Should people be required to wear seatbelts?

[angus]

That you Bob?  Not too many posters are man enough to put up a picture of himself naked.  My hat's off to you, sir.  My armrests too. 

[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

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.

Yeah I was doing 48 in a 30 MPH area. I had my seatbelt on but took it off as soon as he pulled me over. He thought I wasn't wearing one but I wasn't going to argue with him; he let me off easy.

[David S]

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.

I agree that children should have to be in seatbelts.

If the dumbells of the world kill themselves through foolish behaviour thats OK but its not OK for them to kill their kids.

[dazzleman]

Yeah I was doing 48 in a 30 MPH area. I had my seatbelt on but took it off as soon as he pulled me over. He thought I wasn't wearing one but I wasn't going to argue with him; he let me off easy.

You got off easy so I wouldn't complain.  That's the type of situation I mentioned in my earlier post.  But why did you take the seatbelt off when he pulled you over?

[minionofmidas]

That you Bob?  Not too many posters are man enough to put up a picture of himself naked.  My hat's off to you, sir.  My armrests too. 

I was joking when I said that.

[angus]

Ouch.  That's a little embarassing.

[Rob]

That you Bob?  Not too many posters are man enough to put up a picture of himself naked.  My hat's off to you, sir.  My armrests too. 

LOL, no. I never would have put that stupid picture up if I knew people would think it was me. Very disgusting.

I found it by doing an Image Search on Google for "fat man" or "fat guy", IIRC. I was going to put it in the "post your picture" thread, but I put some ugly bastard there instead.

All right, didn't mean to sound so defensive, but I don't want you to think that guy is me. (I'm skinny, BTW. )

[Gabu]

That you Bob?  Not too many posters are man enough to put up a picture of himself naked.  My hat's off to you, sir.  My armrests too. 

LOL, no. I never would have put that stupid picture up if I knew people would think it was me. Very disgusting.

I found it by doing an Image Search on Google for "fat man" or "fat guy", IIRC. I was going to put it in the "post your picture" thread, but I put some ugly bastard there instead.

All right, didn't mean to sound so defensive, but I don't want you to think that guy is me. (I'm skinny, BTW. )

I've seen that picture before.  It's one of those things that's secretly infiltrated the internet.

[Rob]

That you Bob?  Not too many posters are man enough to put up a picture of himself naked.  My hat's off to you, sir.  My armrests too. 

LOL, no. I never would have put that stupid picture up if I knew people would think it was me. Very disgusting.

I found it by doing an Image Search on Google for "fat man" or "fat guy", IIRC. I was going to put it in the "post your picture" thread, but I put some ugly bastard there instead.

All right, didn't mean to sound so defensive, but I don't want you to think that guy is me. (I'm skinny, BTW. )

I've seen that picture before.  It's one of those things that's secretly infiltrated the internet.

Great picture, but not when people think it's you.

[Platypus]

Bit of a story to tell. A few years back, we had a family friend from Houston staying with us. As we were driving around town omewhere, we all put our seatbelts on, and he didn't. After about three minutes we noticed and told him to put it on; he just refused. After we'd tried explaining it was the law, my mum just slammed the brakes on (not quite straight down, but enough) so that he got a huge fright and put it on.

Not wearing them is simple and utter stupidity. Unfortunately, there are a hell of a lot of stupid people, and it seems to me that it's a case of whether people need to be protected from themselves. I've probably been in a car without a seatbelt for more then a couple of hundred meters about...well, maybe twice. It's no great invasion of liberty to wear it, and it saves lies, pure and simple.