Seat belt laws, helmet laws, and other such safety related laws

What are your opinions on this sort of thing? Specifically I'm referring to laws that are placed to protect people from themselves, and that sort of thing.

Personally, I think they are mostly a good thing, not because they protect people, but because dead people takes a lot of time and energy to deal with. If a person becomes a smear on the road because the refused to wear a seat belt, then a fairly significant burden is placed on a lot of people.

(starting this thread for no reason other than that I recently got out of driving school)

edited 19th Jul '11 1:20:13 PM by TheMightyAnonym

People become projectiles in accidents, which could possibly endanger others. I am for the seat-belt laws.

Agreed. People like to frame it in terms of personal choice, but really that choice affects an awful lot of people other than just yourself. It affects your friends, family, medical and police services, other drivers who are inconvenienced while your mangled corpse is scraped off the road, etc. The costs for a single road death are pretty amazing when you look at it.

I am reminded of the recent Darwin Award-worthy story about the motorcyclist who died in New York during a helmet law protest, via crashing his bike while not wearing a helmet. Oh, if only karma were universally so direct and brutal.

Seatbealt and helmet laws have always bugged me. At the end of the day it's your life and if you want to be stupid I don't see why it's my governments obligation to stop you.

See the above.

Also the below.

edited 19th Jul '11 1:27:08 PM by TheDeadMansLife

How about the government's job to keep you from orphaning your kids? Or killing them, depending.

The decision not to wear a seat belt/helmet can only ever be a completely selfish one. Selfishness is unbecoming a productive member of society.

edited 19th Jul '11 1:27:43 PM by Fighteer

Cuz strangely your gov't doesn't just leave you out to die, but works to try to save your life.

@Fighteer: Like I said, at the end of the day it's people's choice to be stupid.

@blueharp: Strange, they don't mandate that I learn anything about driving before I get my licence, just that I prove I can A: Drive for ten minutes without killing anyone B: Know that I can identify a stop sign. If it's about saving lives I don't see why we don't make it a law that you must go to driving school. It would also teach you why not wearing a seat belt is stupid.

EDIT: @Fighteer's edit: That can be debated and besides which, people have the right to be selfish turds.

edited 19th Jul '11 1:32:10 PM by thatguythere47

I've met more than a few motorcyclists. There are two types of bike riders: those who have fallen off their bike (crashed, basically) and those who are going to fall off their bike, but haven't got around to it yet. Most of them recognize that the helmet, riding leathers and all that stuff is designed to keep them more or less intact. when they high-side themselves off of the bike, especially at speed.

Seatbelts? Yes, designed to keep you in the car, as opposed to getting tossed out of it so you can cartwheel majestically in the air - until you land in the middle or the roadway, or worse, into something sharp and nasty. I'll stay with my car, thank you. Even smashed up, it's still 3800 pounds of mass around me, versus my 160 pounds out in the wind.

Would a person with a problem with seatbelts and helmets have a problem with child car seats, I wonder...?

edited 19th Jul '11 1:31:43 PM by pvtnum11

@thatguy: And at the beginning of the day, it is your responsibility not to make stupid choices that demonstrably impact other people. Really, no, you don't have a right to be selfish, not in this regard.

I have no particular concern for you, personally, killing yourself through stupidity. I do care about the costs to me, directly or indirectly, of you doing so.

There's much more extensive tests and programs here.

You should consider adopting them.

edited 19th Jul '11 1:34:46 PM by blueharp

Stealing is taking something from somebody else without permission.

If you become splattered all over the road because you were too lazy to buckle up, then you are taking money from the government, and by extension, taxpayers, as well as insurance companies and the like.

Did they give you permission to take all that money? And especially when you are unable to ever give it back?

edited 19th Jul '11 1:37:18 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Yeah, well, driver's ed is one of the many ways this country spectacularly fails its youth, and no serious parent should ever let their kids on the road solo until they themselves have given the kids a lot more education and experience than the school provides. That said, there are a lot of stupid parents, too. It's all part of that "maximum individual freedom" and "right to be selfish" that thatguythere aptly demonstrates.

Yes, I suppose you do have the right to send your 16-year old out with his cell phone and his beer and have him decapitate me because you were too much of a selfish jerk to teach him properly. God gave us all the right to drive however we want, after all.

edited 19th Jul '11 1:38:14 PM by Fighteer

I am against seat belt laws and other such paternalism. But then I am also against cars.

We need to let natural selection take it's course.

Only if it doesn't take me with it.

"At the end of the day it's your life and if you want to be stupid I don't see why it's my governments obligation to stop you."

Because your shitty and ill-thought out decisions in this particular regard have consequences that affect others as well as yourself. Does that make sense?

They exist because people are also sue happy. Also we can tell you to wear a seat belt so that you are less likely leave behind a burden for society via your death. That and folks got tired of scraping people off the highways.

My grandfather the coroner had this to say about Motorcyclists who crashed without gear. "Well that is mess."

We also don't have to let you be stupid and cause problems for others.

... Honestly, I have yet to hear of a story where someone was killed because they were hit by the body of a person who was flung from their car due to not wearing a seatbelt.

I fail to see how someone else not wearing a seatbelt would kill you, unless such a thing actually happened... What you want is idiots not to be on the road. But an idiot wearing his seatbelt isn't going to keep you from dieing when they run you over...

edited 19th Jul '11 1:47:32 PM by Swish

No, we're not talking about being hit by the flying bodies of people ejected from their vehicles, although that would be a very weird way to go out. We're talking about the courtesy not to burden everyone around you with the consequences of your stupidly unnecessary death.

What is the effectiveness of seat belt laws anyway?

"Only if it doesn't take me with it." doesn't sound like that...

I really don't see the "extra burden." Funerals and such are usually paid for by family. And the tax dollars would have been spent during the accident cleanup anyway... The wearing or not wearing of seatbelts(or helmets) doesn't really affect the grand scheme of things other than the specific person's death...

edited 19th Jul '11 1:54:29 PM by Swish

Very high, if you mean the ability of seat belts, airbags, and other safety gear to save lives in crashes. If you mean their success in getting people to wear seat belts, well, it varies. I think the majority of people do wear them, but I don't have statistics handy.

I was making a general, not specific statement. What about the costs of orphaned kids? Widows left without support? Parents bereft of their children? Do you choose not to wear your own belt but buckle in your kids? What does that say about your priorities?

edited 19th Jul '11 1:55:16 PM by Fighteer

For a while I sided with the "It's my body, I can kill it however I want!" point of view. At least until it was pointed out that seatbelt laws aren't (entirely) to protect the person who is/should be wearing it- they're to save everyone else involved in the crash time and money. The other driver, the EMT, the nurse, the surgeon, the undertaker, the families' lawyers, the judge, the jury, the warden, the parole officer, and the insurance company.

Reference: Driving in the United States: Seat belt use. Statistics show anywhere from a 95% to a 40% usage rate depending on where you are. Details by state.

edited 19th Jul '11 1:57:19 PM by Fighteer