Got pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt. Why is this even a law?

MatthewXCountry wrote:

Bigfoot wrote:

If you don't wear a seat belt and are seriously injured, but not killed, in an Auto accident, your Medical bills could become the responsibility of John Q Public. If you don't have medical coverage, or if you have a low limit, there's an excellent chance there will be unpaid bills. Your bills may then be paid by Medicare or Medicaid which is funded by US.

bingo!

That same line goes for people who wear a seat belt and are seriously injured. Which is 90% of the time. So currently, I am basically paying for seat belt wearing fools that got seriously injured in accidents? I vote for making it a law to ban seat belt wearing.

jorvack wrote:

Benefit of not wearing seatbelt? 0

At speeds as low as 15 mph you could easily loses consciousness when you face smacks the wind shield and your car could go on to cause multiple fatal accidents.

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Tell that to someone more gullible and that hasn't been in an accident. My only accident occurred when I was 19 when I had to swerve to avoid an old bag who ran a red light. I hit a telephone pole at around 25mph. My car was totaled but I had no scratches or bruises on me. As a matter of fact, I don't remember moving much. I was not wearing a seat belt and had no airbag. A face smacking the windshield at 15 mph? Good lord.

I usually have my belt on during highway driving and while driving on medium speed two way roads.

I received a seat belt ticket two times in my life. Once in a parking lot and once at a red light in the city where no one was going above 10-15mph. That was disturbingly senseless and it opened my eyes as to how much of a farce this law is and it is used more of a money generator than anything.

Fact is, the driver is the one that should be the least required to wear a seat belt. Front passenger is more important. The rear passengers are the most important yet there is no law that requires them to do so? Why? I thought they cared? Or is it just because they are harder for the police to spot not wearing a belt and therefore not able to hand you a ticket as easily?

The reason is not about saving you from your stupidity, but about saving the rest of society from paying for your stupidity. When ignorant guy refuses to wear a seat belt because he thinks the government is interfering in his life, he is really putting society at a financial disadvantage. In an accident, he will be maimed far worse than someone wearing a seat belt. He will go to the hospital and be on life support for 10x longer than he should have been. He will likely then fail to pay the hospital bills that will rack up. Those hospital bills will then be supplemented by the rest of the people with insurance or who actually pay their hospital bills. This is because the hospital charges multiples of their actual cost per patient knowing that a large portion of society has neither insurance nor money to pay. In this way the hospital can cover the cost of the ignorant persons who won't wear a seat belt or get health insurance.

So it is not your right and it is not a victimless crime. Your rights end where someone else's rights begin. That includes financial burden to society.

It is illegal in my state for any occupant of a moving vehicle to ride without a seat belt. Children must be in a safety seat or booster. You should probably look that up for your state before posting.

...???? wrote:

Cop wouldn't have even known if my windows weren't down. Why does the government have a say in my safety when it harms no one else but myself if I wreck? Motorcyclists don't wear seatbelts....

By the way, I do normally wear a seatbelt but I was 5 minutes away from where I was going and never went above 35mph.

So no way you can have an accident in 5 mins!

If someone else is also doing 35 hits you head on you could fly through the windshield and injure or kill someone in the other vehicle with intelligence. Plus ambulance cost etc comes out of the public purse.

Otherwise it would be a good demonstration of Darwin's law.

Hfgjn wrote:

Go look up video of people being ejected from a vehicle. You basically become a 100+ lb projectile hurtling through the air at 60mph.

I guess seatbelts are the price you pay for access to mult-million dollar highway/freeway system.

I would say the taxes you pay are what give you access to the road/freeway system.

As for seat belt laws, the irony is that by the time there is enough political consensus to pass a seat belt law, the vast majority of people see the overwhelming arguments in favor of using a seat belt. Which make's the institution of the law completely unnecessary.

In general, laws are there to control externalities. In other words, if your actions can hurt someone else, then a law is appropriate to limit your activity. The best argument for seat belt laws is that if you die in a car wreck, there might be other people such as your dependents who suffer due to your death. In this capacity, the law is protecting someone else from harm. But as someone else has stated, insurance eligibility is the only mechanism necessary to motivate responsible people to wear seat belts. If you have dependents, you should have life insurance, and your life insurance could easily have a seat belt clause. So in this case, I think even the best argument in favor of seat belt laws, falls short of being convincing.

One could counter the above argument by saying that everyone with dependents should be forced to buy life insurance, which in a round about way would enforce seat belt laws. But once you start dictating what people must buy, you've tossed the respect for individual liberty out the window. This is why the health insurance individual mandate is such an atrocity. It's pretty much a step toward a total removal of freedom. As are seat belt laws, and drug laws.

bingo2 wrote:

MatthewXCountry wrote:

bingo!

That same line goes for people who wear a seat belt and are seriously injured. Which is 90% of the time. So currently, I am basically paying for seat belt wearing fools that got seriously injured in accidents? I vote for making it a law to ban seat belt wearing.

Exactly. You could just as easily argue with the whole "everyone pays for medicare" line of thinking, that it save public money when someone (not wearing a seat belt) dies instantly in a car wreck, instead of spending weeks recovering in the hospital. So justifying the seat belt law based on a bunch of "woulds" and "coulds" is not a good reasoning. If we want to live in a free society, we should demand the every law is justified on its own ethical merits. Every law shrinks our freedom. We should not be so quick to add laws at a passing glance. Our freedom is the most valuable part of our existence (which explains why slavery was such a monumental evil), we should protect our freedom at all costs.

I know for MA, we voted for it, then voted to repeal it ('86), then voted to bring it back ('94, even though Libertarian leaning Bill Weld vetoed it). It's a law in MA because majority rules. I'm guessing it's similar for other states.

Funny thing is an MA state rep was thoroughly against it until it saved his life - then he did a complete 180 and championed it.

I don't care if you wear a seatbelt. I think you are an idiot but couldn't care less when you leave your family to pick up the pieces.

However, for any idiot that thinks seatbelts or airbags are somehow a "scam" that don't do anything, I seriously wonder how you remember to breathe through your gaping mouth. I don't really care about your one-off anecdote about "not having a scratch" from an MVA. That is the exception, not the norm.

Deaths per miles driven have steadily decreased since the invention of the car. Are driver skills improving? Hah! Are cars going slower? God no.

What has changed? The safety systems!!! Lap belts -> Lab and shoulder belts -> Air bags -> Side and curtain air bags.

In the last couple years, there has been an uptick in deaths - I would wager that it is from all the A-holes screwing with their phones instead of driving.

Source:

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/overview-of-fatality-facts#Trends

People have highlighted plenty of good reasons. The top one though, you've highlighted yourself - some people are too stupid to act reasonably in pursuit of of their own self-preservation. Therefore, the government must intervene in order to maximize the safety and welfare of its citizens. Since citizens yourself are too stupid/foolish/incompetent to make reasonable choices when operating a motor vehicle, the government makes the choice for you.

That said, my preference would be natural selection.

If you crash without wearing a seatbelt, severely injure yourself, and have no money, the burden is on the taxpayers to pay for your recovery.

THANK YOU! Also answers why the individual mandate + penalty tax was necessary to keep the insurance rates possible to pay....who knows what will happen now...

Sand Dunes wrote:

This is a victimless crime. No crime, no victim. The reason why this is a law is because the government is tyrannical. Remember what Thomas Jefferson said, "When injustice becomes law resistance becomes duty." Also by Thomas Jefferson, "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

It's technically not a victimless crime. In an accident, your body becomes a projectile if it's not wearing a seatbelt. Others in the car can be hurt by that quite easily.

If you want to ride around without a belt on, buy a motorcycle.

I agree that it is stupid. I think it's just a nice way for the gov to steal your money. Though if you don't have a child wearing a seatbelt I think you should get a massive fine.

Heads up, ladies. He must be rich.

You don't seem to understand either the point of the discussion nor the meaning of the term "nanny state". The objection people have to seat belt laws isn't whether seat belt usage is wise or not, nor whether its imposing to you one or not. The issue is whether its right for the state to make and enforce a law making you wear it.

I'm no FoxNews watcher, but your comparisons aren't good ones. The term "nanny state" means government is infringing on your liberty under guise of your security. Speed limit and crosswalk issues obviously relate to security but are poor comparisons b/c they deal with interaction of multiple parties on road. Seat belt laws don't do that, really.

All of the other issues you raise seem like stupid conservative issues. And I can't tell for sure whether or not you're for those things or against them - I think you're liberal, but you're rambling to the point I can't tell. None of them really have anything to do with issue of "nanny state".