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Do you believe in seat belt laws for consenting adults?

Do you believe in seat belt laws?

  • Total voters
    99
  • Poll closed .
avatar said:
I wouldn't mind people not wearing seatbelts if there were a guarantee that they would not become a burden on me or others after they crash. Included in that burden would be any increase in my insurance costs because the pool has to support vegetables.
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While I agree with your sentiments, I'm guessing most people ejected from their vehicles ( i.e. not wearing seatbelts) die at the accident scene.
DOA's probably save money.
 
Cardinal said:
One of the government's primary duties is to keep its citizens safe from people who have no regard for the safety or property of others. I'm not going to accept disbanding that duty, especially as it's been demonstrated in this thread that there are people who are only able to see the seat belt discussion in terms of their own freedom and not the safety of others. Government would be delinquent in their duties if it didn't curtail people like that.
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You haven't told me the limits of your argument. The problem with your argument, of all safety duty arguments, is that once someone is sworn to protect you the limits are only controlled by their own self control. If that person has no sense of control that could very well lead to some pretty disastrous ends.
 
Henrin said:
You haven't told me the limits of your argument. The problem with your argument, of all safety duty arguments, is that once someone is sworn to protect you the limits are only controlled by their own self control. If that person has no sense of control that could very well lead to some pretty disastrous ends.
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I'm not interested in the philosophical ramifications of enforcing seatbelt use. All I'm interested in is a)people who don't wear their seat belts are more likely to be less in control of their vehicles and therefore risk endangering others, and b)oh, there is no b. Just a.
 
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Cardinal said:
I'm not interested in the philosophical or legal ramifications of enforcing seatbelt use. All I'm interested in is a)people who don't wear their seat belts are more likely to be less in control of their vehicles and therefore risk endangering others, and b)oh, there is no b. Just a.
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Yes, I realize that, but you should be interested in the ramifications of your logic. You may not like it but when you have an argument you should define it clearly and make sure you limit it's reach or you could very well find the government acting on something you didn't expect all because someone else is following your argument to it's logical ends. Arguments need definition, and topics can not be treated independently of each other. They interconnect and affect each other, and once an open ended concept gets thrown into the mix it will only expand to affect everyone around it until it engulfs all. Your safety argument has already done this and it has already been shown without a shadow of a doubt as unwise. There is no reason to humor it unless you desire to limit it's reach or else all we are talking about is a police state, and at the moment, we already have one those we need to get rid of.
 
radioman said:
While I agree with your sentiments, I'm guessing most people ejected from their vehicles ( i.e. not wearing seatbelts) die at the accident scene.
DOA's probably save money.
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I suspect that seatbelts protect from much more than ejections.
 
ChrisL said:
I'm not buying the "human projectile" thing too much because really anything is going to become a projectile during an accident, anything in the vehicle or on the vehicle has that potential, so that's a lame reason for forcing adults to wear seat belts IMO.
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Name something else normally in a vehicle's passenger compartment that weighs 120 or more pounds. Weight does make a difference.

But along with that, you're required to secure things within or on your vehicle that can become a road hazard, or you can get in trouble for not doing so.

And very few people would feel any guilt or be emotionally upset about running over an inanimate object. However, most people, at least if they aren't severely messed up already, are not going to take running over a person, whether living or not, well.
 
DA60 said:
To not wear a seat belt is silly if you care about your safety. They obviously save lives in a huge way.

BUT...I do not believe for one second that the government has the right to force you to wear them.

If I want to further risk my life by not wearing a seat belt...that is my choice.

Bungy jumping and recreational skydiving are not safe...should the government outlaw them as well? Of course not.

I should be legally able to smoke crack, jump out of an airplane for fun, not wear a helmet while I ride a motorcycle, not wear seat belts or even kill myself...none of these things on their own are ANY of the government's business.

If I wish to abuse/subject my body to greater danger...including not wearing seat belts...that should be my choice.
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Its very easy to agree with this argument, and difficult to disagree.
But, even as I shelled out about $56 to have belts installed in two vehicles fifth plus years ago, I now wear the belt when I determine..
No blind obedience..
Tis true that their use saves lives, but other things as well are a factor
 
reinoe said:
The problem is Obama. We never see him wearing seatbelts.
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Good point.
Worse yet is the prez' jovial attitude in the photos.
Laughing while he defies the law.
How will the USA survive this lawless regime?
 
being saved by not wearing a seatbelt is a statistical anomaly . But I don't care about government rules, or standard deviations from the curve. It's my butt out there.

It's insane not to wear a seat belt -except when not doing so saves one's life. Understanding inertia, 90% of the times I buckle up. There are a few times i'd prefer not to.
 
roguenuke said:
Seat belts act as the required counter force to change the speed and direction of the object, aka person.
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Seatbelts negate the first law of motion?
 
scatt said:
Seatbelts negate the first law of motion?
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Basic physics lesson about Newton's First Law of Motion.

Newton's First Law

"An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force"

The seatbelt acts as that unbalanced force to stop the object (aka person) from moving at the same speed, in same direction as it was prior to the accident or whatever caused the vehicle to stop suddenly.
 
roguenuke said:
The seatbelt acts as that unbalanced force to stop the object (aka person) from moving at the same speed, in same direction as it was prior to the accident or whatever caused the vehicle to stop suddenly.
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The scenario is human body parts flying from a car.

Do seatbelts stop this?
 
scatt said:
The scenario is human body parts flying from a car.

Do seatbelts stop this?
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Seatbelts prevent the majority of human bodies from flying from the car when those seatbelts are worn. (We were discussing full bodies being ejected from cars, not simply body parts.)
 
Cardinal said:
"Hard crashes?" You mean the kind where you fly through windshields?
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the kind where the firewall collapses on your legs and the post on each side of the windshield meaning the jaws of life cut you out. As cars get smaller it gets worse
 
roguenuke said:
Seatbelts prevent the majority of human bodies from flying from the car when those seatbelts are worn.
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Body parts, and it stops neither body parts or full bodies.
 
scatt said:
Body parts, and it stops neither body parts or full bodies.
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Seatbelts stop bodies from flying out of cars in many situations. Without a seatbelt, you have a body continuing to travel in the same direction, at same speed it was going until acted upon by something else. The seatbelt acts as that something else right away. There is a little slowdown as a body flies out a windshield, but not a lot if the person is traveling higher speeds. Plenty of people have been ejected from their vehicles due to not wearing their seatbelts. Or are you going to contest this fact?

CDC - Seat Belt Policy Impact Brief - Motor Vehicle Safety - Injury Center

Ejection from Vehicles Involved in Fatal Crashes Is Increasing

"TABLE 1
Ejection Rates Among Belted and Unbelted Motor Vehicle Occupants in Fatal Crashes

Ejected Not Ejected
Belted 2.49% 97.51%
Unbelted 29.43% 70.57%"

And we were discussing full bodies, not parts. I know where it was that I first quoted you on this. We were discussing people being ejected from their cars, not simply their body parts (which is unlikely to happen and kinda hard to prevent completely).
 
roguenuke said:
Seatbelts stop bodies from flying out of cars in many situations. Without a seatbelt, you have a body continuing to travel in the same direction, at same speed it was going until acted upon by something else. The seatbelt acts as that something else right away. There is a little slowdown as a body flies out a windshield, but not a lot if the person is traveling higher speeds. Plenty of people have been ejected from their vehicles due to not wearing their seatbelts. Or are you going to contest this fact?

CDC - Seat Belt Policy Impact Brief - Motor Vehicle Safety - Injury Center

Ejection from Vehicles Involved in Fatal Crashes Is Increasing

"TABLE 1
Ejection Rates Among Belted and Unbelted Motor Vehicle Occupants in Fatal Crashes

Ejected Not Ejected
Belted 2.49% 97.51%
Unbelted 29.43% 70.57%"

And we were discussing full bodies, not parts. I know where it was that I first quoted you on this. We were discussing people being ejected from their cars, not simply their body parts (which is unlikely to happen and kinda hard to prevent completely).
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I did not ask for qualifiers. A seatbelt does not eliminate body parts or full bodies from exiting a car.
 
scatt said:
I did not ask for qualifiers. A seatbelt does not eliminate body parts or full bodies from exiting a car.
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So what? Brakes don't eliminate car accidents. Should we get rid of those too?
 
When you hire your own EMTs to scrape your dumb ass off the pavement when you don't wear a seat belt, then you can feel free not to.
 
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