Did Granholm Veto the Repeal of the helmet law?

[Lunar]

Legilsating personal safety regulations like this is ridiculous.  There seem to be two arguments in favor of it.

First, proponents point out that safety is more important than minor elements of personal freedom.  I admit that my choice whether or not to wear a seatbelt or a helmet is an insignificant decision despite its potential benefits (not dying). 
Second, proponents argue that it is not "personal freedom" because it affects the common good through the common health care system. 

However, both of these arguments suffer from the basic question: "Where do you draw the line?"  The government can outlaw almost anything at the point where we give them this freedom.  Eating hamburgers and unhealthy food should be forbidden under both of the earlier arguments and similar arguments could be made for mandatory sunglasses-wearing laws and so on.  What this means is that seatbelt and helmet regulations are logically inconsistent and are defined by the personal habits of the legislators and/or the majority of voters.  If the majority of voters eats hamburgers or smoke cigarettes, then we maintain that legaility.  If the majority want to wear seatbelts, then the freedom of those of us who would rather be more comfortable in our seats is restricted. 

This map is just silly and should never be considered in any serious argument:

Notice how they don't show the increase of road deaths in the other states?  The makers of this map seem to be tricky people.  Population increases naturally cause an exponential increase in traffic accidents.   Even if it were accurate though, it wouldn't influence any of arguments against helmet laws.
 
Why should US laws be protecting the profit margins of private insurance companies anyway?  But, even assuming we have a moral obligation to help insurance companies, I think there are alternatives to mandatory safety laws such as this one.  Perhaps, if ever a police report notes a failure of an individual to wear a seatbelt or a helmet, even if it is completely unreleated to the subject of the police report, the driver and passengers would face severe hikes in their insurance rates.

Furthermore, laws like this increase police ineffeciency and waste judicial resources.  Police officers are searching for, and the papers need to be processed for, individuals who are not even increasing the risk of danger for those around them, let alone actively engaging in rights-infringement.

Basically, the law should not restrict freedom of choice when the only consequence of the choice would be leveled against the individual in question.  Sure, people choosing to do stupid things like running down stairs or not wearing helmets may be a burden upon hospitols and the health system, but that's the price we pay for not living in a totalitarian society, assuming it's even possible to enforce everything unhealthy we could do to ourselves!  I don't want to give the government the blank-check power to be able to 'protect us from ourselves.'

[Lunar]

Dod you notice that they showed increase by percentage, not actual numbers?

Yes.  My point is that population growth results in an increase in traffic accidents.  If the map was serious about producing objective numbers it would at least use per-capita numbers.  If it was really serious, it would calculate the rough statistics for how population increases relate to increases in traffic fatality (I doubt it's 1:1; doubling the amount of cars on the road would do more than double accidents, I think).  The map seems to  be propaganda with its intentional number-twisting.

However, it's pretty obvious that accidents are going to be more dangerous without helmets.  My points generally acknowledge that as a fact.  Heart attacks would be less dangerous without fatty foods too, hah.

[Lunar]

Dod you notice that they showed increase by percentage, not actual numbers?

Yes.  My point is that population growth results in an increase in traffic accidents.  If the map was serious about producing objective numbers it would at least use per-capita numbers.  If it was really serious, it would calculate the rough statistics for how population increases relate to increases in traffic fatality (I doubt it's 1:1; doubling the amount of cars on the road would do more than double accidents, I think).  The map seems to  be propaganda with its intentional number-twisting.

However, it's pretty obvious that accidents are going to be more dangerous without helmets.  My points generally acknowledge that as a fact.  Heart attacks would be less dangerous without fatty foods too, hah.

But how do you know it's not accounting for an increase of cars?

Because it would mention "per-capita" or "adjusted" somewhere.  The graphic simply says "traffic fatality increases."  I don't think the makers of the graphic would exclude the opportunity to mention that they adjusted the numbers to make them lower (and more accurate), since it would add more power behind them.

Furthermore, if you look at the numbers, the highest percentage increases result from earlier dates.

From my perspective and from my arguments, I don't care if the graphic is right or if the actual numbers reach into the thousands of percentage points though.  I challenged the map because others might base their opinions on those numbers.  So, really, it's not that important.