I can see the belief that wearing a seatbelt is a choice and I am only hurting myself but I disagree. Sure, it only hurts yourself physically but what if you get in an accident and would be able to walk away from it if you were wearing your seatbelt?? That "choice" could cause you to have medical bills of substantial amounts. Who foots the bill for this "choice"?? Originally, the insurance companies but we know that it doesn't stop there.
Dan Lambskin wrote:instead of spending the money to have people patrol for this why not go out and look for some people committing some real crimes
because it's easier and less dangerous. Not sure how "To Protect and Serve" morphed into "To Be Your Nagging Mother".
QFT!
I wear my seatbelt 99% of the time, but that one or two times a month I don't, which are ONLY when I'm going a few blocks in a residential neighborhood or something equally benign, should not elicit a ticket from a police force who have better things to do.
I don't care if it's a money-maker for the cops. I'm not paying them to control my insurance rates, I'm paying them to prevent the bad guys from breaking into my home and killing my wife and child.
Seriously, traffic violations - aside from DUI issues - are among the biggest time-wasters for cops. It burns my butt every time I hear one of these commercials.
Lofunzo wrote:I can see the belief that wearing a seatbelt is a choice and I am only hurting myself but I disagree. Sure, it only hurts yourself physically but what if you get in an accident and would be able to walk away from it if you were wearing your seatbelt?? That "choice" could cause you to have medical bills of substantial amounts. Who foots the bill for this "choice"?? Originally, the insurance companies but we know that it doesn't stop there.
Then fix that law, don't make up this dumb band-aid.
When I was 16 I rolled a car on a gravel road. It flipped end-for-end several times, and ended up in dozens of pieces in a corn field. I walked away with scratches because I wore my seatbelt. I am a HUGE proponent of seatbelts, because I have seen their life-saving abilities firsthand.
But at the same time, I have zero interest in having the government tell me I have to wear that seatbelt. It's my body, my car, and whether I wear a seatbelt or not is going to affect ME, and nobody else. I think it's a good idea and that everyone SHOULD wear their seatbelts, but it's not the government's job to be my dad.
The cost of claims of people not wearing seatbelts is significantly higher (I think about 5x but that's an educated guess...) as the injuries are invariably more severe. You can still get by but the odds are dramatically increased in your favor. Since, through insurance and medicare/ medicade we all share the costs, I think that on a societal level that it is worth the investment of a few commercials and having the cops bust non belt wearers.
Pennsylvania recently repealed the law requiring motorcyclists to wear helmets, as I know several other states do not have this law either. So now, not only are motorcycles more dangerous because they're on two wheels, they're fast and they don't have a restraint system, but the riders are now no longer required to wear a helmet.
Opponents of the helmet law have claimed that the helmets do little or nothing to prevent injury in a motorcycle accident, but this simply is not true. On top of that, the same argument applies that medical costs are higher because more riders are not wearing a helmet.
Now, I'm not making an argument for or against helmet wearing on motorcycles because I think that people should be allowed to do what they want provided it doesn't hurt me. But if you're going to use the argument that wearing a seatbelt lowers some sort of tax burden on me, then I don't see why wearing a helmet wouldn't be mandatory as well.
If you're a battery, you're either working or you're dead....
Lofunzo wrote:I can see the belief that wearing a seatbelt is a choice and I am only hurting myself but I disagree. Sure, it only hurts yourself physically but what if you get in an accident and would be able to walk away from it if you were wearing your seatbelt?? That "choice" could cause you to have medical bills of substantial amounts. Who foots the bill for this "choice"?? Originally, the insurance companies but we know that it doesn't stop there.
Then fix that law, don't make up this dumb band-aid.
When I was 16 I rolled a car on a gravel road. It flipped end-for-end several times, and ended up in dozens of pieces in a corn field. I walked away with scratches because I wore my seatbelt. I am a HUGE proponent of seatbelts, because I have seen their life-saving abilities firsthand.
But at the same time, I have zero interest in having the government tell me I have to wear that seatbelt. It's my body, my car, and whether I wear a seatbelt or not is going to affect ME, and nobody else. I think it's a good idea and that everyone SHOULD wear their seatbelts, but it's not the government's job to be my dad.
How can they just "fix" the law?? How is this only affecting you when my premiums, taxes, whatever are going up because you have $100K in medical bills that could have been avoided if you wore your seatbelt??
Lofunzo wrote:I can see the belief that wearing a seatbelt is a choice and I am only hurting myself but I disagree. Sure, it only hurts yourself physically but what if you get in an accident and would be able to walk away from it if you were wearing your seatbelt?? That "choice" could cause you to have medical bills of substantial amounts. Who foots the bill for this "choice"?? Originally, the insurance companies but we know that it doesn't stop there.
Then fix that law, don't make up this dumb band-aid.
When I was 16 I rolled a car on a gravel road. It flipped end-for-end several times, and ended up in dozens of pieces in a corn field. I walked away with scratches because I wore my seatbelt. I am a HUGE proponent of seatbelts, because I have seen their life-saving abilities firsthand.
But at the same time, I have zero interest in having the government tell me I have to wear that seatbelt. It's my body, my car, and whether I wear a seatbelt or not is going to affect ME, and nobody else. I think it's a good idea and that everyone SHOULD wear their seatbelts, but it's not the government's job to be my dad.
How can they just "fix" the law?? How is this only affecting you when my premiums, taxes, whatever are going up because you have $100K in medical bills that could have been avoided if you wore your seatbelt??
They can fix the law by repealing the law which says it is illegal to wear a seatbelt.
As for your costs, that’s an insurance issue, not a legal issue. What you’re advocating is government control over insurance costs. By giving the police the responsibility of forcing you and me to wear seatbelts, you are saying that it is the government’s responsibility to set insurance premiums and to assure that they do not rise too high because of accidents. This is NOT the job of the government. The police should NOT be used as a tool to keep costs down.
by Absolutely Adequate » Tue May 22, 2007 11:00 am
There are few people I know that like police officers. And I think that these mommying laws are a big reason as to why.
If the police just protected and served, I think they'd get a lot more community support. But when they're protecting us from ourselves (seatbelts, motorcycle helmets, pot, sexual activity, etc) people begin to feel like criminals.
They can fix the law by repealing the law which says it is illegal to wear a seatbelt.
I assume that this is a typo but, if I am understanding you correctly, how does making it legal to not wear a seatbelt fix anything?? I know that it fixes things for a lot of people that want the government/police to stay out of this but how does it address the issue that I mentioned and you responded to??
Absolutely Adequate wrote:There are few people I know that like police officers. And I think that these mommying laws are a big reason as to why.
If the police just protected and served, I think they'd get a lot more community support. But when they're protecting us from ourselves (seatbelts, motorcycle helmets, pot, sexual activity, etc) people begin to feel like criminals.
These laws need to go.
Directly, they are only protecting us from ourselves but, indirectly, it's much more. I don't love that the government micromanages like they do but, if the bottom line is that it stops me from footing some of the bill because you chose not to wear a seatbelt, I can live with that. It's not like having the police ignore people not wearing their seatbelts will make all of the problems go away.
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