Is the seat belt law defensable?

Yes, you’re logic is sound. Seat belt laws were very quietly shepherded through by the (very powerful) insurance lobby. In the greater scheme of things, though, it’s such a minor issue, that the Civil Liberties lobby never put up much of a fight. Motorcycle helmet laws have actually stirred up more controversy than seat belt laws.

Wearing a seat belt saves more lives than your own. By not wearing a seatbelt, you risk becoming a human projectile and damaging others.

For the similar reason of second-hand smoke, smoking bans, especially in public places, have been executed.

Some further reading: here’s a small article about seat belts reducing the death risk of other passengers in a vehicle. And here’s a list of smoking bans.

siding w/jdb here- seat belts keep the drivers in their seats and in greater control of their vehicles during accidents and potential accidents-just ask NASCAR drivers…so enforcing that law ensures safety for you and your fellow citizens.

Obviously the same logic holds true for public smoking/second hand smoke prevention-it preserves the safety of those around you-but I’m afraid your up the creek on the PAP, Pabst and Krispy Kreme arguments though-that is unless those activities are also done while driving lol…

PS is fluthering while on nyquil unlawful yet?

If seat belts only protected the wearer, I would be against seat belt restrictions. I was in an accident (my fault) in which I ended up rolling my VW GTI all the way over. The great seat belt (which I’d complained about before, as it was so aggressive if you leaned forward too quickly to adjust the radio it would lock up) kept me nailed in the seat. The car ended up back on its wheels but still headed down the roadway, and I was able to get it off the road and on the shoulder before I hit the car stopped in front of me. If I hadn’t been wearing the seat belt, I wouldn’t have been able to miss that car, as I would have been tossed around the interior. Seat belts can protect people other than the wearer.

Another point is that people who get badly injured in a car accident require expensive medical treatment, and unless they are paying for it entirely out-of-pocket (vanishingly unlikely), the cost is going to be spread to others, either tax-payers if the person is uninsured or other people purchasing insurance if the person is insured. So for example, some states that don’t universally require motorcyclists to wear helmets do require them if the driver doesn’t have medical insurance coverage for a crash:
(http://www.drivinguniversity.com/traffic-safety-traffic-safety-facts/motorcycle-helmet-laws.htm)

As for things like Pap smears, a case could be made that they should be mandatory. Other medical interventions, like childhood vaccines, are mandatory. Vaccination protects other people and saves money by preventing costly diseases (in addition to protecting the vaccinee); Pap smears might not protect others but would probably reduce costs.

Another more philosophical point is that is that if you are injured or killed in a multi-vehicle accident, even if it was entirely your own fault, the other person involved is probably going to feel extremely guilty and miserable about it. Train drivers can be really traumatized by people throwing themselves in front of a train to commit suicide; driving without a seatbelt is obviously not the same, but I think most people would like to avoid behind the immediate cause of someone else’s death due to that person’s carelessness.

There are two separate issues:

1) Do seatbelts reduce injuries?
2) Should it be illegal not to use seltbelts?

My personal position on both questions:
I have almost never not worn a seatbelt, for safety reasons.
On the other hand, I’m ashamed to live in a country where the insurance industry and local governments have created laws to increase their wealth, trumped up as helping safety. Same with bike helmet laws, etc. People should be given information about safety, but not penalized and harassed if they don’t.

i was in a car accident once and learned my lesson about not wearing a seat belt. i had injuries that i would have avoided if i had one on. a lawyer told me at the time that if you are in a car accident and not wearing one, you will have your medical bills paid by the car insurance company but are not entitled to any other damages (money) from the other person’s policy, even if it were their fault. in other words, if you want to sue, you better have had your belt on (either someone in car you were in will testify that you were wearing it) or you have some marks from the belt on your body.

after chipping my teeth and breaking my nose in the accident, i learned my lesson. i know my answer does not get into the second part of your question but i wanted to pass along my little piece of advice.

I too was saved from severe injuries or perhaps death because I was wearing seat-belt when my Ford Taurus wagon hit some black ice, slipped into drainage ditch, hit a tree and flipped over (also my fault because I was driving too fast.)

I found myself hanging from the floor of the car, suspended by belt. I had to be hauled out thru the tailgate but only sustained a bruise between breasts caused by seat belt buckle that I was dangling from and a small abrasion on cornea from air bag. Insurance paid for a new car. (My first action after I regained my equilibrium was to unhook the belt and fall to the car roof.)

I grew up w. few or no regulations. We held babies on our laps in the front seat of cars, and let toddlers scramble around…no bike or motorcycle helmets and not even seatbelts in cars.

I can’t answer your provocative question; but I have an acquaintance in town who is severely disabled from a motorcycle crash when he was not wearing a helmet. He rues his hubris every second of his life.

And each year several teen-agers, drunk and driving w/o belts have been killed during the holidays. As jdb described. they were human projectiles and were flung thru the rear-window of the trunks they were in. Several of the young drivers who survived are now in prison, their lives probably ruined.

And what about mammograms, colonoscopies, drinving and talking on cell phones? I think that doing something stupid and killing yrself is different than taking other innocents w. you.

It is tough to see where to draw the line on these types of enforcement. Do seat belt laws constitute an effort to compel good conduct, or to punish bad conduct? It’s also a much easier argument to say you should not endanger others than to say society can prevent you from harming yourself to decrease the costs to society. And what if there are serious questions about the benefits and risks, as in compulsory immunization and climate change?

We also end up in contradictory positions. Can you argue criminalizing marijuana use is ineffective AND that gun control laws are effective? There is the difficulty of drawing bright lines where individual rights will abruptly change. If abortion is legal, does that diminish arguments against euthanasia? And then there is also the difficulty of what reasons we will permit as justification for an otherwise immoral act. When does murder become war? Is torture permissible under certain circumstances? Can you be against puppy farms and baby seal coats but still eat veal?

Today the issue on the table is whether the Feds. should regulate the junk-food vending machines found in most public schools.

For the record, I no longer eat anything that has a beating heart. That was an easy decision. The rest, as Hoss says, is murky. I won’t reword his statement; he said it better. But I would add the issue of the execution of criminals.

It’s heart isn’t beating when you eat it.

I used to drive a bus for Greyhound. It was found in bus accidents that seat belts both caused injuries and saved lives. Though the figures were higher against wearing a seat belt thus the reason no seat belts for passengers. The driver was also safer with out a seat belt but for everyone to be safe it was important to keep the driver in the seat. So the driver has a seat belt for the safty of the passengers and other motorists.

As for the helmet a friend of mine had a son in a motorcycle accident, he bragged how he didn’t hurt his head because was able to protect it. I told him had he not had to worry about his head he probably would not have split his spleen.

Also if you become a vegatable for not wearing a helmet or seat belt we get the bill in higher insurance costs.

Wearing a helmet (and other protection) while riding a motorcycle is no doubt a very good idea.

Still something different from whether or not it should be illegal not to.

Also something different from whether insurance companies, or even people preoccupied with insurance costs, should have any say in whether other people are to be allowed to choose what safety measures to use for themselves.

So where’s the Land of the Free these days? Somehow I seem to have ended up in the Land of the Overly-Safety-and-Cost-Conscious Frightened Corporate Pawns. (Nothing personal, really!)

As far as pap smears being required if they had the realistic potential in causing millions of dollars in damage to those around them as well as the potential for causing a fatality they probably would be mandatory.
And as far as drinking and driving, it is illegal yet, some people are stupid enough to do that as well. Your argument for making it legal to drive without your seat belt, compares more with advocating that drinking and driving should be legal.

Consider, if the laws against drunk driving aren’t working, maybe it’s not a direct solution.

Seems to me we’re looking at the ideas from two different views. And, I’m saying a few different things.

I agree that seat belts, helmets, and not drinking and driving are usually all great ideas. I almost never fail to wear a seat belt. But that’s just one kind of idea, separate from the legal question, and separate from my opinion about the legal question and about the shifting modern popular consciousness.

The argument that all great ideas and should be mandatory seems clearly wrong to me. If it’s such a great idea, explain it to people.

A different argument is does some behavior cause risk to others that outweighs the right of someone to their freedom. In the case of seat belts, I don’t see a good case for that. For drunk driving, probably there is such a case, or at least, safety officers need to have the right to protect others from drunk drivers. Whether illegality is the desired solution, is not an absolute. In Japan, at least traditionally, intoxicated people are felt to be less responsible that sober people, as opposed to the way Americans tend to think of it.

The bike helmet laws made me seriously consider something I’d otherwise never do – learn to ride a bike and ride it without a helmet. Meanwhile I always wear my seat belt but I resent the law against it even though I think people should probably nearly always wear them (except in a bus). Laws and smart and safe behavior are not necessarily linked, and I’d rather just be told about safety and smart ideas and not detained and vilified and robbed by officers if I choose to act dumb or unsafe (towards myself) sometimes.

Just food for thought.

Seat belts have been proven to save lives. That’s a fact. Comparison to Pap smears, smoking, drinking and obesity, however, is nonsensical. Seat belts are exterior to the human body, non-invasive, whereas Pap smears are exterior/invasive, and smoking, drinking and obesity are interior/invasive.

Pap smears are merely an optional early warning device for gynecological problems, most especially cancer. There ARE alternatives available that are less invasive. And because it addresses medical treatment, well, medical treatment is dependent on choice. If you take away our choice to be treated or not and how, then you start violating constitutional rights. Talk about Pandora’s Box!

Smoking and drinking have already had extensive limitations placed on them, completely banning them in some public establishments. For instance, here in California, one can no longer smoke in restaurants, bars, hotels, in fact any place of business. (Hurray!) It is always a culture shock for me when we travel outside of California. And complete banning either is simply not possible. That has already been demonstrated by the Prohibition Era. People are going to get what they want, somehow, someway, even if you make it illegal. Making it illegal has not stopped the importation and dispersement of narcotics, black market products and services, marijuana growing, etc. Smoking and drinking are a fact of life, worldwide.

Finally, how would you go about making obesity illegal? In point of fact, since the introduction of dietary guidelines by the FDA, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, and others, back over 30 years ago, Americans are MORE overweight today than they were then. (I know what you’re thinking, if she mentions the word conspiracy, I think I’ll scream:) And that is despite the increasing rise of new age interests regarding non-processed food, supplementation, exercise, a whole slew of diets, etc. Take a look at the number of presidents, VPs, senators, congressmen, lawmakers, judges, peace officers, corporate executives and such that are overweight or obese. Such a law wouldn’t have a prayer of ever getting passed. Not to mention, of course, that this also falls under personal prerogatives and constitutional rights.

We once had a debate go on via email against the lunch time exercisers traipsing through the lobby in skin-hugging and skin-exposing attire. The most vociferous antagonist was an overloud, bullying, obese chain smoker. The final email was from an equally obese but otherwise not loud, not a bully, not a smoker, non-exerciser – who attested she’d rather share an elevator with a sweaty, smelly jogger than a smoker fresh from outdoors. The smoker removed to a satellite office. The exercisers continue to exercise, no change in their attiring habits. And this email advocate of 270# happily traipses out with them in the summer, to the nearby park pool for a few laps at lunchtime. I’ve lost 25# swimming during the summer. But I’m still obese, morbidly so, and losing weight is harder today, as a diabetic, than before I developed it.

If you were to compare seat belt legalities to something, how about cell phone usage in vehicles? I spoke to a police officer once who informed me that there wasn’t a chance in hell that they would ever make that usage illegal. You can, however, receive extra fines and charges if you were using a cell phone at the time you were involved in an accident. Not only is it not illegal, but some vehicle manufacturers have even gone so far as to make the capability standard in their vehicles. Does cell phone usage while driving save lives? That has not been demonstrated, to my knowledge. Does cell phone usage while driving increase vehicular accidents and injury? That HAS been demonstrated, repeatedly. Is that enough to make cell phone usage while driving illegal?

Like the officer said, not a chance in hell.

Perhaps, gcross, you missed the news stories about a number of areas that have made cell phone use while driving illegal. Chicago is one example. More cities are considering banning cell phone use in vehicles. Evidently there is a chance in hell.

How would they make obesity illegal? Well, I doubt they could criminalize the fact of being overweight. They could, however, prohibit people above a certain weight, body fat percentage, etc. from purchasing certain food items. You seem to think the fact many influential people are overweight is an argument, when it is not. Many of the same powerful people also smoke, yet smoking bans are passing everywhere. All that is necessary is for a ban of “obesity” to be sufficiently popular for the powerful elite to view it as enhancing their power base. Or, rather than passing legislation, it could just become litigiously burdensome. If McDonalds can lose millions for serving coffee hot, it is not inconceivable one day I could walk into Mickey D’s and be told I am too fat to purchase a Quarter Pounder, as they don’t want another lawsuit on their hands if I keel over with a heart attack.

While you may be proud of these smoking bans (and I don’t disagree with the goal of them at all) they establish a very dangerous precedent, that government can penalize businesses for permitting their patrons to consume a legal product. While I applaud the creation of smoke free public places, I find it offensive that a government agency can tell a bar that its patrons cannot smoke. If the smoke bothers other patrons, marketplace forces should be sufficient. Perhaps some sort of public disclosure should be required, a prominent sign outside the establishment disclosing whether that business permits smoking. Why should anyone be able to tell a business whose customers agree to smoke a lawful product that they cannot do so? Today it is tobacco, they tried doing it with alcohol before, if you don’t think there aren’t some dogooders out there ready to tell me I can’t have cheesecake after dinner, then you’re kidding yourself. There is no constitutional right to choose fattening foods.

I find it odd we have a society that prides itself that consenting adults cannot be told by the government they can’t skydive, bungee jump, engage in high risk sexual conduct, tattoo or pierce themselves, etc., and a portion of that society argues consenting adults should not be told they cannot use various addictive substances, yet has no problem with government saying a group of like-minded consenting adults can’t get together and put a legal substance in their lungs while consuming alcohol or engaging in social behavior. Not that I’m a smoking advocate, but just as the Supreme Court concluded freedom of speech meant everybody, even Larry Flynt, I don’t like to see us get in the habit of allowing government interference in lawful activities. If smoking is so bad for everyone (and I believe it is) then the government shouldn’t be making money off of it through taxes, just go ahead and make tobacco illegal.

Yep. Laws are a lazy, crude, and ineffective answer to a problem. I prefer education.

if you get side-swiped, if you don’t have the seatbelt on you will get tossed across, but will still live.

i never really thought about that.
regardless of whether it should be a law to wear them or not, i really think everyone should wear them. more attention should be given to educating people about how crucial it is to wear them rather than just threatening people with tickets.

a kid who was like a brother to a few of my friends was in a car accident recently and wasn’t wearing his seat belt. he went through the windshield and died.

First off I need to know who does seat belts laws being defensible tie in with PAP smears?