Seat Belts and Individual Freedom

Just to be able to remove a "fact" that Handy has been stating:

With cars nowadays with the airbags, you will not be able to maintain control of your vehicle. Why?

1. You have something that comes out of the steering wheel at well over 100mph. You are:

a. Blinded
b. Your hands are ripped from the steering wheel

All you have is the brakes. You have lost control of the car no matter what.

2. Having the airbag hit you with such force, you become disorientated.

During this time, you could very well end up killing others on the road (crossing lanes is the biggest). There is a full 30 seconds (in my mind anyway when it happened) that I didn't even remember what the hell just happened and when I got out of the car (thankfully the median of the highway was large) found that I had crossed almost two thirds of the way across and just 1/3 kept me from going into cross traffic on a major, and busy highway.

I could have stopped the car sooner if I could 1) see, 2) wasn't thrown into shock when the airbag deployed, and 3) didn't have my hands ripped from the steering wheel.

I won't add any comments on the actual seatbelt use; people better than I am making better remarks then I could.

Wayne

*anyway, this is what I experienced with a rental years back and got hit.
 
The law has more to do with insurance companies bottom lines than it does with saving lives. If it saves insurance companies money which down the road translates to lower insurance premiums, we are in a way more free because of the law. More money in your pocket = more economic freedom.

I'd very much prefer to pay $100 less per year in auto premiums that I can use to buy a few extra boxes of ammo a year than worry about the few dolts who rationalize that not wearing a seat belt is somehow a good idea.


As it stands in my area, a seat belt violation wll cost you a $10 ticket. A parking violation costs you $20. I wonder when I will hear clamoring about the natural right to park wherever a person wants to on pavement that they paid for through tax dollars. :rolleyes:
 
cracked butt,

And who made it mandatory to have insurance? I would say, the government and the insurance companies just make tons of money while we are forced to pay them those tons of money.

Offnote here, but I don't believe in being forced to have insurance either. You see, I'm one of those idiot "Freedom rules" type of person. When cars and drivers first came about, insurance, as well as seatbelts, were not forced upon the people until those in charge figured that they could make a buck from it with laws.

Wayne
 
Cracked-
Do you ever drink alcohol? Smoke cigarettes? Have unprotected sex except to procreate? Purchase, transport or shoot firearms? Engage in sporting activities that might end in injury? Overeat? Fail to exercise properly? Ride motorcyles? Talk on your cell phone, even hands free, while driving?

If you do any of these things you effect MY cost of living. If you'll grant me the same right to pass law fining you for the behaviors that cost me, I'll gladly grant you the right to support the same demands on others.

LIFE is dangerous and costly. Let he who is without [someone's definition of liability] cast the first stone.

Rich
 
And who made it mandatory to have insurance? I would say, the government and the insurance companies just make tons of money while we are forced to pay them those tons of money
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Agreed. I would love nothing more than to tell insurance companies to "stuff it."

Rich, you make a compelling case, But when you really get down to brass tacks, drinking, smoking overeating, having sex, shooting, skydiving etc all have some upside for an individual.

Do you ever drink alcohol? Smoke cigarettes? Have unprotected sex except to procreate? Purchase, transport or shoot firearms? Engage in sporting activities that might end in injury? Overeat? Fail to exercise properly? Ride motorcyles? Talk on your cell phone, even hands free, while driving?
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I can see a upside or a 'fun' factor in all of your examples. There simply is no upside to not wearing a seatbelt. Nobody drives in a vehicle and says "wheeee, look at me, I'm driving without a seatbelt because it feels good/tastes good/ makes me look more attractive/its fun"
 
Nobody drives in a vehicle and says "wheeee, look at me"
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Inaccurate, cracked. We're ALL Seat Belt Criminals when we think it's more hassle than risk....going to the local 7-11, for instance. Just like we ALL engage in unprotected sex.

But that's not the point. You may care if there's a "fun" benefit to you in creating costs to me thru [somebody's] definition of "stupid" behavior; what if I disagree or simply don't care and still want the money you cost me?

Further, existing laws (Insurance Requirements) should not create prima facia demand for MORE laws.

Rich
 
Oh crap, you're using Jedi mind tricks on me.

I'll circle around and come back with "why shouldn't I have the freedom to park my car wherever I want without getting hassled by the authorities by getting towed or ticketed? It would cost me more to do so than it would for me to get caught without a seatbelt."
 
Alright, I have to revisit this one.

Smoking, drinking alcohol, overeating, and unprotected sex can all catch up to you in the long term, none are very likely to kill you in the short term.

If a person dies of liver disease,heart disease, lung cancer, or STD, all except the last one are most likely to kill a person in their 50s or 60s, though with a STD like hepatitis or HIV, a person may very well live into their 50s with medical treatment. Looking at this with a purely capitalistic bottom line viewpoint, this would be ideal. Workers become less productive and often fall behind in technology as they age, making them more expensive to employ. Those that retire, are a burden on the rest of us who have to pay their SS benifits and medicare expenses. Ideally, we want people to die off when they are at the peak of their wealth- in their 60s before they retire. Government can collect inheritance taxes for a net gain on the person's life (a person pays SS and Medicare taxes their entire life without ever collecting, then have the priviledge of paying the death tax to us, almighty government).

A person who doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't chase women of ill repute, and maintains a relatively fair level of fitness can easily live into their 80s, and a few will make it into their 90s. These people are going to cost the corporations, insurance companies, and individual workers the most amount of money in benifits.

The people who die of car crashes can be any age, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the majority of them are going to be between the ages of 16 and 50- those who are inexperienced and those who commute to work every day. We, being benevolent, loving government wouldn't want to expend tens of thousands of dollars to educate those in their late teens and early twenties and then lose them to a preventable death in a car accident before they have the chance to become net tax producers and growers of our establishment. Nor would it be good for workers at the height of their career or height of their productivity to die off needlessly when they have a couple of good solid decades of producing good tax yields ahead of them.


Bottom line is that seat belts protect those that are the most productive and biggest tax producers while 'sin' activities lessen the outlays of cash by government (taxpayers) later in life.

Comparing seatbelts to sex, booze, or smokes is comparing apples to oranges.

I don't like the fact that I'm a net 'tax producer' and seat belt laws are protecting what could be looked at as a government asset, but I'll wear them because they work, a seatbelt saved my life once. I don't smoke, I drink alcohol very infrequently and in small quantities at that, I don't whore around, and I try to stay healthy, though I'll never again have the ninja-esque fitness I had when I was 22. I hope to go to the grave getting some of the value of my paid taxes back, spending some or all of my life's savings if only to poke a thumb in Uncle Sam's, and insurance companies' eyes.

Edit: you can't win, the odds are stacked against you, but if you do things right you might come close to breaking even in the end.
 
Rich, there are enough laws on the books [concerning firearms] already. No-one has ever demonstrated or articulated to-my satisfaction as to how registering firearms will do any good for anyone, besides providing another data base for whomever.

If the current set of laws is any yardstick, there are way to many obscure & ineffective laws on the books. Adding another to make a "feel
good concept" work is just more folly on lawmakers part.

Deciding how much intrusion by our government is "personal choice" by each member of society. Most are tolerant, i prefer to pick and choose my battles with our system of government. Seat belts in the grand scheme of thing are low on my priority list of "don't sweat the small stuff".

12-34hom.
 
Cracked-
Absolutely correct, if you accept the position that the role of a citizen is to serve the state. I had always thought it was supposed to be the other way around. Based on your analysis we might also entertain euthanasia, forced labor and government assigned jobs based on ability and need.

12-34HOM said:
Seat belts in the grand scheme of thing are low on my priority list of "don't sweat the small stuff".
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That's fair, Charlie. Best answer I've heard yet. Understand that many of us disagree that it's "small stuff"; we believe it's indicative of a Nanny State Mindset that distrusts the decisions of its citizens and, therefore, engages in preemptive regulation of all sorts of personal decisions.

Building codes, for instance, I would place as "small stuff"; necessary stuff. Seat Belt Laws have led the way to Seat Belt Roadblocks and greatly contributed to the mindset that has given us Hiibel, NYC Subway "Freedom" Stops and the most recent incident of detention and physical search of an entire bus load of people because someone reported they were speaking in a foreign language.

Not directly connected, you say? Agreed. But the blind acceptance of things like SeatBelt Laws is what gives rise to the apathy that allows for the unwarranted stop and frisk that we're beginning to see. I don't wish to sidetrack and debate those other actions in this thread; I just want you to know why this "minor" infringement is a major problem in policy and philosophy for many of us.

You basically agree that it's an infringement, but one you're willing to live with given the firmament of other annoying laws and regulations. I've no personal problem with you on that. We're simply trying to raise consciousness that it's the "little" infringements that weigh down a society until it collapses under the weight of its own bureaucracy.
Rich
 
"The law has more to do with insurance companies bottom lines than it does with saving lives. If it saves insurance companies money which down the road translates to lower insurance premiums, we are in a way more free because of the law. More money in your pocket = more economic freedom."

Your first sentence was *exactly* correct, and I was prepared to offer my kudos as being one who has seen the light, but then you went on to say (in essence, if you'll permit me) that helping the insurance companies is helping ourselves.

Here in California I have endured the enactment of a motorcycle helmet law as well as a seatbelt law. I have a clean driving record, and I have never in my life filed an insurance claim, yet my insurance bill has *always* gone up. Yet I am certain that the passage of these two laws made piles of money for the insurance industry, since insurance is just as much a statistical game as gambling.

Tim
 
Handy,
The argument that a seatbelt protects others because someone not wearing a seatbelt might be thrown around in a manner that could injure or kill other passengers reminds me of when people say that they don't wear seatbelts because they might then be trapped in a burning car. Possible, but very unlikely.

Saying that it might help you keep control of your car in an accident ... well ... it might. It might also prevent a passenger from regaining control over a car if the driver is incapacitated. I have an older friend who suffered a stroke while driving on the interstate in Missouri earlier this year. His wife was thankfully able to disengage her seatbelt and move across to help guide the car over to the shoulder and stop it. She was able to get around the seatbelt and stop the car, but - according to her - it was a miracle that they survived long enough for her to get control. At least once while she was trying to undo her belt the car nearly ran into a semi.

Still, I consider the chances of a seatbelt doing me good to be greater than the chances of it doing me harm and I wear it habitually and require underage passengers of any vehicle I drive to do so as well. However, I feel the law is as silly and ignorantly intrusive as government mandated diet restrictions or fines for sedentary lifestyles.
 
The law has more to do with insurance companies bottom lines than it does with saving lives. If it saves insurance companies money which down the road translates to lower insurance premiums, we are in a way more free because of the law. More money in your pocket = more economic freedom.
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In New Hampshire, where auto insurance is not mandatory (nor are seatbelts or motorcycle helmets) and individuals can self-insure, auto insurance rates are lower than many other states.

More freedom = more economic freedom.
 
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