Because personal safety is not everyone’s Greatest Good.
For some, it’s absolute freedom, and in particular freedom from being nagged about “staying safe.” Even if that is freedom to take an unnecessary risk. Even if that is freedom to win the Darwin Award. Perhaps just taking an unnecessary risk brightens their day. I’ve certainly always felt that is part of the allure of driving fast or operating a motorcycle.
It is, of course, ignorant and stupid not to buckle up. But it’s not my life, is it? And for all I know, the truly carefree are living a more wonderful life–shorter though it may be–than I, because they have found a better Greater Good: being carefree.
Why not argue the opposite way? That is, if wearing a seatbelt is mandatory, then wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle should be mandatory as well.
Nah, that doesn’t work. People get a great deal out of climbing dangerous mountains; to start with: the preparation, the skills involved and the accomplishment of a goal. It’s hardly comparable with leaving your seatbelt off.
Motorbike helmets are compulsory where I live, btw. But then, at least you can say that the helmets are uncomfortable and expensive and you don’t get the wind blowing through your hair on a hot day. Is a seatbelt really that awful to wear when you’re driving?
You’re being a bit romantic about leaving a seatbelt off.
It might well be that, though - just taking an unnecessary risk. Bucking the system a bit. Being naughty. I appreciate the desire to do that. Course, some of that would disappear if it suddenly became OK to leave your seatbelt off …
Given that you* are more likely to die, though (unless the cites in this thread are wrong), and that does affect other people (unless you have no loved ones, you die instantly with no cost and no-one has to clean your brains off the road), and given that, logically, a driver being thrown around without a seatbelt can’t have as much control over a car as a driver still in their seat, I can’t see it as a ‘freedom’ that’s worth arguing for.
Carefree isn’t a word I’d use here, personally. Well, not in a ‘wonderful’ sense, anyway, since the care you’re free of here is caring about when you’ll die.
(*Generic you, not you Chief Pedant, for the rest of the post).
Is everyone here who’s in favour of total personal freedom in favour of rape? Sure, you might hurt someone else, but why is the government in your face, stopping you from getting off whenever you want, with whoever you want?
It’s because you’re directly hurting someone else. Rape has a victim. Murder has a victim. Theft has a victim. Running a red light or driving drunk can very readily have a victim.
But the only person who’s at all likely to be a victim of not wearing a seat belt is the person who didn’t wear it. Anything else is just a 1,000,000-1 statistical fluke or based on the idea that everyone’s a victim when somebody gets hurt.
Would you complain about wearing a seatbelt on an airplane? You’re in someone else’s property, you follow by their rules. Even extends to airspace rights. A Canadian place flying from Toronto to Halifax needs to follow certain rules when it’s flying 30,000 ft over the US. The US government owns that airspace.
As much as it might seem like it, the roads you drive on are not built and maintained for your private enjoyment. They are public property, and administered by publically elected officials. You are allowed to use them if you follow by the rules. The rules may be bad or good in various peoples’ opinions, but that is not relevant. You may ask, should the speed limit there be 10 mph higher? That crosswalk there, is it really needed? Why can’t I lift my suspension 3 more feet than currently allowed? Why do I have to wear this seatbelt? The point is there is **no complete freedom to decide how to act on someone else’s **(in this case the public’s) property. As part of the public you have a stake in it, sure. You can campaign for electing people to change laws to favor your opinion. But that is all.
If you build your own asphalt highway on your own land you can drive however you want on it and no one will bother you.
If that is all that matters than consider that in a car you can be thrown from the seat and into a pedestrian. Someone’s body might hurl through the air and dent my innocent car parked adjacent. A body might land on my lawn and tear up my turf.
An unbuckled passenger will often exit the vehicle, expecially in a rollover.
Actually the more people sign up for insurance the lower the price gets for everyone. It is based on the principle of adverse selection, which states that generally speaking only those people who have a need for insurance will purchase it. With auto insurance if it weren’t mandatory people who felt like they were excellent drivers (which tends to be a majority of people) wouldn’t purchase it, feeling like they aren’t at risk while people who have 4 DUI’s and 6 accidents in the last 8 years will pay simply because they know they are going to plow someone over at some point. This leads to insurance companies paying out more than they take in or being forced to charge so much as to make the coverage unaffordable, which leads to them going bankrupt and then there being no more insurance companies available to pay your claims in the future. Forcing everyone to have coverage spreads the risk, allowing much more affordable premiums for everyone.
I totally understand not wanting to have to wear a seatbelt based on personal liberties and whatnot, but mandatory insurance is absolutely necessary, especially in a country where we don’t have socialized health care so being injured by someone with no money and no liability insurance while you have no health coverage could be enough to force people into bankruptcy or worse.
There was quite a bit of force pushing me away from my position. Maybe I would have been fine anyway, but I think it was much easier to regain control with the seatbelt (and shoulder harness) on - and I was there.
I don’t know if that is true or not. I would vote for not. From investigating many accidents I can confidently say that airbags are not very effective when not used with seatbelts.
I don’t know what it does to your argument but though the number of statutes that are applicable on private property are much fewer, in most jurisdictions there are some motor vehicle statutes that can be enforced on private property.
