Should people be required to wear seatbelts?

[A18]

Option 2. What asinine laws.

Option 3 is better than option 1, though.

Also, this is yet another argument against universal health care.

If government takes care of you, government gets to make rules for you like whether or not you wear a seatbelt or not. If you're responsible for your own health, then you are actually free.

[Rob]

Hell. NO.

[A18]

Good to see we have all NOs so far.

[Gabu]

No, but why the heck is option 3 better than option 1?

[Moooooo]

Yes.

[dazzleman]

I must admit that I didn't wear a seatbelt before it became mandatory, and now I do.

So on the one hand, I don't in theory favor seat belt laws, but on the other hand, I see the benefit they have brought.

For a long time after the law was passed, I continued not to wear my seat belt because I was a stupid rebel. 

In New York state, where I lived at the time, the cops generally didn't like the seat belt law because it was pushed by Gov. Mario Cuomo, who was unpopular with the police for, among other things, his stand against the death penalty for cop killers.  So they made it a point not to enforce the law.  I got stopped a few times during that period for other moving violations and got ticketed for those, but never got a ticket for failing to wear my seatbelt.

Eventually, I realized I was just being a stupid angry young man, a rebel without a cause (and a clue), so I started wearing it.

I guess in sum I would say, I did not support the seat belt laws at the time they were passed, but at this point, I would not repeal them.  How's that for intellectual consistency?

[opebo]

I never could understand why anyone would refrain from wearing a seatbelt.  I always relate this choice to condom use, except that if you don't put on your condom you do gain something - it feels better.  Still overall not a safe choice, but in some cases you might consider is worth the risk.  If you don't put on your seatbelt, what do you gain?

[Cashcow]

Absolutely not - seat belt and helmet laws are worthless. However, I'll always wear them anyway.

[dazzleman]

I never could understand why anyone would refrain from wearing a seatbelt.  I always relate this choice to condom use, except that if you don't put on your condom you do gain something - it feels better.  Still overall not a safe choice, but in some cases you might consider is worth the risk.  If you don't put on your seatbelt, what do you gain?

Nothing - only the satisfaction of breaking the law.  

It was a peer pressure thing, mostly.  None of my friends wore their seat belts, and it was considered "girly" to worry about safety.  We didn't wear seat belts for the same reasons we drove too fast, and laughed at the repeated tickets we got for that.  Stupid, pointless youthful rebellion.

That's why I started to wear my seatbelt when I stopped thinking that way.

[phk]

No, if your stupid enough to not wear one; Social Darwinism should cancel you out anyway.

[David S]

In an accident seat belts are your best defense against injury, but you should not be required to use them. Hopefully you will use them because you are smart enough to realize that its in your best interest.

[angus]

They should not.  Nor helmets on motorcycles.  Nor should any drug be available by prescription only.  Each must decide for himself in a free society what best suits his needs for safety and health.

There's also the issue of thinking on a higher sociological order.  Internalized values are strong and kept, enforced values are superficial and soon forgotten.  If my son wears his seatbelt because it's The Law, then he won't wear one when he vacations in a third-world country when he rents a car there.  And thus his longevity may be affected.  If my son wears a seatbelt because he has read that in 87% of all accidents (direct hits to the driver's side door being the exception, 13% over a long time) he's better off if wearing than not wearing it, then he will be more likely to wear the seatbelt when he rents a car in a land where seat bealts are not required to be worn. 

[David S]

They should not.  Nor helmets on motorcycles.  Nor should any drug be available by prescription only. 

I'm getting a bit off topic here but I somewhat agree with the comment on prescription drugs. As an example lets say you scrape your knee and a couple of days later the wound is beginning to itch and you have red streaks running up your leg. You might recognize that as an infection and realize that you need antibiotics. As things are today you must make a trip to the doctor or emergency room before you can get a prescription to buy them. In a freer society we could go straight to the drug store and buy antibiotics. That would save the cost of a doctor or emergency room visit and would get antibiotics into your system faster too.

[Rob]

I never could understand why anyone would refrain from wearing a seatbelt.  I always relate this choice to condom use, except that if you don't put on your condom you do gain something - it feels better.  Still overall not a safe choice, but in some cases you might consider is worth the risk.  If you don't put on your seatbelt, what do you gain?

I find it more comfortable not wearing a seatbelt.

[Redefeatbush04]

I was hit with one of those $42 dollar fines for not wearing a seatbelt. I think I mentioned it in the "how many times have you been arrested" thread. It is a dumb law. The worst that can happen is the removal of stupid people from the gene pool

[Jake]

I was hit with one of those $42 dollar fines for not wearing a seatbelt. I think I mentioned it in the "how many times have you been arrested" thread. It is a dumb law. The worst that can happen is the removal of stupid people from the gene pool

like you

[Redefeatbush04]

I was hit with one of those $42 dollar fines for not wearing a seatbelt. I think I mentioned it in the "how many times have you been arrested" thread. It is a dumb law. The worst that can happen is the removal of stupid people from the gene pool

like you

grrrrrr

[dazzleman]

I was hit with one of those $42 dollar fines for not wearing a seatbelt. I think I mentioned it in the "how many times have you been arrested" thread. It is a dumb law. The worst that can happen is the removal of stupid people from the gene pool

Dude, you realize you just dissed yourself?

In New Jersey, I thought that failure to wear a seat belt was a secondary violation, meaning that you can't get stopped for it unless you were doing something else wrong, like speeding, running a red light, etc.  Were you stopped for something else in addition to the seat belt violation?

One good thing about the seat belt laws is that sometimes, a cop will write a person up for that as a way to give them a break from a more serious violation.  I know guys who were stopped for speeding, chatted up the cop, and ended up getting off with a seat belt violation, which carries a light fine ($37 in my state, I believe) and no points against your license, as opposed to fines in the range of $250 plus points for speeding.

It's not one of those issues that keep me up nights, in any case.  I hope none of us ever has an accident to find out the benefits of seat belts.

[Akno21]

Just wear the damn thing.

[A18]

Just wear the damn thing.

Just mind your own damn business.

[Erc]

Kids should be buckled up.

But adults...unless there's significant proof out there that not wearing a seatbelt may cause harm to other participants in the crash [ie your dead body smashing into them and breaking their neck is a known and common occurrence]...then there's no reason to enforce it by law.

And there's absolutely no reason not to wear a seatbelt in the first place, so it's not like a disastrous infringement on my personal liberties anyway.

[A18]

I don't think kids should have to wear them either, and I'm pretty sure that don't have to, at least in some states, as long as they're over a certain weight and aren't sitting up front.

I used to have an RV, and went we went on vacations, I would be up and moving an awful lot. Particularly when you're just on an interstate highway.

[Nym90]

Adults should not be required to wear a belt.

Children should.

However, we should ensure that driver's ed classes clearly demonstrate how much sense it makes to wear one; fully educate people, then let them make their own choices. That's my position on a lot of social issues.

[angus]

I find it more comfortable not wearing a seatbelt.

I'm thinking that the guy in your signature also does.

[minionofmidas]

I think that's a photo of himself.


Okay, I don't. Anyways...

I tend to wear the seatbelt
a) Whenever I'm in the front seat
b) Whenever the driver asks me to
c) Whenever the driver doesn't drive that terribly well.

Needless to say, that's almost always, as b) and c) are largely mutually exclusive groups.