Seat Belts Shouldn't Be Mandatory

[Llamalandia]

I've given you a reason because it doesn't affect enough people often enough to justify it. If you can show me some real data then fine but otherwise it's merely paternalism which as I said is almost always wrong.

Tougher seat belt laws save lives. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/17/us/tougher-seat-belt-laws-save-lives-study-finds.html

Ok, but so what, that doesn't say anything about people in other cars. We all know that less people would die if they themsleves wore seatbelts, but that alone isn't enough of an argument to force people to do it. Now, if they cause harm to others (ie third parties) that's significant enough then a mandate to wear a seat belt for the public good may be justifiable. So how many other people are killed by someone not wearing their seatbelt?

[Llamalandia]

Ok well then in that case you can ban smoking because sometimes people start fires accidentally. You can ban any number of drugs because occasionally they do cause harms to others by your reasoning.

Starting fires through reckless behavior is preventable and illegal.

I acknowledge that in rare instances it might harm others but I'm arguing that it's a very infrequent occurence, so infrequent as to be essentially negligible. If you have statistics showing that flying people are frequent enough problem then fine show me. I'm not arguing that it's a good idea to not wear a seatbelt I'm simply arguing that forcing people to do things against there will when its seldom harmful to others for them not to do it is wrong.



http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2011/07/27/how-many-times-will-you-crash-your-car/

Seems fairly infrequent to me. Besides one would then have to also know how often people didn't wear a seatbelt which would be rare nowadays even without a mandate and of those accidents how many were of sufficient speed to eject or otherwise involve harm to other drivers caused by not wearing a seatbelt.

Out of curiosity, what is the mathematical formula for enough harm to others to warrant you being permitted to behave stupidly just so you can pretend you're more free?

That's true of things like forest fires, but no one is seriously going to write you a ticket for smoking carelessly in your own home. I mean accidental fires aren't generally treated as crimes as far as I'm aware.

Oh I don't we let stupid people have guns, so probably at the threshold of accidental gun deaths would be a decent number.

[Geilinor]

Tougher seat belt laws save lives. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/17/us/tougher-seat-belt-laws-save-lives-study-finds.html

Ok, but so what, that doesn't say anything about people in other cars. We all know that less people would die if they themsleves wore seatbelts, but that alone isn't enough of an argument to force people to do it. Now, if they cause harm to others (ie third parties) that's significant enough then a mandate to wear a seat belt for the public good may be justifiable. So how many other people are killed by someone not wearing their seatbelt?

Not wearing a seat belt makes you 30 times more likely to be ejected from the vehicle. If you get rocketed out the windshield, it's likely that others will be harmed.

[Keyboard Warriors]

If the government manages said waterway, it should be mandatory. If you drown, emergency services will need to be called and taxpayers could end up paying some of your hospital bills or your disability benefits.

Well as I said before if you don't wear a seatbelt you should have to pay your own bills for medical services.

Ok but the problem is that seatbelt laws also apply to toll roads which are privately owned and managed in some cases.

It was taxpayers choice (of course I'm not a fan of EMTALA anyway).

You are so ignorant about this that it's frustrating, honestly.

Not sure if you're aware, but we have to treat people if they arrive in the emergency room whether they can afford it or not. And because any number of people will not have health insurance because they can't afford it, they'll end up with a medical bill that they will never pay off. Literally, they will never pay it off and the health system will bear the brunt of the unpaid medical bill. And even if people could pay their own bill, that's not something that's asked of them when they're bleeding out on a gurney; they're treated no matter what.

Toll roads are still government controlled roads regardless of who owns them. The government ultimately is forced to pay for any injuries and accidents which happen on said road.

And then you ought to consider the billions of dollars that this would cost insurance companies which would be passed on to individuals in the form of higher premiums or loopholes where the insurance doesn't cover road trauma.

Yes, there's enough cost to society that would warrant making seatbelts mandatory to wear.

[Occupied Deutschland]

Ok, but so what, that doesn't say anything about people in other cars. We all know that less people would die if they themsleves wore seatbelts, but that alone isn't enough of an argument to force people to do it. Now, if they cause harm to others (ie third parties) that's significant enough then a mandate to wear a seat belt for the public good may be justifiable. So how many other people are killed by someone not wearing their seatbelt?

Not wearing a seat belt makes you 30 times more likely to be ejected from the vehicle. If you get rocketed out the windshield, it's likely that others will be harmed.

Has anyone answered the request to find one instance of a human projectile injuring someone else besides the projectee?

[Jocabia]

Tougher seat belt laws save lives. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/17/us/tougher-seat-belt-laws-save-lives-study-finds.html

Ok, but so what, that doesn't say anything about people in other cars. We all know that less people would die if they themsleves wore seatbelts, but that alone isn't enough of an argument to force people to do it. Now, if they cause harm to others (ie third parties) that's significant enough then a mandate to wear a seat belt for the public good may be justifiable. So how many other people are killed by someone not wearing their seatbelt?

I didn't say people in other cars. I'm talking about your driving with no seat belt on and I'm in the passenger seat and when you move out of your seat in accident you strike me, killing me. Or your in the driver seat and slam on the brakes and I am sitting behind you with no seat belt on. I fly into your seating causing you to travel forward and lose control of the car. Or I fly forward and injure you. Or I injure the person in the front passenger seat. Etc. Unrestrained individuals in a car are pinballs in an accident. Every single accident in which there are fatalities, the force was enough that being unrestrained made you dangerous to anyone else in the car.

[Breadknife]

3) sorry i got kinda bored with my obvious points and started imagining how your name would be pronounced it was welsh. probably something like clamalandia. really changes the meaning.

Not the point of this thread, but... "Ll"="Cl"? Really? I'm not even Welsh and I know that's wrong. You can probably fool a city-living Saes if you pronounce it "<Ch>l" with the <Ch> in the Scottish "Loch", but really it needs no "C" at all. I've described it as "Hl" with a deliberately emphisised, breathy and palatal "Hhh" sound. (And Welsh has its own diagraph of "Ch", anyway, not far from the proper "Loch" sound.)

People should not pronounce the likes of "Llandudno" as if it's (the presumably Scottish) "Clan Dudno", exhibiting consonance with "Clan MacLeod", as they often do (when they don't start "Thlan..."). It's more akin to "Hlan'did'noe" (u=>i, as well, give or take, depending on where in Wales the speaker is from).

And if you can't get it right, don't even try Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

But I'm no expert. And it's not much to do with seatbelts.

[Jocabia]

So you're right. It's totally rare.

http://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/09/garde ... 24390.html

Unbelted vehicle occupants not only endanger themselves, they also can injure other passengers. A Michigan study of more than 4,000 accidents showed that occupant-to-occupant collisions caused or aggravated injuries in 22 percent of the crashes. Thirteen percent of the human collisions contributed to severe or fatal injuries.

Yup. Only 22% of the time to do the contribute to injuries. They are only severe or fatal 13% of the time. That's hardly ever.

So out of 10 million accidents a year, that's only 2.2 million injuries. You're right. It's super rare.

[Maqo]

Ok but the problem is that seatbelt laws also apply to toll roads which are privately owned and managed in some cases.

It was taxpayers choice (of course I'm not a fan of EMTALA anyway).

AFAIK toll roads aren't privately owned. They can be privately managed, but the land (in general) still belongs to the government. At the very least, privately owned property still falls under the same laws (otherwise, you could eg murder someone in your house and claim the government has no jurisdiction lol). Toll roads still use government provided emergency services, so if you get in an accident you are still using government funds.

Most places that I know of do let you drive without a seatbelt on private property (eg in your driveway or on a farm) or reversing at low speeds.

(And FYI, Australia does require child-proof pool fences for all pools. We have the highest rate of pool ownership per capita in the world, and the lowest rate of accidental drowning & child drowning in the world)

Well as I said before if you don't wear a seatbelt you should have to pay your own bills for medical services.

And if you die because you didn't wear a seatbelt? Who pays for it then? Who pays for the extra 50 ambulances that need to be on standby around the nation because of the increase in road deaths?
THe government has an interest in keeping you healthy because you are a worker. A productive member of society. You can use your resources and labour to advance the cause of the nation, whatever that may be. If you get injured or killed, that causes large economic impacts. The business you work for is less productive and needs to hire & train new staff. Your family members become unhappy and less productive, and they spend money on things like funeral services which could be better spent somewhere more productive. Emergency services are diverted from where they could be better used, meaning someone else could die from lack of medical attention while they try to save your life from something that could have been easily prevented. Traffic is halted, slowed or diverted, reducing economic efficiency for all those people who are now late to wherever they need to be.
The government wants to keep you alive because you dying is a waste of resources, and the 'impingement' on your freedom is so negligible for the potential benefits.

[Breadknife]

Actually deviating from the speed limit may be perfectly fine in many instances as speed limits are set to factor in some amount of people speeding. (ie traffic engineers know that some people will always do say 10 over therefor while it may be perfectly safe to have a certain road at a speed limit of say 50 mph if everyone obeyed the law, engineers will deliberately set the speed limited lower at say forty to factor in the people who speed).

That's a problem with the road users. So I do my bit by driving at the stated speed limit.

(If anything, tending to stick to it even when road conditions edge the "true" limit down a bit. If I ever end up losing control and flipping my car, it'll be because I'm going at the speed limit when road conditions deteriorate. Although I thoroughly respect snow. I didn't get as much practice, this year, but I find that if I deliberately set myself up for a short slide on a safe stretch of road (and nobody else around) sets me up for a refreshing "feel" of conditions, after the first snowfall of the season, and prevents me losing control later on.)

[Dyakovo]

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.

[Llamalandia]

Well as I said before if you don't wear a seatbelt you should have to pay your own bills for medical services.

Ok but the problem is that seatbelt laws also apply to toll roads which are privately owned and managed in some cases.

It was taxpayers choice (of course I'm not a fan of EMTALA anyway).

You are so ignorant about this that it's frustrating, honestly.

Not sure if you're aware, but we [b]have to treat people if they arrive in the emergency room whether they can afford it or not. And because any number of people will not have health insurance because they can't afford it, they'll end up with a medical bill that they will never pay off. Literally, they will never pay it off and the health system will bear the brunt of the unpaid medical bill. And even if people could pay their own bill, that's not something that's asked of them when they're bleeding out on a gurney; they're treated no matter what. [/b]

Toll roads are still government controlled roads regardless of who owns them. The government ultimately is forced to pay for any injuries and accidents which happen on said road.

And then you ought to consider the billions of dollars that this would cost insurance companies which would be passed on to individuals in the form of higher premiums or loopholes where the insurance doesn't cover road trauma.

Yes, there's enough cost to society that would warrant making seatbelts mandatory to wear.

And you obviously don't know what EMTALA stands for, not that hard to google by the way.

meh kinda splitting hairs a bit. Also not sure how govts are forced to pay for injuries that genrally falls to insurance.

As I've said, numerous times if you don't wear the seat belt you should have to pay for all the costs yourself. Most people aren't that indigent they can probably pay off the bill it will just take their assets. Hey I didn't say being stupid was cheap, I just said people should be allowed to be.

[Llamalandia]

Ok but the problem is that seatbelt laws also apply to toll roads which are privately owned and managed in some cases.

It was taxpayers choice (of course I'm not a fan of EMTALA anyway).

AFAIK toll roads aren't privately owned. They can be privately managed, but the land (in general) still belongs to the government. At the very least, privately owned property still falls under the same laws (otherwise, you could eg murder someone in your house and claim the government has no jurisdiction lol). Toll roads still use government provided emergency services, so if you get in an accident you are still using government funds.

Most places that I know of do let you drive without a seatbelt on private property (eg in your driveway or on a farm) or reversing at low speeds.

(And FYI, Australia does require child-proof pool fences for all pools. We have the highest rate of pool ownership per capita in the world, and the lowest rate of accidental drowning & child drowning in the world)

Well as I said before if you don't wear a seatbelt you should have to pay your own bills for medical services.

And if you die because you didn't wear a seatbelt? Who pays for it then? Who pays for the extra 50 ambulances that need to be on standby around the nation because of the increase in road deaths?
THe government has an interest in keeping you healthy because you are a worker. A productive member of society. You can use your resources and labour to advance the cause of the nation, whatever that may be. If you get injured or killed, that causes large economic impacts. The business you work for is less productive and needs to hire & train new staff. Your family members become unhappy and less productive, and they spend money on things like funeral services which could be better spent somewhere more productive. Emergency services are diverted from where they could be better used, meaning someone else could die from lack of medical attention while they try to save your life from something that could have been easily prevented. Traffic is halted, slowed or diverted, reducing economic efficiency for all those people who are now late to wherever they need to be.
The government wants to keep you alive because you dying is a waste of resources, and the 'impingement' on your freedom is so negligible for the potential benefits.

That's right you belong to the govt, you are a good productive tax paying unit. Yeah, that sounds a bit like forced labour to me. I mean should you not be allowed to commit suicide if you want (and aren't suffering from impaired judgement)?

Yeah, that generally happens with most car wrecks regardless of seatbelt use.

But they are generally youre resources to waste. I mean no one forces the govt to send an ambulance to you.

[Llamalandia]

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'm a libertarian I believe this but I don't believe all laws are evil, just laws which are paternalistic. I mean I like things like the constitution and bill of rights those are all laws in fact they are the supreme law of the land. There's plenty of other good laws (and even some good regulations) out there. Of course there's also plenty of terrible laws as well.

[Llamalandia]

Ok, but so what, that doesn't say anything about people in other cars. We all know that less people would die if they themsleves wore seatbelts, but that alone isn't enough of an argument to force people to do it. Now, if they cause harm to others (ie third parties) that's significant enough then a mandate to wear a seat belt for the public good may be justifiable. So how many other people are killed by someone not wearing their seatbelt?

I didn't say people in other cars. I'm talking about your driving with no seat belt on and I'm in the passenger seat and when you move out of your seat in accident you strike me, killing me. Or your in the driver seat and slam on the brakes and I am sitting behind you with no seat belt on. I fly into your seating causing you to travel forward and lose control of the car. Or I fly forward and injure you. Or I injure the person in the front passenger seat. Etc. Unrestrained individuals in a car are pinballs in an accident. Every single accident in which there are fatalities, the force was enough that being unrestrained made you dangerous to anyone else in the car.

Well if its your car you certainly have the right to insist that other wear their seatbelts its your property you can make the rules on how others must use it. If it's not your car you can always ask to get out at any reasonable time (ie you can just fling the door open in the middle of traffic on the highway but certainly no one can hold you in a car against your will). Now if your causing harm to others ie those in other vehicles (which I'm sure has happened but likely doesn't happen very often) then yes, you may be able to justify a mandate.

[Keyboard Warriors]

You are so ignorant about this that it's frustrating, honestly.

Not sure if you're aware, but we [b]have to treat people if they arrive in the emergency room whether they can afford it or not. And because any number of people will not have health insurance because they can't afford it, they'll end up with a medical bill that they will never pay off. Literally, they will never pay it off and the health system will bear the brunt of the unpaid medical bill. And even if people could pay their own bill, that's not something that's asked of them when they're bleeding out on a gurney; they're treated no matter what. [/b]

Toll roads are still government controlled roads regardless of who owns them. The government ultimately is forced to pay for any injuries and accidents which happen on said road.

And then you ought to consider the billions of dollars that this would cost insurance companies which would be passed on to individuals in the form of higher premiums or loopholes where the insurance doesn't cover road trauma.

Yes, there's enough cost to society that would warrant making seatbelts mandatory to wear.

And you obviously don't know what EMTALA stands for, not that hard to google by the way.

Oh please. You really think our obligation to treat dying people is because EMTALA made it so?

meh kinda splitting hairs a bit. Also not sure how govts are forced to pay for injuries that genrally falls to insurance.

How about the people without insurance?

As I've said, numerous times if you don't wear the seat belt you should have to pay for all the costs yourself.

And as I've just pointed out, that doesn't and cannot happen.

Most people aren't that indigent they can probably pay off the bill it will just take their assets.

If people can't afford health insurance, what makes you think they can afford to pay for their medical bills?

Hey I didn't say being stupid was cheap, I just said people should be allowed to be.

Not on the roads, they can't. There's no right to use the road; you apply for permission to use it and agree to abide by the road laws laid down by the government. If you don't like these terms and conditions, you're more than free to use the sidewalk.

[The Canadian-Federation]

Lets not forget the people who'll have to clean up your face from the ground.


Tax Payers are paying those people.

[Jocabia]

I didn't say people in other cars. I'm talking about your driving with no seat belt on and I'm in the passenger seat and when you move out of your seat in accident you strike me, killing me. Or your in the driver seat and slam on the brakes and I am sitting behind you with no seat belt on. I fly into your seating causing you to travel forward and lose control of the car. Or I fly forward and injure you. Or I injure the person in the front passenger seat. Etc. Unrestrained individuals in a car are pinballs in an accident. Every single accident in which there are fatalities, the force was enough that being unrestrained made you dangerous to anyone else in the car.

Well if its your car you certainly have the right to insist that other wear their seatbelts its your property you can make the rules on how others must use it. If it's not your car you can always ask to get out at any reasonable time (ie you can just fling the door open in the middle of traffic on the highway but certainly no one can hold you in a car against your will). Now if your causing harm to others ie those in other vehicles (which I'm sure has happened but likely doesn't happen very often) then yes, you may be able to justify a mandate.

Wow. You go to a lot of trouble to protect people being allowed to do something with absolutely no benefits. None. No benefits at all. The only downside to making you're not putting everyone around you in danger is that you might have a greater chance of surviving an accident. Those tyrants.

Meanwhile, as I said, that movement being described in 22% of accidents makes it more difficult to maintain control, which does effect others. And still you've not given any reason why we should allow people to generate these risks? Not one. The only reason you've come up with doesn't apply because this isn't only affecting the person making the decision.

[Maqo]

That's right you belong to the govt, you are a good productive tax paying unit. Yeah, that sounds a bit like forced labour to me. I mean should you not be allowed to commit suicide if you want (and aren't suffering from impaired judgement)?

Nothing to do with paying taxes. Its to do with efficient use of resources.

Yeah, that generally happens with most car wrecks regardless of seatbelt use.

If people survive a car crash and the car is not disabled, they can drive off the road and sort it out.
If people die or are severely injured in a car crash, this will not happen.
If you're strapped in to your seat, you are much less likely to go bouncing around the inside (or outside) of your car and be injured, thus you are in a better state to control the car and reduce the damage happening in a crash, or be in a position to operate the car after a crash.

But they are generally youre resources to waste. I mean no one forces the govt to send an ambulance to you.

Except the people who call an ambulance saying "I just saw a car crash" ? Or do you believe the 911 operator should ask you to run over to the victim to check their seatbelt and insurance policy before an ambulance should be dispatched?

[Jocabia]

Most people aren't that indigent they can probably pay off the bill it will just take their assets.

Okay, please source this.

[Maqo]

Most people aren't that indigent they can probably pay off the bill it will just take their assets.

Okay, please source this.

Anti-source:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148
http://thelawdictionary.org/article/how ... each-year/

According to thelawdictionary , 60% of bankruptcies are due to medical bills, and 75% of the people filing for bankruptcy due to medical reasons already have health insurance.
So medicals bills take all of your assets and then some. Although that is getting in to a debate about health insurance which is for another thread.

Llamalandia:
Do you believe that ANY level of reduction in personal freedoms is acceptable for ANY level of benefits?
Eg, if it was proved that if no-one in the country wore blue socks then everyone would be 100% happier, 100% more productive and never get sick, would it be acceptable to ban the wearing of blue socks? If it were proved that only the non-wearer would be 100% happier, 100% more productive and never get sick, would it be acceptable to ban the wearing of blue socks?
(Obviously this is a ridiculous situation. But I think it conveys the point: is there any level of tradeoff between personal freedoms and personal/societal benefit that is acceptable, or is it automatically morally wrong in your view as soon as an iota of personal freedoms are sacrificed no matter how large the gain?)

[Phocidaea]

I found this on another forum. I was amazed at the coincidence.

TL;DR: AnCap sticks up for his principles and decides to go to jail for seven days instead of paying fine for not wearing seatbelt, to avoid giving money to the gummint.

[Sibirsky]

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

Enough of your garbage.

Do you want to be locked up in a rubber room to prevent injury?

Maybe we should also reduce the speed limit to 15?

[Sibirsky]

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.

I did not say all laws. Some are good.

Most are not. It does not take much to figure out. Laws reduce freedom. The one you point out, reduced the freedom of government to withhold information from the public. But most laws apply to the general public.

[El Fiji Grande]

Maybe we should also reduce the speed limit to 15?

It's actually been noted that when (in California, that is) the speed limit was lowered from 65 to 55, the number of fatalities in car accidents went up dramatically. They promptly raised it again, and the numbers went back down. That's not to say that raising it would help, though.