Seat Belts Shouldn't Be Mandatory

[Nervium]

Define "ordinary driver".

A regular person with a driver's license and without any particular driver training. Or, the bear minimum that person's state of residence requires to be licensed.

There's a minimum on bears in cars?

[Farnhamia]

Where the hell in the constitution is there anything about seat belts? Its one thing to have a bad argument, but its another thing to try and get our forefathers to side with it.

As I understand it, Alexander Hamilton wanted to put something in Article I, in with all the stuff about what Congress could do, and Mr. Madison thought it was a good idea although he was a little fuzzy on what "seat belts" actually were. As Doctor Franklin explained it to me, the seat belt clause was included in a whole long list of things like government-paid medical care and nuclear submarines and a space program and having his (Hamilton's) face on the ten dollar bill and calling President Washington "His Most Excellent, Corruscatingly Brilliant Highness," plus other stuff that most people had no idea what it was, everything got thrown out and they made Hamilton go stand in a corner for an hour at lunch time. I think that's what Franklin told me. It was right before he told me about North Korea and why the US should be careful with them. *nod*

[Planeia]

To those arguing that seatbelts cause more deaths, I'm going to borrow what somebody said from this Physics Forums thread.

You need to be careful about any argument that uses statistics to prove something.

Consider these numbers (made up by me, just to illustrate the point):

In 100 accidents crashing without a seat belt there were 50 deaths and 50 survivors.

In 100 accidents crashing with a seat belt there were 5 deaths and 95 survivors.

Of those 5 deaths, 4 were caused by injuries caused by the belt.

Conclusion: you have an 80% chance of being killed by your seatbelt, compared with only a 50% chance if you don't wear one.

Spot the obvious miistake here...

Read more: http://www.physicsforums.com

[Farnhamia]

To those arguing that seatbelts cause more deaths, I'm going to borrow what somebody said from this Physics Forums thread.

You need to be careful about any argument that uses statistics to prove something.

Consider these numbers (made up by me, just to illustrate the point):

In 100 accidents crashing without a seat belt there were 50 deaths and 50 survivors.

In 100 accidents crashing with a seat belt there were 5 deaths and 95 survivors.

Of those 5 deaths, 4 were caused by injuries caused by the belt.

Conclusion: you have an 80% chance of being killed by your seatbelt, compared with only a 50% chance if you don't wear one.

Spot the obvious miistake here...

Read more: http://www.physicsforums.com

That's easy, you can't get 100 people into just one automobile. Unless they're clowns, that is.

[Grenartia]

It's simple. We remove all warning labels and laws like this, and within 5 years, every moron, idiot, and general stupid person on Earth will have killed themselves, and the Darwin Awards will have way too much to work with.

Except, you know, when idiots do idiotic shit that gets them killed, they don't just harm themselves, they often endanger others and drag down society as a whole.

It wouldn't happen as often if people would wear their damn seatbelts.

True, but I don't really care as people are free to wear or not wear them as far as I'm concerned.

Even when it directly negatively impacts others?

I call bullshit.

How does not wearing a seatbelt significantly endanger others? The only circumstance I can think of is if someone is in a head on crash and flies out of their car into the one they hit. I can see how this might be dangerous, but 1. if you hit oncoming traffic at that speed they're probably dead anyway.

I don't know. People should wear their seatbelts, but it shouldn't be mandatory. Let someone exercise their right to be a dumbass. Then maybe their stupid gene will be removed from the gene-pool.

2. This goes right back to the thing I said a few days ago about liberals wanting to tell me what to do, and it being annoying.

1. The human projectile, yes, but not the person/people in the other vehicle(s). Also, even if said projectile doesn't injure/kill others, they still cause more damage than they otherwise would've, as well as causing more of a mess, and perhaps even inducing PTSD (or other similar conditions) in the survivors.

2. Seems like the mentality of a child to me.

"I DON'T CARE IF MY PARENTS AND OTHER GROWNUPS KNOW WHATS BEST FOR ME!!! I WANNA DO WHAT I WANT!!!"

"I DON'T CARE IF SCIENCE AND GOVERNMENT ARE LOOKING OUT FOR MY BEST INTERESTS! I WANNA DO STUPID SHIT THAT HURTS MYSELF AND OTHERS!"

The only real difference seems to be increased verbiage.

How does not wearing a seatbelt significantly endanger others? The only circumstance I can think of is if someone is in a head on crash and flies out of their car into the one they hit. I can see how this might be dangerous, but if you hit oncoming traffic at that speed they're probably dead anyway.

I don't know. People should wear their seatbelts, but it shouldn't be mandatory. Let someone exercise their right to be a dumbass. Then maybe their stupid gene will be removed from the gene-pool.

This goes right back to the thing I said a few days ago about liberals wanting to tell me what to do, and it being annoying.

Or a side impact crash and you go flying into the person next to you. If you don't wear a seatbelt, your body is a pinball and it's going to bounce around the car. When people get injured on the roads, the cost falls with governments and insurance companies meaning less of our tax money is used in ways we'd want it to and we pay higher insurance premiums. If you don't like being told what to do, walk.

Personally, I'm beginning to wonder if people who get caught not wearing their seatbelts should be given a choice between paying a fine, and working cleanup for fatal accidents where people didn't wear their seatbelts. Could probably also adapt it for drunk drivers, too.

Only according to your, extremely illogical standards.

My claim is supported by the fact that we have 25% of the world's prisoners, despite having only 5% of the world's population. It is supported that half of them are non-violent offenders, and that the books are full of victimless crimes. That is not beneficial. Most laws prohibiting direct harm to another, were on the books for hundreds of years. Yet tens of thousands of new laws are being passed every year.

Not beneficial.

You claimed "most laws do more harm than good". One example of a possibly bad law does nothing to prove your claim. Nor does your admission that you don't actually know most of the laws.

Lets give Sib a Gold Medal if he can list every single law on the books, and then explain which ones are bad, and demonstrate how they're bad. And yes, Sib, if you actually did that, I would nominate you for Gold Medal, because you'd have earned it.

There aren't 4 thousand ways to harm someone.

Source needed.

You, my friend, are just not looking hard enough for way to hurt people.

At any rate, I believe in seatbelt laws mostly because it's a 2-second act that saves your life an others, as well as keeps the public from having to pay overmuch for you hitting or being hit by someone else in a car.

Also cause they are useful for strapping in my various groceries when the back is full.

And because I still look back fondly on the days when I would sit, alone, in the middle seat in the back of my mom's van and use all three seatbelts...those were the days...

There simply aren't. If someone attacks you with a knife, or say, a fork, it is the same crime. Or with 9 mm, or a 45. Same crime. The weapons are similar enough. Assuming no other crime took place, the crimes are the same.

We have entire books on this, and specific cases of criminalization of former infractions.

Except there's several ways to get around certain crimes. Exploiting loopholes and the like. I.E., when people hire somebody to stab/shoot somebody for them, so they can't be charged with the murder. That's why ordering a hit on somebody is a crime now. Or burning down your house for the insurance money is theft. Etc.

We would, but you don't have an argument. You have a loose collection of assertions we spent several hours trying to pin down yesterday, without much success.

And I do apologize for calling you a moron, that was classless and silly of me. I don't need to bring in my own words to make you appear foolish, your own words do just fine for that.

Anyway, aside from "laws are bad mmkay", do you have an argument? As noted before, I'd happily engage on anything actually debatable.

You can't argue moral values. I have tried explaining that to you, several times. You think using force on peaceful people is perfectly acceptable. I don't. How many times do I have to repeat that, for you to understand it?

Your assertions, are worse. You have claimed that taxation, makes us better off, by funding things needed to run things. This is demonstratively false. 1. Taxation reduces disposable income, making the taxpayer worse off. You also imply that without taxation, those things simply would not be funded. Again, false. 2. If there is demand for something, it will be met.

It's not rocket science. You have failed to prove anything, except that seat belts reduce fatalities.

We can do a number of things to reduce fatalities. It does not mean we should do them.

1. So does paying more for the services the private sector would be providing (assuming they could).

2. Only if there's profit in it.

Also, there was demand for government, and demand for government to provide certain services to the people. Both of those demands have been met.

Not wearing a seat belt does not have a victim.

Except, you're wrong, as I've already stated multiple times in this thread, and at least once in this post.

Yes, there are victims of not wearing seat belts. This has been explained to you.

It has been pointed out, many times, that in the case of an accident, there could be victims, other than the person not wearing the seat belt.

Unless not wearing seat belt causes accidents, that is not sufficient.

Bullshit. Its sufficient because it prevents additional damages. Mandating seatbelts is effectively no different from mandating safeties on firearms.

It has been pointed out, many times, that in the case of an accident, there could be victims, other than the person not wearing the seat belt.

Unless not wearing seat belt causes accidents, that is not sufficient.

According to whom that is not sufficient? You? So what?

Wearing a seat belt causes no harm to you. Not wearing a seat belt can cause harms to yourself and others. In the balance, it's not a tough thing to figure out which rights should trump there. Should my life be at risk subject to your whim?

Exactly. Why should my life or mental health be put at risk because of some dumbfuck's right to make a stupid decision?

No, it really isn't. When you get in front of the steering wheel of a car, everything you do while driving, or don't do, has the potential to harm either yourself or someone else. If wearing a seat belt reduces the risk of harm to yourself or someone else, I see a point in enforcing its use.

A lot of things have the potential of harming someone. Driving, in the first place, has the potential of harming someone. Not wearing a seat belt does not cause accidents.

Yes, driving does have the potential to harm someone. However, when done properly, that risk is sufficiently minimized. Just as its (rightfully) illegal to drive the wrong way down the interstate, it should be illegal to not wear a seatbelt.

Man, 41 is everywhere. I used to live near it in IL. Now I live just off of it in Florida.

It runs from Miami to the Canadian border, I believe. And right through the first verse of an Allman Brothers hit.

And runs right by my house (and my last house).

[Dyakovo]

A regular person with a driver's license and without any particular driver training. Or, the bear minimum that person's state of residence requires to be licensed.

There's a minimum on bears in cars?

Yes. Federal law requires you to have at least one in your vehicle any time it is in operation.

[Nervium]

There's a minimum on bears in cars?

Yes. Federal law requires you to have at least one in your vehicle any time it is in operation.

Does species/size matter?

[Pacificas Oceana]

A law that can punish someone for NOT doing something that affects no one but the person choosing not to do it absolutely should not exist. It's as absurd as it is unconstitutional. The idea that the government gets to mandate something that I do or don't do inside a vehicle that I bought and paid for myself is sickening.
I, personally, am not a seat belt user. Never have been, never will be. Are they a good idea in some cases? Probably. Is it my choice to assume the risk by not wearing it? Absolutely.

You're a selfish little bitch. When your dumbass gets in a car wreck and goes through the windshield, somene gets to deal with cleaning the mess up when you go splat everywhere and if you survive then someone has to change your diaper every 3 hours and feed you through a tube. Also, if you happen to be in the backseat, you immediately become a projectile and can kill the people in front of you. Buckle up. It's the law.

[Farnhamia]

A law that can punish someone for NOT doing something that affects no one but the person choosing not to do it absolutely should not exist. It's as absurd as it is unconstitutional. The idea that the government gets to mandate something that I do or don't do inside a vehicle that I bought and paid for myself is sickening.
I, personally, am not a seat belt user. Never have been, never will be. Are they a good idea in some cases? Probably. Is it my choice to assume the risk by not wearing it? Absolutely.

You're a selfish little bitch. When your dumbass gets in a car wreck and goes through the windshield, somene gets to deal with cleaning the mess up when you go splat everywhere and if you survive then someone has to change your diaper every 3 hours and feed you through a tube. Also, if you happen to be in the backseat, you immediately become a projectile and can kill the people in front of you. Buckle up. It's the law.

Totally unnecessary comments. Knock it off. And welcome to NationStates and General.

[Dyakovo]

Yes. Federal law requires you to have at least one in your vehicle any time it is in operation.

Does species/size matter?

Nope.

[Breadknife]

Unless not wearing seat belt causes accidents,

...which it does.

/thread

[Planeia]

Unless not wearing seat belt causes accidents,

...which it does.

/thread

Wouldn't really say it causes the accident, that's dependent on the driver's actions and the circumstances in and around the car, which is why texting-and-driving laws shouldn't be removed either. However, not wearing a seat belt definitely causes death.

[Breadknife]

Speed limits are lower limits, not upper limits, everyone knows that. Try driving the limit on a highway and see what kind of looks you get.

'strue. I'm that guy driving at the speed limit. Obviously I don't realise that it's purely optional to obey the law...

More than that, I like to know what the limit is, especially after the episode previously recounted. Yet there's a stretch of road I use that's clearly marked down as 30mph¹, changes to 40mph then back to 30mph, and has a speed-camera part way through the middle stretch. I've had people behind me bunch up to my bumper on the first stage, or even pass me, and people in front noticably pull away, then they pass into the faster zone, see the camera and slow to 30mph. There's the obligatory sign prior to the camera (which I'd personally not be unhappy about if it were removed and the camera repainted to blend in, rather than be flourescent yellow) with the combined "speed camera" and "40mph limit" symbols on it (and the usual "repeater" 40mph signs, in their own right, as required by the relevent laws). I can only ascribe the behaviour of such people to their having guilty consciences.

Another time, a lady² was almost on my bumper on a road (an unsigned 'natural' 30mph zone) while it was one lane wide, per direction, then hurried to take the offside lane as soon as (sooner, in fact) it bifurcated on the approach to some traffic-lights (both lanes forward, one lane also turning... but she was going forward, like myself). Which turned red. By pure chance (there were already cars in front of us both) she stopped adjacent to me and wound down the window to 'tell' me that it was a 40-zone. I knew she was wrong, but obviously didn't have any signage I could point at. Except for an actual "you are entering a 40mph limit" sign on the other side of the junction, which we obviously hadn't entered yet. (And because of the way the cross-turning traffic, in her lane, could not move as fast as my lane, she ended up being held up and was thus kept further behind than if she'd have stayed glued to my bumper and only overtook on the other side of the traffic lights. Whilst I would have been accelerating up to the prescribed speed. Who knows what she would have done.)


TL;DR; Hell is other drivers. (Them in my case. Me in their case.)


¹ Insofar as it is, i.e. on entry and by convention. If it's a streetlit urban area like that then there's no requirement for "repeater" limit-signs, you know it's 30mph. I passed my driving test long before the written component was added, but I can't imagine that this snippet of the Highway Code is not one of the elements everyone needs to revise for. I just had (as I recall) some roadsign recognition and the obligatory "stopping distance at speed X" questions, in the car, prior to actually setting out with the tester on my last day as a learner driver. But my instructor had already made sure I knew far more. And had firmly corrected me that the "National Speed Limit Applies" sign was not "end of speed limit".

² Not mentioned as per "lady drivers, huh?!?", just doing this without pronouns would be difficult. From the time of day and the little passengers in her car, she was returning from a school-run pickup. Which doesn't in any way help her cause and excuse her behaviour.

[Costa Fierro]

It's true a high speed head on collision would make both vehicles uncontrollable. Those types of accidents, however, are exceptionally rare.

Really? Because where I live, we aren't blessed with a nationwide system of motorways or freeways so high speed accidents are fairly common.

The best argument for seat belt usage being mandatory is a high speed clip accident, which is the most common high speed multivehicle accident.

Maybe that's the case where you live.

The resulting spin or sideways movement can force the driver from the seat, with control mechanisms still in play.

A high speed clip accident will still render a car virtually uncontrollable due to the force with which it hit the object. If it hit it from the front, it can still damage the car and take out one front wheel. The fact of the matter is, you have very little chance of regaining control of a car at high speed unless you've had some form of training or are a racing car driver, simply because the time that things happen, people simply do not have the reaction times.

[Costa Fierro]

I referred to vehicle insurance.

And? Vehicle insurance isn't affected by the government's "socialized" healthcare system. It doesn't source funding from vehicle insurance but does so through petrol taxes and vehicle licensing fees.

[The Liberated Territories]

Absence of seat belt laws = / = absence of seat belts.

"Absence of seat belt laws" = "reduced use of seat belts"

Reduced use of seat belts = not my problem

Unless you are going to use the body bullet excuse. That's a good one.

[Jocabia]

"Absence of seat belt laws" = "reduced use of seat belts"

Reduced use of seat belts = not my problem

Unless you are going to use the body bullet excuse. That's a good one.

Yes, because 200 pounds objects bouncing around inside a car are totally harmless.

[Dyakovo]

"Absence of seat belt laws" = "reduced use of seat belts"

Reduced use of seat belts = not my problem.

Actually, it is.

[Islamic republiq of Julundar]

Unless not wearing seat belt causes accidents,

...which it does.

/thread

Yes it does. Drivers with Savile belts think they are safe and drive more recklessly.

Savile belts increase the number of "accidents".

[Twilight Imperium]

...which it does.

/thread

Yes it does. Drivers with Savile belts think they are safe and drive more recklessly.

Savile belts increase the number of "accidents".

Just curious, does anyone besides the libertarian "laws are evul" crowd actually believe this? I mean, people keep bringing it up, and

[Divair2]

Yes it does. Drivers with Savile belts think they are safe and drive more recklessly.

Savile belts increase the number of "accidents".

Just curious, does anyone besides the libertarian "laws are evul" crowd actually believe this? I mean, people keep bringing it up, and

No. And nobody has done the math to check if more reckless driving actually causes a higher death rate than a lack of seat belts.

[Islamic republiq of Julundar]

Yes it does. Drivers with Savile belts think they are safe and drive more recklessly.

Savile belts increase the number of "accidents".

Just curious, does anyone besides the libertarian "laws are evul" crowd actually believe this? I mean, people keep bringing it up, and

I read it on teh Interwebs so it must be true. Some day, I will post the sources.

[Jocabia]

...which it does.

/thread

Yes it does. Drivers with Savile belts think they are safe and drive more recklessly.

Savile belts increase the number of "accidents".

Source?

[Llamalandia]

Unsurprisingly, you've failed to Support your claim.

Only according to your, extremely illogical standards.

My claim is supported by the fact that we have 25% of the world's prisoners, despite having only 5% of the world's population. It is supported that half of them are non-violent offenders, and that the books are full of victimless crimes. That is not beneficial. Most laws prohibiting direct harm to another, were on the books for hundreds of years. Yet tens of thousands of new laws are being passed every year.

Not beneficial.

Well there are some laws which are beneficial like the ones applied against the government like the freedom of information act for example. Of course I'm guessing many of the more modern laws are just detrimental to people and an efficient economy.

[Twilight Imperium]

Yet tens of thousands of new laws are being passed every year.

Also, this isn't true either, though since Ron Paul said it, it's a wonder that you believe it.

It's way less than that. Here's a breakdown:

http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2012/apr/27/ron-paul/ron-paul-says-40000-new-laws-were-put-books-first-/