stuart (08/13/82)
Of course, using a seatbelt tremendously improves your probable condition following a collision. Its excellent insurance at a very low price. BUT SOME PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO BUY THE SEATBELT INSURANCE, even at its low price. The choice is clear and many, many people would prefer to take the risk rather than pay the price of reaching over to fasten their seat belt. That's their choice, and in a 'free country' people are free to take risks, despite the apparent foolishness of such behavior. Individuals are FREE TO FAIL, free to do (apparently) foolish or stupid things. (And what about the few people who survive because they are thrown from their car, because they did NOT use their seat belts?) The desire of millions of purchasers of automobile to NOT purchase the non-optional seatbelts is clear. Millions are being forced to purchase things which they do not want and will not use even after being forced to buy them. The more consistent advocates of using such force claim that we ALL suffer. I leave the argument against that claim as an exercise in understanding how freedom means a right to act, not a right to some *thing*. (HOW do we 'all' suffer?)
wagner (08/17/82)
The arguements for free will and not being forced to use a seatbelt are obvious. Freedom has been defined as the right to swing your fist to within an inch of others. In other words, you are free to do anything which does not impact others.I purposely submitted the previous article to show how not wearing a seat belt impacts others. When you are unable to control your car in a panic situation, you clearly impact (no pun intended) others. And when you go flying out of your car, you dont just take your own life with you on a ride - on a crowded highway, you risk the lives of those in the cars you hit. This is a similar situation to the one that Americans seem to have a lot of trouble with - gun control. You are free to have a gun, but by doing so, you are potentially preparing to violate someone elses rights. Our countries differ in how we prepare for that possiblility. In Canada, you can have the gun, but it must be registered. In the US, it is such an inalienable right that the society can not even register the guns for its partial protection. (Please, I dont really want to start a gun control arguement, I just want to develop the thesis that society can partially control an item without the individual losing a lot of freedom, and society gains a lot of control over the case where the bounds of freedom have been exceeded by the individual). Now, I claim, and others on the net have backed me up, that ones control of a car in a panic situation is improved with seat belts. Aside from irregular planned panic stops to test the condition of my car and my reflexes, I have unfortunately had more practical experience with real-life accident and near-accident situations than I really wanted. If anyone contests the control question, they are welcome to come try it with me. Ill drive, you stay in the pasenger seat without a seat belt. There is a parking lot (huge) near where I grew up. Every year, once snow has fallen, preferably with some sheet ice, we go out on a saturday when the lot is empty, and practice panic stopping and turning on ice. I could never keep control of the car without a belt. And the situation is more contrived than real life (I know when I am going to hit the brakes, spin the car, etc). Ok, I hope people agree about control. If not, we can talk about it more later. Given control is improved with a belt, we then have the issue of projectile people, which I have gone over already, and wont belabour again, unless it becomes necessary. That leaves us with two situations where the issue of a belt is more than a personal issue. I claim that both of these situations are basically highway situations (sure, I recreated the glare ice situation at slower speeds, but then I *purposely* put the car in a tailspin. You dont tend to get thrown around so much in the city). Perhaps we could come to a compromise as follows: At low speeds, the largest likely result of not wearing a belt is self-inflicted injury only. So belts are optional at city speeds on city-quality roads or equivalent. On the highway, or any road, country included, with speed limit above the city norm (which we will call 50KMH or 30MPH for purposes of this discussion) belts are compulsory to go over the 50KMH limit. If the road has a minimum speed (freeway), then belts are de-facto necessary. On the country road, you can chose to do only 50KMH, but you will get a speeding/belt combined fine if you are caught above without a belt on. How does this strike the people of the net. It is trying to be a compromise between the rights of the individual and those of the larger number. If you write back with comments, please make it clear whether you are commenting on the theoretical level or the implimentation level, since there are clearly some implimentation level problems. I will talk in a few days about some implimentation details that have occured to me, but first, does anyone like it in principle? Michael Wagner, UTCS
dave (08/19/82)
we all suffer by having to pay the medical expenses for the donkeys who don't use their seatbelts. In Ontario, anyway. Free to kill yourself is fine, but don't stick society with the bill.
kgdykes (08/20/82)
Since people like to quote the "costing the rest of society" excuse
for silly laws how about making
smoking and drinking totally illegal
this would be totally within the rights of society as a whole and
i would hope no one would dare think that these activities are without
cost to non-users.
in other words, that excuse could be applied to just about ANY ACTIVITY
but it is those "majorities" that politicians fear who end up retainging
their "freedoms" (or excesses).
Until anti-seatbelt foes become a vocal, and apparent majority politcally,
we will suffer by two-faced politicians who (while smoking and drinking
heavily) pass laws preventing a few hundred people costing the rest
of society an imagined great expense.
(here i use smoking and drinkin as examples, not necessarily true indications
of my beliefs)
....ken (decvax!utzoo!watmath!kgdykes)mat (08/20/82)
Many cars are purchased 'off the lot' and the choice of factory options is not available. Dealers are not always willing to install options at a realistic price, etc. Further, wearing or not wearing seatbelts can affect the safety of OTHER people on the road -- if you get into a hairy situation, say swerving to avoid a car stalled just over a hill, or whatever, and then have to swerve back into your own lane to avoid an accident, being firmly strapped into your car can help you remain in control. I wish that everyone else on the road with me would wear the seatbelt. Moral issue -- do parents who don't fasten their children into cars with belts, car seats, etc deny them the protection that the children deserve ( I am speaking of babies to pre-teens ).
welsch (08/20/82)
It does not bother me if other people do not want to wear seatbelts. What does bother me is that if I am responsible for an accident with somebody in a car who does not choose to wear a seatbelt that I can be sued for his/her choice. Actually rather than a law requiring seatbelts how about a law saying if a person is in automobile at the time of an accident that he/she cannot sue for personal injury unless he/she is wearing a seatbelt.
swatt (08/21/82)
Oboy, another "never-ending flame"! To add some (I think) intelligent thoughts to the seatbelt vs. freedom debate: 1) "Getting killed has a social cost (cleaning up all that blood, etc.). You're not free to stick society with the bill for your foolishness". This argument is more commonly applied to the motorcycle helmet debate. Dear friends, EVERY decision any individual makes has some "social cost" if you want to consider it from that point of view. If an individual decides to enter art as a profession instead of law, that person will (statistically) earn less money during his career and hence pay less in taxes. This is a "social cost". Does this mean we can assign professions to people according to some scheme of balance? Please think about this carefully before you use "social cost" arguments on ANYTHING. 2) "Drivers wearing seatbelts have better control in collisions". Statistically this may be true, but as I asked before, what do the statistics tell you about a PARTICULAR accident? Nothing. Unless you assume for yourself super-human wisdom and knowledge, you can't say in any given situation whether wearing seatbelts harmed or benefitted the people involved. Since it's the PARTICULAR accident for which an individual can be held responsible, it should be the particular individual who makes the decision. You and I can read all the same studies and come to different conclusions. I don't assume you're stupid, unable to read, or unwilling to admit mistakes; why assume other people are, just becuase they disagree with you? Is someone better qualified to arbitrate these disagreements becuase they've passed a Civil Service exam? been elected? pulished a book? appeared on the cover of Time? However, the most important issue is NOT whether seatbelts are better than airbags, or whether either one is better than nothing. It is whether a central authority can decide the question and force people to abide by it. Now for those who worry about "social cost" issues, please note that EVERY law, ruling, executive order, etc., etc. has a cost to it. The cost is applying coercive force to those individuals whose behavior does not conform to the law. When you tally up how many lives (or whatever) will be saved by some proposed legislation, please also consider the debit side: how much will it take to enforce it? Remember: the ONLY way to make people behave in ways they don't want to behave is to use force (or threat of force, which is the same thing). The amount of force required of course varies with how much the desired behavior deviates from the actual, and how difficult it is to catch violators. Now there have always been people who think that if we just eliminated X, then human society would be happy(er). I refer to such people as "original sin" proponents. The basic notion is that people would be "much better off" if only some evil (X) weren't present. The original favorite root of all evil in this century was alcohol. The original sin adherents of that time convinced (or cowered) enough people in this country to completely ban sale of alcholic drinks. They were going to save "God-fearing" gentlefolk from "demon rum". So what happened? Did men who couldn't drink go home to their wives and treat them nicely instead of beating them? Did all the money "saved" by not drinking get spent on "socially constructive" ends? If I have to answer these questions for you, your education is sadly lacking. What happened is what anyone who wasn't blinded by the "original sin" wishful thinking could have predicted: people drank anyway; society spent a LOT of money trying to enforce the laws; "criminals" arrived who would supply "bootleg" liquor; law enforcement organizations were corrupted to the extent necessary for bootleggers to operate; and the drinkers paid MORE money for poorer quality liquor. As a side benefit, the "law abiding" citizen was LESS secure in his home and community becuase of all the criminal activity made possible (necessary, I would say) by laws against alcohol. The so-called "noble experiment" of my parents' generation was NEITHER "noble", NOR an experiment; it was a worse-than-futile exercise in wishful think on a massive scale that was doomed to failure from the outset. Another way to put it: it was STUPID. Stupidity on the part of official government comes pretty close to my notion of evil. The current (or at least current in my day) favorite root of all evil is drugs. We have passed laws against them; we engage in massive education campaigns against them in the public schools. The right-thinking people of our day were going to save their children (us) from the "drug fiends". So what has happened? What has happened again is what anyone not blinded by wishful thinking could have predicted: society has spent a LOT of money trying to stamp out drug usage, including spraying marijuana fields; "dealers" and "pushers" have appeared to supply people with "illegal" drugs; law enforcement organizations have been corrupted to the extent necessary for dealers to operate; and drug users are paying MORE money for poorer quality drugs. As a side benefit, the law-abiding citizen is LESS secure in his home and community because of all the criminal activity around drug use. If this is beginning to sound like a broken record, then perhaps you'll appreciate the similarities with prohibition. Again, the only thing new is history you haven't read. The current wishful-think mafia seems to concern itself with "safty" issues, and agitates to pass all kinds of laws to make life "safer". For two years I lived in Austin, Texas and would waterski regularly on in an artificial lake. The city had passed an ordinance requiring all skiers to wear life-preservers; the lake police would stop boats and inspect them for compliance. Well, in two years I never heard of anyone drowning on that lake, but it sure seemed to me at the time that every single week I'd hear about some swimmer or skiier being hit by a boat. I never took a fall so hard I couldn't at least tread water, and my one major worry was getting run over by another boat. For this reason I always wore my life preserver such that I could get OUT of it quickly if I had to duck under water. I figure my life and health was in greater danger on that lake as a direct result of the good citizens of Austin and their ordinance than it would have been otherwise. The point to all this tirade is: If people drink, take drugs, own guns, buy pornography, smoke cigarettes, employ prostitutes, or refuse to wear seatbelts, maybe it's because THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT TO DO. And before you advocate various laws to change that, ask youself the simple question: how much force will it take to change their behavior, and are you willing to pay that? If you ARE willing, then please move to another society whose totalitarian government is more congenial to your outlook. Normally I'm willing to let wishful thinkers bump into reality without the benefit of my advice, to which they won't listen anyway. The problem with wishful thinkers who connive with legislatures to pass laws favoring their attempts to change human nature is that they bump into reality with MY NOSE. *I* pay the cost of living in a society with so much drug-related crime; I pay it every time I have to lock my car, or worry about my stereo, not to mention the taxes to support the police, courts, insurance companies, etc. I DON'T want to pay the cost of trying to make people wear seatbelts. Certainly not if, as the statistics indicate, they constitute a sizable majority. I'd much rather live in a free society. - Alan S. Watt
djh (08/21/82)
There can be no inteligent argument to the proposition that if posible some people will neglect to buy options designed to protect themselves and their passengers. Since the passenger deserves the choice of having the protection of passive restraint ( as does a subsequent purchaser of the vehicle in question), I see no clear alternative to manditory inclusion ( standard equiptment). The greater the number of cars without restraints the greater the cost of auto insurance. So, what about my choice!, my freedom!. An idea, recind all the laws and start from scratch. I can scratch pretty well, and have no great fear of an anarchistic society based on individual freedom. WHAT? This doesn't belong on net.auto! I agree. I prefer to see net.auto used to educate, inform and exchange. Shop talk, if you will. Regulatory matters are appropriatly discussed on net.consumer, or net.politics or somewhere else. Please forgive this flame, but america on wheels makes net.auto as important as net.food or (dare I say it) net.electronics. I would very much like to be able to read net.auto even when I am very busy. Dan Hart BTL WH floyd!djh
filed01@abnjh.UUCP (07/13/83)
After always having worn seatbelts (since 1956) and never needing them, I was involved in a collision which did $ 1500 damage to my car, but left me without a scratch. They work. To those who argue that wearing seatbelts is a personal decision: the consequences of not wearing them (or helmets if you are a motorcyclist) go beyond the personal. Add up the hospitalization costs, costs of lost income, burial costs, welfare for the surviving family, etc. Unless you are rich enough so that these costs will truly come out of your own capital when in an accident, I will have to pay my share in increased taxes, insurance, reduced dividends, etc. Society therefore has a legitimate interest in minimizing injuries or deaths to its members.