You’re factually incorrect. Society bears the cost of caring for and supporting people who are injured much more in a crash due to not wearing a seat belt. Many choices people make (without any government regulation or interference) don’t have that dramatic of a consequence,
You can also believe the Earth is flat if you want too, that’s your privilege.
And if someone causes an accident which would have merely injured a restrained driver or passenger but does, in fact, kill an unrestrained driver or passenger, the person causing the accident is facing much more severe charges. Isn’t that correct?
I am not a lawyer but I imagine that yes, that’s correct. That’s a pretty good point.
Objection, leading.
Sustained. Be seated.
I found this case, and a similar one in the GA Supreme Court.
TL;DR is that “failure to wear seat belts is not a defense to vehicular homicide.”
That’s for criminal cases. In civil cases where the victim survives and sues, you might be able to use the “seat belt defense” to reduce damages you owe. And an insurance company will absolutely use it as a mitigating factor to reduce or deny your payment if you file a claim when you weren’t wearing your seat belt.
Just in case someone else’s brain is on ‘slow’ this morning, the defendant was claiming the victims wouldn’t have died if they had been wearing seat belts. Likely true, but rejected because the proximate cause of death was the crash.
Eh,fuck off with that noise. I’ve not been especially polite or civil, and I’ve not asked you nearly as many questions as you have of me. You obviously have no idea what that term means, and you just spit it out as a generic insult.
Out of all your positions, this is the one you think anyone was confused on? You asked an idiot question, whether we should ban all cell phones entirely. That was a very stupid question, and I’m starting to suspect that it wasn’t asked in good faith, that you were not genuinely curious or confused by my position, but that you were just looking for a gotcha.
So, I shouldn’t have answered the question honestly, and just called you out for your dishonesty in asking it. So, you are correct that my answer was absurd, as I didn’t take into account your disingenuity when I answered it, and instead answered it as though you had asked in good faith.
Your own projection gave you away, BTW.
Well, the data says that you are wrong about that. Not wearing a seatbelt will result in more severe injuries, which means higher medical costs, which will result in higher medical and insurance costs for the rest of us. Do you have data that backs your position that people who don’t wear seatbelts don’t have more injuries than people that do?
Now, while there are things out there that do impose a cost to society, they also provide a benefit to society that outweighs those costs. Cars at all, for instance, cost us quite a bit, there’d be far fewer people going to the ER if cars didn’t exist. But the benefit of having cars has drastically outweighs the cost.
This is a balance done on all products and activities, and what restrictions and regulations society places on them to decrease their cost while maximizing their benefit. We don’t always get it right, and we don’t always agree on the right balance, (see debates over guns or drugs, for example), but one side states the costs, the other side states the benefits, and we try to come to some sort of compromise.
The only “benefit” you can state for not wearing your seatbelt is FREEDUMB!! and specifically, the freedom to act irresponsibly to no benefit, even to yourself, and at great cost to both yourself and others.
As Arnold Schwarzenegger said, “freedom comes obligations and responsibilities.”
Well, I didn’t intend it as a gotcha, as I really thought that you would say that car manufacturers should be able to offer cars without safety features, to which I would disagree, but understand where you were coming from. But now I see that you are extremely inconsistent, where out of one side of your mouth, you say that not wearing a seatbelt is freedom to make our own choices, but out of the other side, you say that we shouldn’t be able to choose to save thousands of dollars to buy a car without these safety features. At least with the car, you save money, what benefit do you get from not wearing a seatbelt?
Temper tantrum five year old: “You’re no the boss of me.”
Actually, yes. Yes we are. It’s called democracy, arguably tyranny of the majority. We the people elect representatives to make decisions for us. That allows us to do other things: work, make money, make babbies.
May I refer anyone thinking that we shouldn’t have the gubmint dictate and regulate every part of our lives to some other places. No taxes, no regulations, no seatbelt or helmet laws. South Sudan and Afghanistan fit the bill. Somalia is getting a bit organized, well as compared to 25 years ago.
That’s just stupid, might be a comment, but the thing with living in a society, especially one as complex as our, is that you have to do things you don’t like, so that at other times you get to do things you do like.
Most people who aren’t a five year old with a temper tantrum understand this.
It would have been funnier if you’d been accused to JAQing. You know, because of the account name.
I’m not going to spoil this by telling you how it ends but after you see it you will know why I put it here:
That made my day.
This is how the world of Cars started.
I don’t usually click on video links. But i clicked on this one, and i laughed out loud.
Yeah I don’t like unexplained video links myself. But if I’d explained it I’d have ruined it.
“Vroom vroom, ahm sick a you, Cletus!”
That just cheered me right up. Thank you.
(I mean, I hope he was okay, but still…)
So the clip made @Alessan’s day and cheered @Gyrate right up. I was having a useless and disappointing day generally. Apparently I achieved more by spending two minutes posting a funny video than with the entire rest of my day!
With apologies for digressing the discussion, but I just wanted to post something that actually pertains to the original OP. If I may.
The latest from PKBites, which I’m not going to link to. But the dude continues to do his good work, like the Messiah himself:
Tomorrow will be a busy day at the store. People LOVE to buy guns on Black Friday. With a possible AWB [assault weapons ban] looming folks are buying AR’s and magazines like mad.
Doesn’t really need much in the way of commentary. The thing that leaves me speechless is the stunning disconnect between the delusional mindset of this fucking gun-worshiping moron and the prevailing culture in civilized societies. I mean, this dude is probably going to get the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to humanity, amirite? Dude is certainly making a positive contribution to the current peak of multiple mass shootings every single goddam day, never mind the thousands of commonplace shooting deaths that never even make the news any more.
Or maybe PKBites should get some sort of award for helping to cull the population, though he might face stiff competition from the COVID virus. There is a pertinent scene in the satirical film Triangle of Sadness where one of the rich guys aboard a luxury yacht is an arms dealer. When pirates attack the ship, he and his wife are on deck and the wife casually picks up a live grenade that has fallen on the deck. “Winston, is this one of ours?”, she says, moments before it explodes.
I work a full time job and I run a business and I get pitted for being industrious.