when most of the issues are not in edge cases. I don’t know why you would do this, I hope you don’t think that you are actually making a legitimate point, but the alternative is that you know that you aren’t making a legitimate point, and that’s actually a worse reflection on you.
If your point had any legitimacy, then why any safety systems in a car at all, if it won’t make a difference if someone hits a tree at 120 MPH? Do you now see how disingenuous you are being by trying to use those as examples?
So, lets see how far you want to go the other direction. Do you think that cars should be able to be sold without airbags, crumple zones, or even seatbelts? They’d be cheaper, and honestly, those are all things I’ve never used, and in the examples you choose to use, they wouldn’t do any good.
To add to the discussion there is also the data point that, due to very poor relative risk analysis, many Police officers don’t wear their seatbelts themselves.
So part of PKBites’ discounting of such laws might be a way of closing ranks with his fellow officers.
Why do you do this? Where did I even imply that? You are fighting to make your case, so you…come up with absurdities like this?
Every time I’ve been hit in my car, or involved in near misses, the other driver was on the phone. People walk into traffic talking on their phones all the time. If I weren’t paying proper attention (like, oh, talking on my phone while driving) I would have run one over in a parking lot the other day.
People talking on their phone while doing other things cause a lot of accidents. Probably a lot more than drivers not wearing seat belts who get caught in a spin and are unable to control their cars from the passenger seat.
I saw than in a crime show recently, where the officers unbuckled their seat belts during a pursuit. Stupidest thing.
It’s already illegal in most places AFAIK to use a mobile phone while driving. That’s a good thing, since, as you note, using a phone while driving causes and worsens a lot of accidents.
Since not wearing seatbelts also worsens a lot of accidents, it is likewise a good thing to legally mandate wearing seatbelts.
Maybe it really had been a drug dealer’s car:
If anyone bought that car, they’d have the same trouble until they did something about its looks or sold it on.
FWIW, there is a group called Below 100. Their goal is to get line-of-duty deaths below 100 in a calendar year. The core tenets are:
Wear your vest
Wear your seatbelt
Slow down
What’s important now?/WIN - Situational awareness and decision making
Complacency kills
Historically, car crashes have accounted for more officer deaths than murders. That trend seems to be changing. So far this year deaths from gunfire are double those from crashes (53 vs 27). Maybe more people are trying to kill cops or maybe more cops are wearing their belts and slowing down. Maybe a combination of these things.
In any case and IMHO, there is no excuse for not wearing a seatbelt. None. If you need to practice getting the belt off under pressure, practice. It should be as instinctive as reloading. More so, actually.
Because you said to “ban all cell phones, entirely”, not to make it illegal to drive while using one. The only reason to ban them entirely is if there is something intrinsic about them that is causing harm. There are people out there that believe that their radiation causes that sort of harm, so I was wondering if you were one of them, as that’s the only way your suggestion makes any sense.
You asked an absurd question, so I gave the only answer that it deserved.
Now, I’m all for banning their use while driving, hell, I’d be for banning their use while walking on public right of ways. But banning them entirely, that’s you being disingenuously absurd.
Once again, it’s a balance. Does society get a benefit out of people having cell phones? I’d say yes, a very large benefit, one that drastically outweighs their cost to society. Now, we should have ways of regulating their use to mitigate harms, but the suggestion of banning them outright is just fucking stupid.
In order for your suggestion to be relevant, it would have to be compared to requiring people to wear seatbelts when they are not in a car.
In your faux outrage at my question, you’ve avoided answering other questions, even though I answered all of yours. I suppose that’s because you just don’t have an answer that fits in with the worldview that you are trying to put out there. So I ask again, just two questions…
What benefit does society get from you not wearing a seatbelt that outweighs the costs to society from you not wearing a seatbelt?
Since you don’t think that wearing a seatbelt should be required, do you think that car manufacturers shouldn’t be required to put other safety devices like airbags and crumple zones in them?
Are you genuinely curious, confused by my position, or just looking for a gotchya?
I think he’s just asking questions. 
Hey! That’s MY job!
Having read that article, anyone mentally deficient enough that they think the need to reach their weapon outweighs the need to not fly headfirst through the windshield, or be flung to the side when making a turn (especially as the driver), should be trusted with neither a gun nor a badge, nor be given the authority to sweep the streets, much less police them.
“I don’t need Big Brother ordering me to do those things”
Does he not realize that he’s Big Brother?
The first two.
There really would be a substantial benefit if you could buy a car without airbags, it would save several thousand dollars. In my 30 years of driving, I’ve never used or needed an airbag.
By your position on seatbelts, I should have that option to save money on safety features for cars. So, I really do want to know which way you would vote if it were up to you. It would go a long way towards my understanding of your position.
Not really, as I have answered all of @Just_Asking_Questions’s questions as completely and honestly as I could, and I’ve had just a very few for him, none of which he has answered.
I was making a joke based on the persons screen name.
I found some of PKBites old home videos
I think everyone is being too hard on PKBites. He could just be a stupid A-hole. Y’all were probably raised in smart households where your parents used reason and logic to get you to act right. People who grow up in stupid A-hole homes don’t understand reason and logic. They just understand doing what they want to do when they want to do it. They also understand getting their ass whooped.
You all be trying to reason with someone to put on their seatbelt with complex and faggy risk analysis when what you should be doing is telling them to put on their seatbelt or you’ll whoop their ass!
Stop sea lioning. I stated my position fine. I answered that I don’t think cell phones cause covid (an idiot question if I ever heard one).
The benefit to make our own choices, I have stated I don’t believe the costs to society from people not wearing seat belts is any greater than the cost to society of any number of other things that people make their own choices on.’
’
No.