#18 | hilzoy fangirl | August 22nd, 2011 at 5:28 pm

#16

Someone who dies in a car accident because they weren’t wearing a seatbelt hasn’t consented to die any more than someone who dies in a botched mugging because they were walking alone at night in a desolate park.

Someone who contracts HIV after having unprotected anal sex hasn’t consented to die any more than someone who dies in an auto crash. Ergo, we should outlaw anal sex. Oh wait …

Someone who dies of congestive heart failure because he ate too much fatty food hasn’t consented to die any more than someone who dies in an auto crash. Ergo, we should regulate what people are allowed to eat. Oh wait …

Get the State the hell out of the trivia of my life.

sorry, don’t buy that on drunk (impaired driving). what helped drastically reduce DUI and specifically DUI deaths and injuries was aggressive enforcement, proactive enforcement, legislation, better training, etc.

what;’s ironic is that this was primarily spearheaded by groups like MADD, not the govt. govt. reacted to their pressure

marco at #49:
but personally, I don’t even move the car around in the driveway without putting on my seat belt.

This is what should be done. People in my vehicle use seatbelts, because I tell them to. And really, most people use a seatbelt because they realize it makes them safer, not because ‘the law’ says they have to. This is the same mechanism that is in control of drunk driving now. The people who drive drunk, or don’t wear their seatbelt, are gonna be those folks who aren’t swayed by the law.

Look at the current distracted driving cause celebre: phones. Maryland passed a law saying “No hand held phones, no texting, no email while driving”. The law hasn’t stopped *anyone* as far as I can tell. It’s not that it’s primary or secondary enforcement because, honestly, a cop could pull anyone over they wanted to at any time for some suspected violation, then hit them with a ‘secondary’ violation for a cell phone. It’s that people don’t realize it’s the wrong thing to do. The people who already don’t use phones while driving are the ones who realize this. Maybe more people need to have an epiphany, or maybe more people need to have a close scare. I don’t know. But it’s not laws that will turn it around, just like it wasn’t laws with seatbelts or drunk driving (both trends were well on their way down when the laws were enacted).

I would think that kind of thing happens rarely, but I’ve heard claims that it isn’t that rare. I haven’t seen any statistics, though.

I think New Hampshire has it right, with mandatory seatbelts for people under age 18, but no such requirement for adults.

What do you mean by, “less worth saving?” This has nothing to do with the value of lives, but rather with the proper role of government and the resources used to run it.

If I say that alcohol should be legal to buy and consume, does it then follow that I’m saying that the lives lost because of alcohol abuse are less worth saving than the lives of people who are trapped in burning buildings? Of course not, because I’ve not said anything about the value of human lives, only the value of personal autonomy.

If those people who are trapped in burning buildings set the fires themselves accidentally because they were allowed to own matches, does my belief that they should not have been prevented from owning those matches imply that their lives are less worth saving because of personal freedom?

The opinion that individuals should have autonomous control over their bodies and the risks they take with their bodies is totally unrelated to opinions on the relative value of those lives.

One could say, I suppose, that those who believe in the freedom to do dangerous things value life less than those who believe that the government should decide which activities are safe enough to allow and which are too dangerous to allow. But that would be silly.

I argue that NOT letting people suffer the consequences of their actions is destructive, as it removes the need to learn lessons from mistakes because Big Mama Nanny Government will decide everything for you, and if you don’t COMPLY then you will be punished. Government isn’t exactly the beacon of unbridled truth — it’s quite the opposite, nothing but lies to control the masses that aren’t smart enough to question what they are told.

TOTAL FUCKING waste of our money!!!

Would not swear to it, but I think it was a fed program that handed out the money. The little city just opened their hands and stepped up in order to git sum!

i agree with the general point about the inappropriateness of “saving people from themselves” by punishing their not wearing s/belts, with one exception – in many cases, those w/o seatbelts and/or child safety seats, etc. are kids/infants, and in that case, seatbelt enforcement is legitimate unless one believes that (for example) 5 yr olds are autonomous beings and that their parents do not have a duty to protect them in various ways, such as insisting they wear a seatbelt and/or for infants/toddlers – a car seat.

the park/restaurant analogies though are somewhat specious because neither eating in a restaurant nor walking in a park are privileges. driving is. being a passenger in a car, however is not.