Seat Belt Laws: Why did the public opinion change?

Great Debates
1

I remember back in the 1980s when seatbelt laws were first proposed. IIRC, most people thought the idea was outrageous. The government could tell you to follow a safety directive that affected nobody else but you?

Never fear, said our legislature, because we are introducing a concept called “secondary enforcement”. We don’t want to STOP you for not wearing a seat belt, just add a small extra penalty for “bad” drivers who don’t buckle up.

We were skeptical, but the feds mandated these laws and every state besides NH caved.

Then ten years later the laws needed “upgrading” to primary enforcement. Through no federal pressure, now half of the states have primary seat belt laws, but a strange thing has happened: The public overwhelmingly supports them!

A poll in June, 1993 of West Virginia residents showed that 76% opposed the new secondary seat belt law.

A poll in June, 2003 of West Virginia residents showed that 76% supported the enaction of a primary seat belt law (which ultimately failed)

I understand that education has shown the public that seat belts save lives, but the underlying issue isn’t whether you SHOULD wear a seat belt, but whether you should be FORCED.

Has the public simply become accustomed to big brother?

2

Maybe the public, in the intervening years, got it through its collective skull that mandating seatbelt use benefits everyone, including them, in the same manner as enforcing such outrageous tramplings upon freedom as stop signs.

3

Interesting question, jt. A similar process occurred with smoking bans in restaurants. At first it was a nutty idea from hippyville, California. And yet after a few years, such restrictions were being enforced in Texas.

But let’s remember. We’re not talking about core human rights here. So talk of big brother is laughable.

4

[QUOTE=jtgain]
I remember back in the 1980s when seatbelt laws were first proposed. IIRC, most people thought the idea was outrageous. The government could tell you to follow a safety directive that affected nobody else but you?

[/QUOTE]

the thing is even if you crash 800 miles away from me it still affects me.
every injury and death affects the cost of insurance at the least. nevermind increased hospital care.

5

Not wearing a seatbelt is dangerous to more than just yourself. In a particularly bad accident, your body will be thrown all the fuck over the place, possibly injuring other people in the car.

I imagine, though, that it’s just the fact that it’s no longer the “new” thing. Twenty years ago, a lot of people alive were people who not only never wore seatbelts, but probably owned several cars that never even had them! A lot less of those people are around nowadays, and a lot of current adults were children when these laws were introduced, and had years and years of parents telling them to buckle up. It just got ingrained.
Plus, it’s just a plain ol’ good idea. If you don’t buckle up, you’re pretty much an idiot. The extremely slim chance that something bad might happen because you wear a seatbelt (like getting trapped in a burning car,) is far outweighed by the bad things that can happen from not wearing it.

6

I don’t remember it the way you’re remembering it, but since my family had an ethos of wearing seatbelts, I’d already been doing it for years by the time it was legislated. I don’t remember any of my friends or family, or even the community newspaper, having anything negative to say about seatbelt laws. In over 30 years, I’ve never driven without a seatbelt. Anecdote: If I did not wear a seatbelt, I would be dead or severely disfigured/injured at least twice.

7

[QUOTE=susan]
I don’t remember it the way you’re remembering it, but since my family had an ethos of wearing seatbelts, I’d already been doing it for years by the time it was legislated. I don’t remember any of my friends or family, or even the community newspaper, having anything negative to say about seatbelt laws. In over 30 years, I’ve never driven without a seatbelt. Anecdote: If I did not wear a seatbelt, I would be dead or severely disfigured/injured at least twice.
[/QUOTE]

I recall when the laws were introduced in Australia there was plenty of opposition. Many cars didn’t have seatbelts to use and lots of people tried to get medical certificates to exempt them from using one.

Anecdotally we were the first country to introduce seatbelt legislation in 1970 in Victoria but before it was law I had an accident where my car was struck on the drivers door, crushing the door across the drivers seat. Luckily I was not wearing a seat belt and ended up sitting in the passenger’s lap with a gaping hole under my arm where the door had hit me. Had I been wearing a seatbelt I probably would be dead or so the ambulance guys and police thought.

This made me dubious about wearing a seatbelt but I have never not worn one since it became law.

8

I’m old enough to remember it being put into law here in Ontario: maybe early 70s?

Anyway, when the government pays the health care bills they have some clout regarding personal safety laws.

Initially I thought it was intrusive. Now I can’t imagine why any sentient human being wouldn’t wear a seat belt; it’s not like you have some place to go while sitting in the car. Put the damned belt on and increase your chance of survival.

9

For a while, the State Patrol here made a point of specifying seat belt status in their reports. And the media gets its info from that. So you’d hear at the end of a news report “Neither the driver nor the deceased passengers were wearing their seat belts.” Enough repetition of that, and it seemed to sink in to people that seat belts really were a benefit.

10

Our news media will note whether people were wearing seat belts or not in reporting crashes, and the difference in survival rates, and in major versus minor injuries, is abundantly clear.

11

I remember some opposition at the time when NSW made the wearing of seat belts compulsory (early 1970s). A feisty great-aunt of mine vowed that she would never buckle up. I suspect that public acceptance came quickly when people realised that wearing a seat belt wasn’t really a great hassle after all.

12

Because people realized that, instead of being some massive contraction of their personal liberty, wearing a seat belt wasn’t much trouble at all.

13

My mind was changed when I had a “near accident” and realized that my seat belt had kept me in my seat, which allowed me to maintain control of the car.

14

[QUOTE=Billdo]
Because people realized that, instead of being some massive contraction of their personal liberty, wearing a seat belt wasn’t much trouble at all.
[/QUOTE]
Those two things have nothing to do with each other. Something might be the easiest thing to do in the world, but that doesn’t mean you should be forced to do it. For that matter, something might always be the smartest thing in the world to do, but that also doesn’t mean you should be forced to do it.

In my opinion, anyone who doesn’t wear a seatbelt is an idiot, but it still should be their choice.

15

[QUOTE=jtgain]
I remember back in the 1980s when seatbelt laws were first proposed. IIRC, most people thought the idea was outrageous. The government could tell you to follow a safety directive that affected nobody else but you?

Never fear, said our legislature, because we are introducing a concept called “secondary enforcement”. We don’t want to STOP you for not wearing a seat belt, just add a small extra penalty for “bad” drivers who don’t buckle up.

We were skeptical, but the feds mandated these laws and every state besides NH caved.

Then ten years later the laws needed “upgrading” to primary enforcement. Through no federal pressure, now half of the states have primary seat belt laws, but a strange thing has happened: The public overwhelmingly supports them!

A poll in June, 1993 of West Virginia residents showed that 76% opposed the new secondary seat belt law.

A poll in June, 2003 of West Virginia residents showed that 76% supported the enaction of a primary seat belt law (which ultimately failed)

I understand that education has shown the public that seat belts save lives, but the underlying issue isn’t whether you SHOULD wear a seat belt, but whether you should be FORCED.

Has the public simply become accustomed to big brother?
[/QUOTE]

Public opinion has changed because behaviour has changed. We tend to support laws which reflect our personal behaviour and oppose laws which make us do things we don’t want to do. Mandating the wearing of seat belts changed behaviour.

I am skeptical of explanations which explain opposition to laws using an assumption that Joe Public has (for instance) some sort of well-constructed paradigm that is anti-“Big Brother” and therefore opposes, in principle, laws which are inconsistent with that paradigm. If Joe Public doesn’t wear a seatbelt, and doesn’t wanna be made to wear a seat-belt, he will glom on to any reason which will support that behaviour, including suddenly becoming concerned about the slippery slope of Big Brother government. One should not infer from this that he has sat down and thoughtfully created a consistent construct of Good Government and appropriate boundaries that is now being violated. It’s highly unlikely he would be equally irked by Big Brother government funding his retirement from the public coffer because he was too incompetent to manage a budget or too slow to succeed in the workplace.

We should keep in mind that about half the public in West Virginia has an IQ under 100. Most of the public has one main political paradigm: what is in it for me? The polloi evaluate laws based on the perceived effect on the citizen forming the opinion–not on a general benefit to society and certainly not out of an abstract Ideal which they have constructed on their own.

It is not unusual to find someone in favor of mandatory seat belt laws but opposed to laws which would prohibit recreational skydiving. This sort of hypocrisy makes the point nicely. If the law in question doesn’t bother me personally (I already wear my seatbelt) then it’s not a Big Brother problem–it’s just creating a better society and saving the public from unnecessary spending on those too foolish to otherwise do the right thing. If the law in question steps on my personal behaviour (I love to skydive) then it’s Big Brother intruding on my personal freedom. The risks I take with my own life are my own. It’s my life.

I was, and continue to be, opposed to mandatory seat belt laws. I consider them an intrusion on my personal freedom of choice. I also consider those who do not wear seat belts to be idiots if one of their other goals is personal safety. But I cannot be bothered with spending time trying to stamp out the inconsistency of governmental regulation if I personally wear my seat belt anyway.

16

[QUOTE=jtgain]
The government could tell you to follow a safety directive that affected nobody else but you?
[/QUOTE]
Well, you and your insurance company. The insurance industry was losing billions when the insured was injured in an accident that would not have caused injury if a seatbelt had been worn. They were the primary interest group pressing for seatbelt laws.

17

[QUOTE=Critical1]
the thing is even if you crash 800 miles away from me it still affects me.
every injury and death affects the cost of insurance at the least. nevermind increased hospital care.
[/QUOTE]

Nah, this “social cost” argument is pretty absurd. If I die in a car crash at age 30 because I’m not wearing a seat belt, it saves society money because I don’t live from age 71 to 97 in a nursing home on Medicaid.

And even if it did, then that is a sure argument against socialized medicine, or even what we have as it hampers personal freedom. It is a terrible slippery slope. Since my sicknesses affect your insurance premiums, then why shouldn’t the government monitor my daily calorie intake, or a thousand other little things?

What if I was independently wealthy? Why doesn’t the law allow me to sign a statement saying that I will personally incur all of my own medical costs, pay a bond, and be allowed to drive without a seatbelt?

As I said, I don’t disagree that seat belts are very beneficial and I usually wear mine. If I am driving the half mile to the convenience store, I might forego it. A stupid thing, probably, but I will take the risk, and I think that is my right. Sometimes I am 20 miles down the road, and I realize that, damn, I didn’t buckle up. But I learned to drive in the days when hardly anyone wore a seatbelt (in 1982 I believe it was 5% who wore belts). In fact, I remember that when someone would get into your car and buckle up, it was an insult because they were saying that you were a bad driver. Now you kids get off of my lawn.

However, there is something to be said for primary enforcement, because when I travel into a state with a primary seat belt law, I make it a point to wear it at all times so I don’t get a ticket. Yes, an old cynic like me has caved.

I know that seat belt laws are a far cry from “big brother” or tyranny, but they do represent something very invasive: A government protecting you from yourself..

18

That’s not really true. The only person who’s effected by whether or not he’s wearing a seatbelt is that person. The chances of a person injuring another person because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt are so small as to be statistically non-existent. There have probably been more people injured by wearing setbelts than were injured by other people not wearing them.

So while wearing seatbelts is an obviously good idea, I personally don’t feel it should be the subject of a law. People should have the fundamental right to choose for themselves as long as their consequences don’t directly affect other people - even if some of the choices they make are stupid.

To answer the OP’s question, I think the change in public opinion was the result of a subtle sales campaign by insurance lobbies.

19

Why didn’t the insurance companies create policy exclusions for personal injuries sustained when no seat belt was in use?

20

[QUOTE=Bearflag70]
Why didn’t the insurance companies create policy exclusions for personal injuries sustained when no seat belt was in use?
[/QUOTE]
Difficult to enforce. Law enforcement is not always first on the scene, and whose word are you going to take if the victims are already out of the car when they arrive?