Seat Belt Law
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MisterCMK;169444 wrote:
It seems to me that this topic has been argued time and time again on here.Just wear the damn seatbelt.
There is nothing better to post about.
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tjamz;169441 wrote:
2. You are right, it is not anywhere in the constitution, but driving a car is not mentioned either....lets just ban them right away.The constitution defines the rights of the federal government, not the people. People's rights are innate and imbued by their creator. The rights of the state are granted under express consent by the people and codified into the law. The foundation of this is the constitution.
Because the constitution mentions nothing about cars, arguably, the Federal government has no business making laws about automobiles.
Said differently, individuals have a right to drive by default, irrespective of what the absense of mention in the constitution might imply.
Originally, a few of the founders opposed the Bill of Rights precisely because it would lead to the confusion that you are displaying. The constitution doesn't define the rights of individuals, but the bill of rights reads like a list of rights for individuals.
The problem is that some of the founders felt that some rights were so important that they should be spelled out in black and white as things that the government couldn't ever create laws to mess with. Calling it a bill of rights for individuals is a misnomer as opposed to calling it a line in the sand for the expansive boundaries of the government. No matter what the government would like to do, it is not ever supposed to be allowed to curtail the Free press or free political speech. These are checks on government power; not explicit granting of individual rights.
- My insurance is cheap by most standards, however every incident reported to insurance increases the cost of that company....someone will have to pay those costs.
Why not let insurers drop / deny claims by those not wearing seatbelts?
- Tell the kid who grows up without his parents because they were ejected from their vehicle in an accident that there is no victim. Again, if you don't like it, petition for a repeal of the law.
Oh Boy. "Think of the Children" rears its ugly head
- While a broken arm is a painful experience, I don't consider it to be a severe accident.
Ok. My wife's arm doesn't have the same range of motion it used to. Fixing it reuqired going under general anesthetic. Some people die from that.
- You are on a public road. What makes you think they don't have the right to look in your window? I am for window tinting laws within reason. I think tint can be a good thing, but overly tinted windows can and do cause accidents and unsafe environments for officers when approaching vehicles.
"You are on a public road, what makes you think they don't ahve the right to a full cavity search?"
Because I feel like there is some space around me which constitutes "private" space, and the supreme court agrees with me.
- This is where you probably make the most sense and I agree with you the most on. There are too many people in jail for menial crimes and too many out for serious ones.
/begin new tangent here:
My problem with drug rehab, is that the only way the average user can get help is by getting caught and going to jail. All of the other programs cost WAAAAAAY too much for the average junky to afford so only the rich/those with good healthcare coverage have a realistic shot at rehabilitation w/o first going to jail. I'd much rather pay to put a junky through rehab a couple of times rather than just throw them in jail where they make more contacts to acquire/sell the same substances once they get out. The problem with this country is that we villainize people with personal problems instead of work with them to overcome them. Did they bring it on themselves? Yes. Absolutely, but are we not better off as a society to help these people and get them on the right path?
I think we agree that we need to keep drug users out of jail. I'm not sure we'd agree on the rest of the details
I'm sure I seem like a radical to a bunch of people.. and it's hard to even take myself seriously sometimes. Of course people should wear their seatbelts, and of course they save lives, and of course they're good for a lot of reasons already mentioned.
The issue is - what do we give up everytime we make something that most people think is a good idea into a new law that bans some behavior? Or curtails some individual right?
I beleive that introducing a new curtailment of invidiual freedom should require a much stronger mandate from the people and a much more rigorous constitutional review than what currently happens in the US. Not all of our politicians "get it", not all of them would pass a US history test, and not all of them necessarily think they're out there to serve the people instead of lord over them.
So my desire to make people step back and not pass laws all willy nilly puts me in a position where I would voice opposition to a law where I fundemantally agree with some of the behavior it tries to encourage...although in this case, i really dislike giving cops more reason to harass motorists.
Something to think about: our representatives, at every level.. are full time law creators. Which laws out there don't restrict someone's liberty? None of them. Do we really need well over 1000 people (counting interns, staff members, etc) at the federal level, and then hundreds more at each state, and then tens or hundreds or more at each county/municipal level... all thinking up ways to remove our individual rights.. year round... all while having us foot the bill?
Governance is a necessary evil of organized society and effective commerce. But we should suffer as little of it as strictly possible, as it always moves towards self serving, corrupt ends.
(Which is also why the 2nd Amendment was explicitly added, and why it is the most important string of text in the entire constitution. It's the one that puts teeth behind the rest of it)
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thrash;169450 wrote:
Why not let insurers drop / deny claims by those not wearing seatbelts?
How about those people who are trying to make a claim against the person who was not wearing their seatbelt? How do you determine if a seatbelt would have played a role in preventing injury or property damage? Where do you draw the line? Seatbelts save lives. You cannot argue against that. Wearing a seatbelt is going to greatly reduce the chance of a person getting injured in a car accident.My dad was a passenger in a rollover in a pickup when he was much younger. He did not have a seatbelt on and was thrown out of the vehicle. To this day he has chronic neck and back pain stemming from that accident.
He was driving our Bronco II back from St. Cloud one night and hit a patch of black ice and ended up rolling it 3 times into the ditch. He had his seatbelt on at the time and the only injury he had was a scrape on his head from a sunglasses case flying around in the truck.
What all of the people touting that not wearing a seatbelt will save your life if you crash into a burning inferno with aids invested ninjas inside of your vehicle with the doors locked and blah blah blah don't mention is the number of lives that have been saved due to seatbelts.
I don't see a problem with a seatbelt law as it saves lives and protects people from unnecessary harm.
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I'm just going to use one blanket statement here, rather than covering each point:
Driving is not a right, it is a revocable <u>privilege</u> that has a defined (and ever changing) set of rules associated with it. Most of the rules are there for our own good. Yes there are stupid laws on the books, and fundamentally I agree with most everything that you posted in the last post, the practicality of it all is where I deviate.
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MisterCMK;169454 wrote:
My dad was a passenger in a rollover in a pickup when he was much younger. He did not have a seatbelt on and was thrown out of the vehicle. To this day he has chronic neck and back pain stemming from that accident.Because it was ultimately your dads fault for not wearing his seat belt. Like Thrash is saying, every law passed basically creates criminals. Many laws are pointless and create criminals out of people who really have done nothing to endanger anyone besides themselves. Under 18? Sure they should be able to control you, once you turn 18 you should have more rights. Should you always wear your seat belt? YES. Does everyone? No. Should the government have a right to punish and take money from people who decide they don't care about their life by not wearing a belt? No. Should insurance companies have to pay out any settlement to a person involved in an accident in which they weren't wearing a seat belt? No.
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How about we all just wear our seatbelts like the law says and get over it? If you don't like the law, write a letter to someone who can change it. Bitching about how it's so unfair isn't going to get you anywhere. "The constitution says ___." "My ___ died because they wore their seatbelt." "Statistics show ___." It's all pointless. If you get caught and fined, it's your own fault for breaking the law, no matter how stupid you think it is. Deal with it.
All the logic in the world isn't going to change anything by arguing on a local car forum.
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And the governments role shouldn't be to create criminals out of its citizens for petty shit. It should be a citizen run organization that makes NO profit (as little corruption as possible) and protects the rights and freedoms of the people. There are obvious situations (murder, land disputes, war, etc) that the government needs to get involved in to settle, but its ultimate purpose is to be a citizen run organization that protects our rights and freedoms, not be a robin hood or hitler. It does SO much more than that.
It's mundane shit like this that is a large reason why everything is so damn PC nowadays and everything needs to be spelled out to a T. People need to be told not to use chainsaws on their genitals now and if for some strange reason the manufacturer thinks people should know this and someone does use it there, the government just allows people to sue the hell out of corporations frivolously. Common sense doesn't exist anymore and stupid shit like this is the reason. Don't want to wear your seatbelt, it's your choice, when you die or get crippled because of it don't expect a damn thing from anyone though...no need to make laws that take advantage of the situation in order to get money though.
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I always wear mine, always will, and if I have a passenger, the car doesn't budge until they're buckled in.
It's beyond me why people continue to bitch about a law that can save your life.
And thank you tjamz for hitting the nail on the head. Driving is a priviledge, not a right. You fuck up, you lose the priviledge. That's why I never make a complaint thread about speeding tickets, etc. Why should I pout and ask for comfort when I know I screwed up?!
-Peter
1991 240SX
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Afsil80;169470 wrote:
It's beyond me why people continue to bitch about a law that can save your life.And thank you tjamz for hitting the nail on the head. Driving is a priviledge, not a right. You fuck up, you lose the priviledge. That's why I never make a complaint thread about speeding tickets, etc. Why should I pout and ask for comfort when I know I screwed up?!
Because if you need a law to make you do something that may potentially save your life, you have issues. It's a no brainer, law or no law, that seat belts save lives.
Speeding, drunk driving, and racing on the other hand can put other people at risk. You not wearing your seat belt while alone in your car has the potential to hurt nobody but yourself.
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MisterCMK;169488 wrote:
How about the people that you hurt when you are thrown out of your car into them or hit others in your car because you weren't belted in?Odds of being abducted by aliens or winning the lottery are probably higher.
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I think that it should be up to you, wear on or not.
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