Don’t be silly - it’s nannyism because it’s telling people to do something that could be perceived as being good for them. The scale of it is utterly irrelevant. There are 6 million automobile accidents per year in the US alone, but being told to put your seatbelt on is still nannyism.
And, as noted, when people stop whining about their nannies, it really boils down to cost/benefit. It doesn’t cost the state anything to order you to put on a helmet, and it makes cleaning you off the roads marginally easier, so of course they’ll tell you to do it. It’s simple economics.
What would be a large enough scale for you to start to care what it costs society to care for the un/under-insured?
Let’s be clear here… when we (liberal elites) talk about health insurance (who has it, who doesn’t) we’re not just speaking about motorcycle injuries, are we?
Are you actually reading my posts? You posed two questions and I answered each directly. Direct questions get direct answers. I note you still have chosen to not answer mine. That doesn’t seem like a productive way to have a discussion.
I’ll try one last time: do you think people should be able to make the choice to not wear a helmet?
Do what you want on private property. On the road the rules of the road are the rules of the road. Stay in your lane, put on your seatbelt, don’t speed, don’t drive drunk, wear your helmet.
Insurance isn’t mandated to drive, except in the case of property/health insurance of the OTHER individual you may hit. If you hit no one, then it is just property damage. It is not necessary to carry comprehensive coverage to drive. Nor medical insurance.
Nannyism would be needing to carry comprehensive coverage to care for yourself and your own property. It’s a risk assessment that you would be forced out of.
If you want to ride without a helmet, fine. Sign the waiver at the DMV indicating that and pay a licensing premium for the cost and privilege of having ERP pick up your brains from the pavement with a spoon.
No, this is demonstrably false, because at least one person in this thread says they choose to wear a helmet while still thinking that being told to wear one by the government is nannyism.
The person doesn’t have to disagree with the government about the risks. The mere fact that the government is saying anything at all is nannyism, to some people.
I didn’t answer because the question is designed to eliminate all of the other elements of the discussion and focus on the only thing you think matters, therefore the question seems ill suited to move any part of this debate forward.
So I’ll answer it this way. Yes, if those people will waive any ability to claim any public assistance for themselves or their family for as long as they want to ride on public roads without a helmet. If they want to assume all of the risk themselves, then fine, but don’t try to push any of that onto society when things go wrong.
First of all, I know you’re mostly just advocating this is a sort of reduction to the absurd. With that out of the way, lest anyone agree with you too readily… I do not support you waving liability for your family. This isn’t the book of Job, your family isn’t chattel, your children shouldn’t have to starve just because you’re stupid.
I would, however, support increased registration fees or mandatory survivor benefit insurance in exchange from being able to ride helmet-less (or assume other risks that would normally be prohibited). That’s fair.
The practical problem with this approach is enforcement. There’s nothing stopping a person from getting the cheaper helmeted insurance and then refusing to wear a helmet anyway but the law, and the law won’t know this is happening unless it pulls over every helmetless rider and checks his insurance, constantly. in a world where we decided to legalized helmetless riding, this would be an undue hardship on those who were doing it legally.
The logical follow up is to ask if you would support people being able to opt out in this fashion. Because currently it’s not possible to do this. The fact that people can’t opt out is the lever to intrude further into the decision making process of individuals.
For consistency, I’ll assume that you would be okay with people opting out, else the above answer wouldn’t make sense. The reason I’m continuing on this line is because it applies to other more significant things that people are forced to do - like contribute to Social Security. That’s pure elitism - thinking that the government knows better than the individual. The same argument you are making in favor of helmet laws could be applied to Social Security. Would you be in favor of someone being able to opt out of Social Security, as long as they waive any ability for assistance? Because I would in a heartbeat and take that 14% payraise.
This type of thinking - that people know better, or because of public costs that gives rise to being able to dictate behavior - that’s also elitism.
Similarly, the fire department - opt out and fight your fires yourself. And similarly, the police - a person should be able to opt out and defend their domain themselves, imprisoning and executing criminal trespassers by right of their independent will.
Actually, in some places, that’s a thing. The fire department is not funded to cover a (usually rural) area through normal taxes, and so instead you have to “opt in” for protection.
We had a thread on snopes a while back (may it rest in peace) about an instance where a family lost its home as the fire department stood by and watched it burn, and the son of the owner assaulted one of the firefighters because they refused to do anything even after they offered to pay the past due bills for coverage. Which makes sense, because obviously you can’t just excuse people from paying for coverage, or else everyone will opt out and only then offer to pay the hundred bucks or so to get coverage.
For the record, I would prefer to default to a “basic services, along with social safety net, to include healthcare” should be covered by taxes. Any sort of opt out with appropriate waivers/fees would be acceptable to me, but only provided the opt out system is not itself detrimental to society. In the case of motorcycle or bike helmets, I think society would get by. In the cases of fires that are allowed to burn out of control, though, and the potential for low income families to bear the burden of that and underfunded public schools disproportionately… yeah, I’m not okay with that.