Seat Belt Laws: At Any Cost
- Thread starter Rich Lucibella
- Start date
Rich
And I will continue to call you on your complete and total lack of training, specialized knowledge, and/or experience, lending you absolutely no credibility what so ever. Let it go yourself.
You are an insurance salesman and a member of the media, and we know the high regard the media is held here, and nothing more.
And I will continue to call you on your complete and total lack of training, specialized knowledge, and/or experience, lending you absolutely no credibility what so ever. Let it go yourself.
You are an insurance salesman and a member of the media, and we know the high regard the media is held here, and nothing more.
YOU are the one claiming that this is a bad law, therefore it is incumbent on you to either defend or retract your statement. I do not claim that the seatbelt law or mandatory insurance is good or bad, therefore I dont need to defend anything. I'm not buying into your argument, which would be pointless anyway. Charleton Heston could give you facts chipped into stone tablets and you would continue on with your fallacies. You win, seatbelts are made from Satan's pubic hair and insurance should be paid with 30 pieces of silver. We should throw off the heinous yoke of required safety equipment and fiscal responsibility and live free and, er, or die.
There's a few things you just don't seem to want to understand, or maybe you are so hard headed that it will take a sledge hammer to beat some sense into you? I dunno... Since I don't use sledges, I will have to try words. Again.
Responsible people have insurance. No law was necessary. The same goes for seat belts. Responsible people use them.
Now, I don't know whether or not more people were getting insurance before it became mandatory or not. But I do know that seat belt usage was on the rise and fatalities were on the decline prior to the campaign to make them mandatory.
Because this trend was already in progress, no one can make the claim that the mandatory seat belt laws had any effect whatsoever on traffic fatalities. This can be verified through the NTSA stats which shows that even in those states where seat belt usage is not a primary offense, or in the case of New Hampshire, where it is not even a secondary offense, usage is still going up and fatalities are still going down. In fact, there was no spike in either usage or fatalities when these laws were passed. That data point alone speaks volumes.
The conclusion is easy enough to make. The law has had no discernable affect on either usage or fatalaities, except to burden the public with another restriction. What the law does do is to increase the bottom line of the insurance industry and the coffers of the jurisdiction handing out the ticket.
It is one thing for a government to get out of the way and allow business to profit. It is quite another to directly generate profits for a business.
For the reasons just stated, this is a bad law.
Responsible people have insurance. No law was necessary. The same goes for seat belts. Responsible people use them.
Now, I don't know whether or not more people were getting insurance before it became mandatory or not. But I do know that seat belt usage was on the rise and fatalities were on the decline prior to the campaign to make them mandatory.
Because this trend was already in progress, no one can make the claim that the mandatory seat belt laws had any effect whatsoever on traffic fatalities. This can be verified through the NTSA stats which shows that even in those states where seat belt usage is not a primary offense, or in the case of New Hampshire, where it is not even a secondary offense, usage is still going up and fatalities are still going down. In fact, there was no spike in either usage or fatalities when these laws were passed. That data point alone speaks volumes.
The conclusion is easy enough to make. The law has had no discernable affect on either usage or fatalaities, except to burden the public with another restriction. What the law does do is to increase the bottom line of the insurance industry and the coffers of the jurisdiction handing out the ticket.
It is one thing for a government to get out of the way and allow business to profit. It is quite another to directly generate profits for a business.
For the reasons just stated, this is a bad law.
Edward429451
Moderator
I never heard a bigger pile of crap in my life. A reasonable point is made that you don't have a decent answer for, so you resort to extremist chicken little type talk.
Would it be accurate to rephrase it to "You peons need us & our oppression to keep you in line or you would all die"? BS buddy.
Who's pontificating you say? Sure you make it read sarcastic but the message is there. You aren't anything but a troll.
Someone noted that if you traveled to a state without mandatory auto insurance and were hit by an uninsured driver, you'd understand why mandatory insurance works so well. I admit I haven't had that experience.
I did, however, get hit by an uninsured driver in a state where auto insurance is mandatory. He tried to talk me out of calling the police, but I insisted and he waited with me for the cop to arrive. He gave the officer all his information and told his story, as did I, and I drove off with a copy of the police report and his written personal information.
As far as I know, all that information was false. The address, at any rate, was a vacant building in a Chicago suburb, and there was no insurance.
My insurance company paid for the damages and jacked my rates accordingly. The police didn't have the ability to track this guy down for not having insurance (maybe they should pass a law that says the police have to have enough police to enforce every goofy law they pass, or else! That'll teach those cops not to save lives!) but the insurance company tried for three months before giving up on it.
In short, thank the dear sweet Lord above that I live in a progressive state like Illinois where auto insurance is mandatory. I may have to pay more money for less service from my auto insurance company now that they know I've go no option but to buy insurance, but at least I know I'm covered when someone else causes an accident, right? It's a weight off my shoulders.
In contrast, my wife has been pulled over twice now for not wearing a seat belt since that "crime" was made a matter of primary enforcement (meaning an officer has the right to pull you over merely for not wearing the belt even if there is no other infraction apparent.)
In both cases, she was wearing her seat belt and was thus not cited. The first time, the officer told her that she had slowed down as she pulled out of the Meijer store parking lot in Springfield, which meant to him that she was probably putting on her seatbelt. That would mean that she hadn't been wearing it in the Meijer parking lot, which is apparently an infraction. To his credit, he didn't cite her because he could see that he'd been mistaken and her seat belt was on.
The second time she got no explanation. She tells me she looked hard at the officer as he sat on the roadside; she thought at first that he was the father of one of her students. For whatever reason, he pulled her over and told her that he thought she hadn't been wearing her seat belt. She had, and to his credit, he didn't cite her either.
(She drives a mulletastic red Camaro, but neither officer suggested she had been speeding or driving in an unsafe manner.)
Forgive me if I have the impression that the primary enforcement of seat belts has become a way to pull over anyone at any time. Who could possibly convince a judge that a stop was baseless when all the officer has to say is that he didn't see their seat belt? The main difference between my wife and the insurance scofflaw, in my opinion, is that she was right there and available. As much as the police might have liked to go find the insurance faker, he was not right there and not readily available. However, that is true for a very basic reason--he was breaking the law and being irresponsible, and she wasn't.
And no, I'm not a cop-hater. The police only tend to pull me over when I'm speeding.
I did, however, get hit by an uninsured driver in a state where auto insurance is mandatory. He tried to talk me out of calling the police, but I insisted and he waited with me for the cop to arrive. He gave the officer all his information and told his story, as did I, and I drove off with a copy of the police report and his written personal information.
As far as I know, all that information was false. The address, at any rate, was a vacant building in a Chicago suburb, and there was no insurance.
My insurance company paid for the damages and jacked my rates accordingly. The police didn't have the ability to track this guy down for not having insurance (maybe they should pass a law that says the police have to have enough police to enforce every goofy law they pass, or else! That'll teach those cops not to save lives!) but the insurance company tried for three months before giving up on it.
In short, thank the dear sweet Lord above that I live in a progressive state like Illinois where auto insurance is mandatory. I may have to pay more money for less service from my auto insurance company now that they know I've go no option but to buy insurance, but at least I know I'm covered when someone else causes an accident, right? It's a weight off my shoulders.
In contrast, my wife has been pulled over twice now for not wearing a seat belt since that "crime" was made a matter of primary enforcement (meaning an officer has the right to pull you over merely for not wearing the belt even if there is no other infraction apparent.)
In both cases, she was wearing her seat belt and was thus not cited. The first time, the officer told her that she had slowed down as she pulled out of the Meijer store parking lot in Springfield, which meant to him that she was probably putting on her seatbelt. That would mean that she hadn't been wearing it in the Meijer parking lot, which is apparently an infraction. To his credit, he didn't cite her because he could see that he'd been mistaken and her seat belt was on.
The second time she got no explanation. She tells me she looked hard at the officer as he sat on the roadside; she thought at first that he was the father of one of her students. For whatever reason, he pulled her over and told her that he thought she hadn't been wearing her seat belt. She had, and to his credit, he didn't cite her either.
(She drives a mulletastic red Camaro, but neither officer suggested she had been speeding or driving in an unsafe manner.)
Forgive me if I have the impression that the primary enforcement of seat belts has become a way to pull over anyone at any time. Who could possibly convince a judge that a stop was baseless when all the officer has to say is that he didn't see their seat belt? The main difference between my wife and the insurance scofflaw, in my opinion, is that she was right there and available. As much as the police might have liked to go find the insurance faker, he was not right there and not readily available. However, that is true for a very basic reason--he was breaking the law and being irresponsible, and she wasn't.
And no, I'm not a cop-hater. The police only tend to pull me over when I'm speeding.
I have been hit twice by hit and run drivers in Texas (illegals) and Texas is a mandatory insurance State. Betcha that a full 35% of the drivers in Texas don't have insurance, and that a lot of those carry fake documents - we seem to have a huge fake document market here.
When it comes to bad laws, being forced to buy insurance is yet another one.
If the govt wants us all to have insurance, then all the govt actually has to do is insure us all. That insurance can be paid for as a tax on gasoline. People who drive more pay more, people who drive less pay less. For those who are insanely bad drivers they can pay an extra bump when they renew their tags. Out of State drivers will automatically be insured while in the State.
This way the govt really gets 100% insurance on everyone, just the way it wants it, and we have no choice but to participate.
When it comes to bad laws, being forced to buy insurance is yet another one.
If the govt wants us all to have insurance, then all the govt actually has to do is insure us all. That insurance can be paid for as a tax on gasoline. People who drive more pay more, people who drive less pay less. For those who are insanely bad drivers they can pay an extra bump when they renew their tags. Out of State drivers will automatically be insured while in the State.
This way the govt really gets 100% insurance on everyone, just the way it wants it, and we have no choice but to participate.
TheeBadOne
Moderator
My state has a both a mandatory insurance law, and mandatory proof of insurance law.
If you don't have proof of insurance with you, you get a citation that is like a "fix it ticket". If you prove (quickly) that you were insured, the ticket is dismissed. If you don't, it turns into a "no insurance" charge. The penalty is two fold:
-mandatory minimum $200 fine
-driver license revocation
If you don't have proof of insurance with you, you get a citation that is like a "fix it ticket". If you prove (quickly) that you were insured, the ticket is dismissed. If you don't, it turns into a "no insurance" charge. The penalty is two fold:
-mandatory minimum $200 fine
-driver license revocation