Really, I agree that seatbelts are a good idea most of the time. Even if I don’t mind the risk of going beltless at 50mph, there are a lot of people who might be upset by my avoidable death (spouse, parents, police who have to notify them, the other driver who has to live with having caused someone’s death). Though I dislike seatbelts, I usually wear them for this reason.
That said, I still think “Click it or Ticket” is a waste of money, and it’s doubly stupid to target relatively safe areas where the risks are negligible. As noted by a poster above, the only significant threat I faced was side collision, where seatbelts provide little protection and can even make things worse.
:dubious: I dunno… perhaps the same folks who are trusted to decide when it’s dark enough to turn on the headlights, when it’s rainy enough to slow down or when they’re driving slowly enough to use hazard lights. Driving means constantly evaluating risk and taking appropriate safeguards. Why is deciding when a seatbelt is necessary is so much harder than deciding when headlights are necessary?
The rule of thumb for headlights is to use them when the streetlights come on or when its otherwise reasonable. The last part is the catch-all.
And the courts have determined (correctly, IMO) that the reasonable time to use a seatbelt is when the car is in motion. Imagine your home burning to the ground or losing a loved one because the fire department was on the other side of town treating your nosebleed after an accident.
If that’s part of your argument, i’m going to claim it as further evidence for the necessity of seatbelt laws. Because, almost everywhere i’ve ever driven, the presence of rain and wet roads has failed spectacularly to act as an incentive to slow down for the vast majority of drivers on the road.
Also, as your own previous post (in which you protest that traffic is only moving at 30mph) demonstrates, many people, even with the best of intentions, really don’t have very good judgment regarding when it is advisable to wear a seatbelt. All it takes, when traffic is moving at this speed, is for someone to swerve accidentally into an oncoming lane, and you have a head-on collision with a combined impact speed of 60mph. In such a situation, a seatbelt could well be the difference between life and death.
If wearing a seatbelt was some major imposition, or there was some question as to its efficacy, i guess i could understand the naysayers. But this is not even like the argument about motorcycle helmets, where the added protection provided by the helmet might be at least partially offset by the reduced hearing, visibilty, and mobility resulting from wearing the helmet itself. There is absolutely no doubt that seatbelts save lives. And, given how dangerous the roads are already, i think the minimal infringement on our liberties involved with enacting and enforcing seatbelt laws is perfectly reasonable. YMMV.
My aunt was in a car accident, oh, about 15 years ago now. She was driving a early-80’s station wagon, and a drunk driver hit her head on, while the drunk was driving at a high rate of speed.
Now, my aunt is and was a big woman, and had been having gastro-intestinal problems for a few weeks at this time, and while driving home from her shift as a night nurse, she took off her seat belt, because her gastro-intestinal distress combined with her weight was making the belt incredibly painful to keep on. She says she took her belt off maybe 15 minutes before the accident occured, and she wasn’t more than 5 miles from home.
It saved her life. She was thrown under the dashboard, and the car literally encased her in itself as a result of the collision. She had to be cut out of it, broke quite a few bones, including her jaw which had to be wired shut for several weeks etc. etc, but no lasting (or I guess I should say, permanent) injuries.
Looking at the pictures of the wreck back then, and where the steering wheel ended up (i.e. the steering column was crushed, and the wheel was quite literally driven well into the back of the driver’s seat. If you remember how large early-80’s full-size station wagons were, the car wasn’t much bigger than an Escort after the wreck. I’m not exaggerating in the least.), it’s perfectly clear she’d have been killed quite effectively, if not instantaneously, had she been wearing her seatbelt.
My aunt’s always been a religious woman (though luckily not the cram-it-down-your-throat kind), and contends to this day it was God that made her take off her seat belt just prior to the accident.
Not sure it has any real relevance to the OP or the discussion thereafter, just thought it was an interesting story. =)
Yeah, it’s one of those one-in-a-million happened-to-a-friend-but-not-me stories that the anti-seatbelt nuts always trot out (not that you’re one…just sayin’). Another popular one is the guy who didn’t get trapped in a car fire, or the woman whose car stalled on the train tracks.
They always fail to mention the several hundred (thousand?) accidents where drivers or passengers are thrown from the vehicle or slammed into the windshield and killed precisely because they weren’t wearing a seatbelt.
You forgot ‘thrown from the car just before it careened off the cliff’ and ‘plunged off a bridge into the Amazon where the piranhas had an extra second to skeletize the…’
And I’m not sure one-in-a-million is slim enough odds that a seatbelt might (or might not, impossible to say in Cerri’s anecdote) do cause a fatality.
I don’t think that’s the point. Seatbeats are a good thing. I am for wearing them at all times.
Going to the OP, and secondarily seatbelt violations, the question isn’t the validity of the concern or value of the precautions. Its the infringement on liberties and irrationally vigorous enforcement of dubious laws that they have created.
I think everyone should wear their seatbelt when the key hits the ignition. But, I’m not willing to allow a cop the right to roll up next to a car for no reason (or worse, create a “safety checkpoint”), look inside, detain a person, question a person and look for other middling violations before writing a ticket with a punishment (fine) that drastically exceeds the crime in order to ensure that they do.
The same silliness applies to sobriety checkpoints. They are a gross violation of liberty. While, many people (even me under strict circumstances), would be persuaded that the reduction of personal liberty is worthwhile in stopping drunk drivers, the implementation and hostile attutide the cops take in doing so is flat out idiotic.
Things like the OP are wrong, and should be challenged. I would have asked the officer to arrest me and I’d have challenged the conviction (and lost of course) but I’d have made a public spectacle of it in hopes it inspires someone to question the police’s actions here.
If you’re going to make a effort to control DUIs in a area where there are alot of bars and/or drunk driving accidents, fine. If you’re doing something that is obviously a waste of taxpayer dollars and/or something blatantly intended to raise ticket “quotas” and city revenues they need to have those rights and stautues overturned.