Every right. I’m gambling with your money right now. I’m engaging in an unknown number of activities that may cost you as a taxpayer money. Every one of my activities are legal, but as has been pointed out, if I suffer serious injury and am underinsured, taxpayers will have to cover whatever costs I encur. It might not even really be my fault, just an accident that causes the paramedics to come scrape my body off the pavement after I get caught in a hit and run accident. One of the things I’m doing is my gambling that I’ll live long enough to draw social security. Are you suggesting I have no right to gamble with your money in that sense?
If you don’t think you gamble with your life, start looking at statistics on bathroom accidents, auto accidents, work accidents. See how safe and gamble free your life is. Just because you’re not beating improbably odds doesn’t mean you’re not gambling.
On the cell phone side of things… I live in washington which recently passed a cell phone law. (warning: the link has silly pop-ups, sorry)
The reason I don’t like cell phone law is because of silly laws like this one. To summarize it, you must have a headset to use the phone while driving. You are not allowed to hold the phone in your hand or text message while driving.
I’m all for not allowing text messaging, that’s plain crazy. I have serious doubts that the law will reduce text messaging while driving though. Anyone crazy enough to do it won’t be deterred by a law. The problem comes where they’ve disallowed using your hand to hold the phone, but you can still engage in the conversation. All the studies show it’s the conversation that’s the problem, not holding the phone.
As I said in an earlier post, should we make it illegal to drive without both hands on the wheel? What about people with only one hand? Also notice that it’s not illegal to fumble for a headset while driving.
In the end this law that’s held up as promoting safety does nothing of the sort. What it does is promote people to go out and buy headsets, and if they have older phones they’ll be strongly encouraged to get new phones that will be compatible with the headsets. This is the slippery slope in action. Would it suprise anyone that the telecom lobby here in Washington was a very large supporter of this ‘safety’ bill?
I don’t think that seat belt laws will save anyone as a private person one dollar of insurance. Insurance is a business and it will charge what the market can bear. I think that the Insurance companies will benefit from mandated seatbelt law, and if you think that we should support their bottom line through laws, then you can make that point.
Perhaps instead of mandating seatbelt use, we should mandate seperated roadways, more room at intersections, foam padding all around cars to cushion impact, etc. Yes, that is a semi-alarmist slippery slope argument. And I think it’s entirely valid in this case.
I think it comes down to the right to the persuit of happiness. Given the way people bet against the odds, both formaly and informaly, there is good evidence that for some (I’d say most, but the numbers don’t matter for the argument) people find happiness in gambling.
You’re absolutely right here. When the federal government first mandated speed limits, Montana went only as far as they had to to play along. In Montana there was a $5 environmental hazard ticket for speeding that didn’t go on your record. Given that, pretty much everyone sped on a regular basis.
I remember from many years ago when I took the test to get my license that one of the question was something to the effect of “Who decides if someone is fit to drive?” and the answer was “The driver, each and every time they enter the vehicle.” I very much agree with this and if I think that I can drive safetly while talking on my cell phone (in my hand) then I should be allowed to, in the exact same way that I can have a couple drinks and go for a drive with impared judgement, but legaly under the blood alcohol limit.
As has been said many times now, this supposed cost is a very bad precedent for laws. In all seriousness, if that justification’s adequate for you then you won’t mind banning all driving, as that would clearly reduce the costs associated with accidents.
This shows why people like myself rail against such laws. They amount to control simply for control’s sake with a bit of ‘safety’ sugar on top to get them jammed through. Make no mistake that people making laws are mainly motivated by money and power.
Consider this for a moment, the laws as we currently have them are adequate for our current society to function well. If that’s true then a lot of people in the legislation business are wasting their time/ our money. Obviously I think this is largely the case.
Upon reflection I’ve got a better way to talk about the right to gamble.
It’s the same as the right to individuality. If everyone took the statisticaly likely chance in every choice, we would essentialy be autonotoms differentiated only by where we started life. That seems to be clearly the opposite of what America stands for. It also seems to me that it’s the direction America is moving in. The trade-off of security for liberty seems so nice that it’s hard to resist.
There is. It’s commonly known as a seatbelt law. What’s the one large object that is guaranteed to be in every moving vehicle? So, enforcing a law to buckle up is reasonably straightforward by comparison to rustling up people carrying unrestrained bowling balls in their passenger seat. Additionally, what if you don’t have a trunk (i.e., hatchback)? In that case, it would be ridiculous to prohibit the carrying of loose objects in a vehicle and inequitable for drivers of Geo Metros. But since human restraint equipment is mandated in all vehicles (save school buses for some dumb reason), it becomes reasonable to enforce their usage.
Well, pretty much what I indicated above. Seatbelts are installed by law for consumer safety. Enforcing their usage is relatively simple to accomplish. Studies indicate their effectiveness by a large margin. I don’t see any unreasonableness with enforcement. Now, if you had no neck, I could understand the desire seek a waiver, which would probably be issued to eligible no-necked drivers in the same manner airbag waivers can be obtained for really short (?) people.
Neither is true wrt seatbelts. Despite the fact that I’m forced to constantly adjust a seatbelt that perpetually rides up my enormous rack and slices me across the neck. (Did I mention how much I *hate *that?) Still, a discomfort I can reasonably be expected to deal with.
Tires are fairly expensive as well and must be replaced more often than airbags (do you ever have to replace an airbag that hasn’t deployed?). But driving around on bald tires is particularly hazardous. Do you think people should not be cited for failing to maintain their vehicle when it compromises safe operation? Of course, now we’re back to the “greater good” of others on the road. The fact is being thrown from your vehicle in may very well put the safety of others at risk. You could hit a pedestrian. You could further damage property. You could be thrown into the middle of the road, forcing other drivers to take evasive action to avoid hitting you.
Since the current maximum speed limit is at least 70 mph (75 mph in Montana, I believe), maybe your hypothetical governor should be limited to the actual speed limit. Of course, this varies from state to state, municipality to municipality so enforcing this would likely create a practical nightmare, unlike enforcing seatbelt usage.
If the governor was set lower than the maximum speed limit, it would effectively override states’ rights to set speed limits and that’s asking for a world of controversy. It wasn’t that long ago that the national maximum speed law was repealed. There is also no reasonable way for states to mandate governors with interstate travel as prevalent as it is. In other words, it wouldn’t work. Unlike the seatbelt law.
See, I disagree with you here. The purpose of production mandates generally, and seatbelts specifically, is not to give the consumer choice, but to provide the consumer with reasonably safe use. The government spends a lot of money ensuring that consumer products are generally safe from banning lead from paint to mandating safety devices to potentially unsafe equipment, like safeties/locks on guns. As I mentioned before, the government has an interest in taking measures to improves the safety of citizens.
Product liability is another ballgame entirely and the law obviously allows for consumers to sue for improper design/manufacturing that injures or kills people. Remember the defective Firestone/Bridgestone tires? In cases like that, the government requires manufacturers to recall defective product. But does it really require any special mandate with how the product is produced? Or does the market correct itself? Even product liability, though, is limited in the scope of what a consumer can sue for.
How is it that the statistics (posted upthread) of unrestrained people being ejected from vehicles and their exceptionally low survival rate doesn’t convince you that society benefits when people wear their seatbelts, aren’t ejected, and stand a much greater chance of surviving even the most damaging of wrecks (especially with airbags now part of the equation)? Unless you think that it’s better for society to be without these people. If that’s the case, I respectfully decline to argue that.
So, you’re okay with protecting children from their stubborn parents? Is it reasonable to require children to be restrained, but at the same time unreasonable to require adults to be restrained? What about parents of young children? Seatbelts are just for kids? Why? I don’t understand that.
If that were the case, there would be no seatbelt law and we wouldn’t be having this debate. I say give it another 50 years or so when fewer people remember napping on the deck of the trunk behind the back seat when they were kids. You know, those simpler times when it occurred to nobody, least of all your parents, that you were a missile waiting for an accident. And yet somehow most of us survived. Times change, people’s priorities and concerns change. Safety is the buzzword these days. Get used to it.
Well, so long as your personal ‘liberty’ to drive around unbelted is more important to you than your desire to not pay tickets, you can choose to flaunt the law and pay the fine. After all, it’s only a traffic violation. It’s not like you’re going to jail or anything. But if I ever see you ejected from your vehicle (which I hope I don’t), my first thought is going to be, “Too bad he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt.” shrug
Cell phone use laws are eminently sensible, in that any activity which requires the driver to take a hand off the wheel for protracted periods of time is not safe. True, many people DO drive with one hand in many cases, such as long freeway trips, but the difference is that the hand is free in those cases to resume its place on the steering wheel, whereas holding an expensive cell phone and being in the middle of a conversation is a strong disincentive to drop everything in a timely manner to resume physical control of the wheel with BOTH hands. I’ve also seen people on cell phones with NO hands on the wheel as they’re trying to write down something the person on the phone is telling them. Anecdotally, in my experience I find that I can differentiate between a driver who is merely distracted momentarily and one who has begun a phone conversation–the one on the phone will drop speed by ~15 mph. This is so reliable I’ve won bets on it!
My objection to allowing drivers to drink while driving (up to the legal BAC) is the same as my objection to drinking and driving in general–it’s nearly impossible for a person to judge their own BAC accurately by feel and the effects change over time, so whereas you might not actually be legally drunk when you step out of the door of the bar you might very well be drunk as a skunk a half hour later depending on how fast and how much you were drinking. So no, I do not support driving while impaired and I’ve supported every lowering of the legal BAC since I’ve had a driver’s license.
Another point to be made as to why seat belt laws don’t fit under “personal liberty” is that the highway and traffic systems as a whole are the responsibility of government. The governments on local, state and federal levels have been charged not only with building and maintaining the system of roads we use but also with improving them and increasing safety. Two of the components of highway safety are the status of the individual drivers as well as their vehicles and the government does have a leg to stand on when they insist on uniformity to the highest level possible. Licensing is required, which means every driver has at least an initial level of competency that has been demonstrated. Drivers are not allowed to be impaired behind the wheel and certain types of impairedness which have clear impacts on safety have been targeted for specific legislation. Commercial drivers require not only additional licensing but are also subject to random vehicle inspections to ensure they’re up to code and operationally safe. Commercial drivers are required to log their hours behind the wheel and are not allowed to drive excessive lengths of time without rest. Passenger vehicles are required to be registered, which usually includes some sort of regular inspection (if only emissions) and drivers can be fined for failures of safety equipment on their cars as well as improper use (or non-use) of these systems.
One of the things that’s taken for granted is that ideally every driver on the road is licensed, in control of all faculties, belted in and in control of the car. Regardless of individual perception of the value of the seat belt system in keeping the driver where he/she’s supposed to be, the fact remains that the human body alone is incapable of restraining itself in one spot during even a low speed crash. For example, check out this video. We can see that the driver is not belted in, is not in full control of the car and is demonstrably not in full control of his faculties. When the crash occurs he cannot effectively maneuver the vehicle, and he definitely can’t do a damned thing once he gets thrown into the back seat. If this car were to continue rolling after the crash that threw the driver around, he would not be able to stop a subsequent collision. In this video, an unsecured passenger is thrown into the driver, impairing any ability she might have had to continue to control the vehicle. In this one it could be argued that a bystander could have been hit and killed by a flying unsecured body. Once again, we see that an unbelted person has NO chance of remaining in the seat or in control, and that an unsecured passenger is deadly to himself and the driver. And here, as if any more proof were needed, is an accident caused by someone not wearing a seatbelt, losing control and rolling over, getting thrown out of their car into oncoming traffic, and several other cars subsequently lose control because they’re trying to avoid crushing his dumb body.
Sorry, I’m just not buying the “personal liberty” of seat belt use. People in cars who don’t use seat belts are a danger to themselves, to others in the car and to others on the road in general. As I said before, the government is more than justified in requiring seat belt use for every person who uses the public roads.
You realize that by this logic you rationalize private ownership of say… nuclear weapons?
Because by God, why shouldn’t you have the individual right to gamble with such a thing? Why shouldn’t you have your own reactor? Your own tank? Your own food processing plant? All without restrictions! We’ll leave it up to individuals to decide whether or not they trust you.
I find this very interesting because I disagree, which puts me in the position of arguing on two fronts. Oh, well, go for the gusto.
I appreciate the notion of accepting personal responsibility and wish it was taken more seriously. However, people are notoriously bad at judging their own abilities, and even less so when making an honest assement of that ability is an impediment to doing what they want. Therefore, while I agree that one should accept the full burden of one’s choices, I would also say that the standard of risk involved should be determined objectively, if possible. That is, gather statistics to see if there’s an actual problem, figure out the best way to mitigate that problem, and then analyze the costs and benefits to see if implementing the solution is worth it. All while following the principle that laws should not remove individual choice – unless and until the effect on others is substantially overwhelming.
So, safety issues actually take a backseat (pun intended) to ease of enforcement?
No, no, before you complain – I know that’s not an honest characterization of your point. I just needed an excuse to pun. And the only part I disagree with, you actually only make implicitly – IMO, laws mandating seatbelt usage should not be on the books. At least, not until a case is made that convinces me that they address an overriding imposition of an individual on others.
I think that most of my responses follow that line, so pardon the (perhaps overly) generous snipping that follows.
Good, because I wouldn’t want to argue a strawman. To reiterate, I only think that people should be able to decide their own actions for themselves, unless a convincing case is made that such actions would be a substantial detriment to others. Repeating safety statistics that relate how much safer an individual is when using a seatbelt does not make that case, IMO.
For the same reason that minors cannot enter into legally binding contracts.
Exactly.
Yes, that’s exactly right. As I said upthread, I wear my seatbelt specifically because of the law, which has changed my own cost/benefit analysis. But I don’t like having the choice taken away from me, and I’m not convinced that that choice should be taken out of an individual’s hands.
And I appreciate the sentiment, as far as it goes – serious injury is not something I’d wish on anyone.
And this is along the lines of an argument that I’d accept. But anecdotes are not sufficient, no matter how horrible any individual story is. For instance, my great-aunt was on a bus that was in an accident. She was wearing a seatbelt, which was the direct cause of her suffering a ruptured stomach in the crash, for which she was hospitalized. Even though she would have been much better off had she not been wearing the seatbelt, that doesn’t lead to the conclusion that seatbelts are dangerous. No, it’s consideration of the aggregate that’s required, all of which say that wearing a seatbelt is safer than not. So:
And as I said before, I reject the “danger to themselves” as a basis for good law. And still no argument has been presented that demonstrates to me that a substantial “danger to others” exists that is remedied by mandating seatbelt use.
I think it’s fairly obvious, but I guess that’s just me. Well, and a few others, too.
As far as anecdotes go, isn’t that what statistics basically are? Just a whole bunch of (factual) anecdotal data compiled to show trends? Perhaps not in the truest sense of the word, but behind each of those data points is a person, and every one of those people has an accident-related story (except that dead men tell no tales).
The data is out there, in studies, on youtube, as an anecdote from someone you know. The data far and away supports the safety of seatbelt use over its hazards (and I do agree there are hazards). And not just your safety, but others’ safety as well (to a lesser extent), be it your passengers or some random guy on the other side of a median.
But here’s the rub. If statistics don’t convince you and anecdotes don’t convince, there’s really nothing left. I don’t know if you’re a parent (or will be in the future), but kids can be persuasive and most will speak up if they feel “you’re doing it wrong.” (Thank you, Michael Keaton.) If you worry at all about your children, you’ll raise them to value their own safety over the insignificant little freedom that the choice of whether to make good use of safety equipment provided actually represents. Then you’ll realize that setting a good example does far more to drive that lesson home than lip service ever will.
Yes, I think it’s safe to say that that much is clear.
Yes, of course “data” is composed of individual datum. But then, also of course, to show trends the pool of data points needs to be both large and “dispersed” enough to accurately represent the aggregate. Furthermore, one might expect a control for comparisons, or perhaps measurements of multiple factors under varying conditions through which to establish a correlation. Surely you don’t need me to tell you this – you’re a smart girl, and I don’t wish to offend or patronize by stating the obvious.
It’s still not clear to me why this is so difficult to grasp. Again, I’ve never argued that seatbelts do not statistically (and overwhelmingly) enhance an individual’s safety. Only that (1) laws that protect people from themselves are misguided and (2) that a significant imposition by an individual on “societal benefit” should be established prior to removing an individual’s choice.
The fact that you use the qualifier “to a lesser extent” indicates that you acknowledge that it is less obvious that seatbelts preserve others’ safety. Can you cite any studies that quantify that support? And before I have a whole bunch of irrelevant cites thrown my way, I’m not asking for studies that simply show the benefits of wearing a seatbelt, which I think has been shown beyond doubt. Rather, cites that (not) wearing a seatbelt significantly effects others. For instance, consider the case of seatbelts improving one’s driving control. In what percentage of accidents did seatbelt wearing actually play a role in maintaining control? How much was control improved over not wearing one? What was the difference in consequences, say, in the other person’s injury severity? Or property damage?
I’m totally open to considering such analyses if presented; in the same way that I accept that drunk driving and cellphone usage puts others in danger, I could be convinced that not wearing a seatbelt is worthy of regulation. Furthermore, as I said earlier, it doesn’t even have to be a direct threat of harm – I might be able to accept a “net financial burden” argument, although such an indirect effect would, IMO, have to meet a higher burden. But if, in the example of maintaining control given above, seatbelt wearing only comes into play in 1 out of every 100K accidents and that it actually only prevented further injury to the other party in 1 out of every 10M incidents, then I doubt that I’d think them a significant benefit (in the “societal” sense). If, on the other hand, it was shown that in 1 out of every 10 accidents seatbelt wearing played a role in lessening injury to others, then I’d most likely cease all argumentation.
See how that works?
Oh, ferfuckssake. Really? You’re gonna go for the “won’t you think of the children” tactic?
I apologize for cussin’, but this is frustrating. Once again, yes, seatbelts enhance an individual’s safety. Yes, it is a good idea to wear them. Yes, one should set a good example for one’s children and do what one can to promote their safety and well-being.
But each of those is completely independent of whether or not wearing a seatbelt has enough of a statistically significant effect on other members of the general population that mandating their usage is, in and of itself, a good idea. (OK, I think that “completely independent” is a bit too strong; consider it hyperbole.) I’d most certainly accept statistics that show such a thing, but none have yet been presented.
If nuclear weapons were a threat mainly to the owner and no one else, then I suppose I would agree with it. I don’t agree with personal ownership of nuclear weapons because as a class they represent danger to others.
In all seriousness, if you’re worried about danger to others why not just outlaw driving? It would manifestly reduce the number of accidents. Plus then we’d have the catch phrase, “Don’t like the law? Drive!”
On the cell phone issue, is the dissinsentive to drop the phone and grab the wheel while talking on the phone more or less than if you have a mug of hot coffee in your hand? I’m not really against banning cell phone usage while driving for safety reasons, but using safety as the excuse and then making laws that clearly promote profit for telecoms but don’t reduce danger chap my hide, as they say.
As Digital Stimulus says, it’s not clear that mandating seatbelt use does much to protect the public. I continue to maintain that people will pay whatever insurance companies ask them, regardless of seatbelt laws.
I never got back to the thread until now… because I don’t WANT to wear a seat belt.
Not a good enough answer? Sorry, it’s the only one I have. IF I die, I die… if I’m crippled for life, I’m crippled for life, I can accept that, why no one else does I can understand also. Due to the penalties, I wear mine now… but I’d prefer not to.
Hey, I understand! I myself infinitely prefer to drive at least 80mph on any road that I deem it feasible on, I think that piling a whole raft of people in the back of an open pickup and going for a fast ride on a warm starry night is absolutely fabulous, I prefer to use the natural line through curves regardless of where those sillyass arbitrary “lane divider” lines are and I’d love to give a Pitt maneuver to those a-holes who clog the left lanes.***** However, in the interests of public safety (which, after all, benefits me as well) I curtail my impulses and obey the laws. We can yak all day about personal freedom, but it doesn’t really hold a candle to social responsibility. As adults we’re expected to subsume many of our preferences in order to serve the greater good of our families, our communities and society as a whole. Sucks, but there it is–and I for one wouldn’t change it no matter how momentarily fun a “Lost Boy” society of “do whatever” might seem to be. In a “whoopie, I’m having fun and fuck the rest of you” environment NOBODY ever seems to take out the trash, clean the toilets, pay the bills or do the shopping.
*These are all absolutely true, non-sarcastic statements.
But there are no shortage of people. Whatever this hypothetical 20 year old would have produced, there would be someone else to take his place, unless he was the next Bill Gates or somebody, and even then 3 or 4 people could have cumulatively taken his place.
What if all he would have done with his life would have been to sit in his mom’s basement drinking whiskey with his right hand while stroking his schlong with his left? What would society have been out of there?
I’m not trying to make light of it, but not everyone produces, and if you skim off an extra 5 or 6 percent of the population who didn’t wear a seat belt (which is a good indication that they weren’t that smart anyways) won’t that free up some jobs, make the roads less crowded (making them safer), and drive home prices down, food prices down (more affordable, better quality of living)?
We wouldn’t consume as much foreign oil and wouldn’t pollute the air as much and global warming would slow down with a smaller population.
I just can’t see, other than from a moral perspective, or to friends and family, how the world “loses” anything with the death of a person (or many people)
<<snip>>
last time I checked, bathtubs don’t have seatbelts nor can they travel in excess of 100mph.
I understand your point…we “gamble” even when we breathe…but it’s a weak argument against wearing a proven safety device for a two-ton machine that can kill you or others in the blink of an eye.
Next time you ride a rollercoaster, refuse the restraints and flummox the teenaged “safety checker” by saying that you’re acting within your rights to “gamble” with your life.
The weight and speed of the deathtrap in question has nothing to do with the personal restraints we’re talking about here.
The bath analogy is a good one because there are a large number of accidents which could be prevented with some sort of safety devices legaly mandated.
The rollercoaster is a bad analogy because if you don’t wear the restraint you are certain or nearly certain to fall out of the device.
In a automobile, there is a relatively small chance any time you drive that you will be in a situation where a belt will increase your survivability. I absolutely agree that in an accident a seat belt decreases severity of injury, so I’m not arguing about that at all.
Essentialy I’m saying that if personal safety is the issue, there are obvious areas that need legislation more than seat belts do.
