richard@aplvax.UUCP (07/01/83)
I want an airbag system and a passive restraint system in my car. Should I have an accident, I want my passengers and myself to survive. I also want anyone else involved in the accident to survive, with as little damage as possible. I would like to see the seatbelt laws enforced. It's a tragic waste for so many people to die needlessly because they thought that seatbelts were a "bother." Seatbelt laws are no different from other life-saving legislation such as housing codes or drug testing. All this legislation mandates behavior that is good for society, at a cost that is outweighed by the resulting benefits. If I'm involved in an accident that results in physical injury to another person who is not wearing a seatbelt, I want my possible liability to be limited to the injury he would have sustained had he been wearing seatbelts. It is unreasonable not to wear seat belts. Not wearing seat belts results in more people having worse injuries; it means higher insurance premiums for everyone. Are those people who oppose these systems on the basis that they are intrusions into their "personal freedom" also bothered by the intrusions that result in safer tires, brakes, steering, etc.? Are they bothered by the intrusions that make their children's pajamas flame retardant, or the intrusions that make their homes safe from electrical fires? Why don't these people grow up ? - Rich Greenberg
laura@utcsstat.UUCP (07/03/83)
Rich Greenberg writes:
It is unreasonable not to wear seat belts. Not wearing seat
belts results in more people having worse injuries; it means
higher insurance premiums for everyone. Are those people who
oppose these systems on the basis that they are intrusions into
their "personal freedom" also bothered by the intrusions that
result in safer tires, brakes, steering, etc.? Are they
bothered by the intrusions that make their children's pajamas
flame retardant, or the intrusions that make their homes safe
from electrical fires?
Why don't these people grow up ?
I guess since I am one of those people I had better answer this...
Not wearing seatbelts *now* means higher premiums for everyone. This is
not an absolute law of the universe. If everyone who agreed to wear
seatbelts had lower premiums and everyone who did not had much higher
ones, then both the seatbelt wearers and the Insurance Companies would
benefit. The non-seatbelt wearers could pay for the right to not wear
seatbelts (rights are not by definition FREE, by the way) and (though I
wear a seatbelt and cant really presume to understand those who dont)
ought to be happy. You will have to think up a very stiff way to
penalise those who dont wear seatbelts but have agreed to with their
insurance, but governments are notorious for discovering nasty ways to
penalise people for fraud, so this ought to be relatively easy.
so vanishes argument #1.
As for the other intrusions -- I am not bothered that safer ways of
doing things exist. I am bothered when I am legally forced to do
something which I may make a conscious decision not to. Setting a
standard for safe cars (whether this involves tires, steering or
anything else) is a good thing when unsafe cars can harm other people.
This is not the case with seatbelts, except in that if I drive with
someone who does not have seatbelts in his car I am at a risk. Since I
can always refuse the ride if I am unwilling to accept the risk, this
is hardly the same sort of situation as the "safe brakes" one you
outline.
Perhaps an better analogy is mountain climbing. Mountain climbing is
dangerous. Lots of people get killed climbing mountains. If you climb
mountains you may have a hard time getting life insurance. On the
other hand, nobody does any serious mountain climbing without being
aware of the risks. Are we going to ban mountain climbing because it is
dangerous?
Actually, I would have found your comment about the kid's pajamas
rather amusing, had it not been the basis of one of the greatest
tragedies I have ever witnessed. In Honduras, while I was working at a
hospital there, they tried the same thing. All pajamas had to be fire
resistant. Since an awful lot (there is no way to get a correct
estimate since no accurate census exists) of children die and are
severely burned with the coal oil lamps they light their homes with (no
electricity, remember) this sounded like a fine idea.
Alas, there are very few textile plants in Honduras (and the major one
had just burned down in a strike at the time). They all added something
like FIBERGLASS (we never found out for sure what it was) to the
pajamas. No poor person could afford imported American clothes. What
was the result? As people bought the new pajamas and put them on their
babies, their babies' skins were litterally torn away by the material in
the pajamas. You get babies who are raw from head to foot with massive
infections due to the pajamas they were wearing. It was worse than the
burns, where at least the wounds scab over.
Babies died.
We noticed what was going on, and spread the word that the pajamas were
lethal. But the textile industries could not invest more time and
money in a better pajama, and the government would not recind the law. It
was only when people stopped giving their children pajamas that we
stopped seeing the cases. This was worse than it sounded, for among the
poor, pajamas are often the only clothes of children; the others
are too expensive.
There have been several governments in Honduras since I was last there.
For all I know, you can get the old pajamas (which offered some
protection from scalding, another killer of the young) these days. If
not, then I bet you see a lot of naked mestizos y indios in Honduras.
This is the problem with allowing the government to impose safety upon
people. If they do a bad job, it will take an infinite number of
refinements. Had the textile industry not been forced to sell only
fireproof pajamas, then they would have had longer to prepare good
pajamas. Had mothers been able to buy the old pajamas, there would have
been fewer pajama-killed babies.
At some point, you have to make the safer option AVAILABLE, and trust
that people's natural intelligence will dictate to them that they
should use it. If people are too stupid, then you must educate the
people. Denying them the opportunity to make responsible decisions
only makes them inept at making responsible decisions when the next
time comes. Thus you need more and more laws as people become less and
less able to make responsible decisions for themselves.
Laura Creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!lauraleichter@yale-com.UUCP (Jerry Leichter) (07/04/83)
Re: Dangerous fireproof" pyjamas. Laura's example is good, if sad; but you don't need to got to Honduras to find an example; pretty much the same thing happened here. When the FTC passed a requirement that all children's pyjamas had to be fireproof, the industry pretty much unanimously came to the conclusion that the best way to do this was to treat the fabric with a substance called Tris. It turns out that Tris is a carcinogen. After the fact, with 20-20 hindsight, all the consumerists attacked the industry for using Tris "just because it was the cheapest substance available." There is all sorts of debate on this now, and it's still up in the air - since there are, of course, law suits involved - but from what I've seen, there was little research available on the safety of Tris when the decision to use it was made. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to have been much research available on any of the (more expensive) substitutes either. The manufactures are, of course, liable under the usual strict liability theories for "un- reasonably dangerous" consumer goods - a theory widely recognized as having little to do with justice as such, but rather a form of compulsary insurance. (For those unfamiliar with it: Under strict liability theory, a manufacturer is liable if her sells a dangerous item even if he can show that he took all reasonable precautions. The theory arose around the turn of the century as the result of cases involving things like bits of sharp metal found in cans of peas. As a practical matter, you can NEVER show any particular case of negligence in something like this; the manufacturer will show how carefully everything is checked, etc. For a long time, consumers lost cases like this. Eventually, the law changed; it was decided that metal in a can of peas was in and of itself a sufficient reason to hold the manufacturer liable. The resulting law then says: No matter how careful you are, we realize that accidents will happen; but you have to pay for them as the "deep pocket" in the case. I.e.: You have to get (or provide your own) insurance to cover the oddball, one-in-a-million case when something goes wrong. Of course, all the 999,999 purchasers of non-defective cans of peas pay a little extra to cover this cost; nothing comes free.) (My own feeling about this, BTW, is that it's a very reasonable approach, as long as it is kept within bounds. Occasionally, it gets out of hand - like the celebrated case of the New York idiot who dried her poodle off in a microwave oven, killing it. She sued and won. (Yes, it really did happen; a lawyer friend looked it up one day. Many cases like this are won in jury trials but then overturned on appeal. In this case, there was apparently a lot of bad publicity in the air about microwave ovens at the time, so the company decided it was better to just eat the loss and avoid the press coverage that would certainly have attended the appeal. Isn't justice wonderful?)) Anyway...to return a bit closer to the original topic: A fundamental dif- ference between the marketplace and the world of politics is that the mar- ketplace supports many parallel solutions to the same problem, allowing the purchaser to choose. (That's why monopolies are a bad thing; they don't give you that choice.) Politics, on the other hand, is inherently a matter of making choices between alternatives. It works best when a single choice can be made that makes everyone at least reasonably satisfied. Political "parallel solutions" are extremely rare, probably rightly so - if there is no concensus within the polity on the direction to take, why is the polity as an entity taking any direction at all? Politics relies heavily on com- promises - i.e., merging different solutions into one that leaves no one TOO unhappy. So...whenever you propose that "the government" get involved in some choice, remember that a side-effect will be that the choice made will soon be the ONLY one available - so you had better be prepared to live with it. Some- times this is a good way to go, sometimes it's not - but each situation has to be examined closely on its merits. A great French phrase that I can never remember in the original comes to mind: It is necessary to also want the consequences of what one wants. (The French has a great ring to it; does anyone know it, or the source?) -- Jerry decvax!yale-comix!leichter leichter@yale
ecn-pc:ecn-ed:parent@pur-ee.UUCP (07/14/83)
It seems that in Canada (well, British Columbia) you are legally
required to wear seatbelts. If you are not you can be cited, and the
police are able to stop you and check. They usually won't stop you to
see if you are wearing your seatbelt, but are sure to get you for it
if they stop you for something else (speeding, running a stop light,
etc.). There is also some law that limits the amount of damages an
insurance company is liable for if they can prove you were not wearing
a seat belt. Some landmark case happen a few years ago in which some
woman was hit by a truck (the truck driver was determined to be at fault)
and was badly injuerred and was partially
paralized, but because she was not wearing her seatbelt at the time of
the accident the lawsuit she filed against the trucker (for some vast
amount of money) was thrown out of court, and the insurance company had
to pay only what was stated in the trucker's policy.
While it is unfortunate that the woman was badly injured, I would not
want to be sued for more money than I'll ever make in my whole life just
because someone did not feel their health was not worth the time it takes
to fasten one's seatbelt.
I was fortunate one rainy night when I lost control of my car on a
curve at the top of a hill and ended up upside down in a ditch at the
side of the road. Of course, I was wearing my seat belt and was still
firmly in my seat when the car came to rest and was not harmed in the least
my car, alas, was not so fortunate.
---- Stefan Sobol ----
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