8 ms·
Isn't that exactly what they are though? A violation of personal freedom.
by jmercouris 3y ago
Isn't that exactly what they are though? A violation of personal freedom.
- satvikpendem 3y agoThe personal freedom to fly through your windshield, indeed.
- kneebonian 3y agoThe whole point of this country is if you want to eat garbage, balloon up to 600 pounds and die of a heart attack at 43, you can! You are free to do so. To me, that's beautiful. - Ron Swanson
- stouset 3y agoAnd then we came to the collective realization that—while great in theory—letting people unintentionally suicide themselves through carelessness and neglect imposes costs borne by the rest of society.
- seanp2k2 3y agoThen COVID happened and we un-came to that realization, especially when one person’s decision affected others in a very direct and deadly way.
- nemo44x 3y agoWhat about people that make healthy choices and live long enough to bear cancer a few times, shake off a few other diseases, have hips replaced, collect endless Medicare and SS payments, etc? The person who blows their heart out at 53 probably costs a whole lot less VS what they put into society.
- jdiff 3y agoSure, your weird struck-by-lightning-57-times strawman might cost more than your average suicide-by-mcdonalds person. But healthy people are more productive and are productive for longer and only a vanishingly small portion of them are ever going to get struck by lightning once, let alone 57 times.
- nemo44x 3y agoPeople use the vast majority of their lives medical expenditure in their last year or so of life if they make it to old age. Someone dying in their 50s before they hit the ground coats very little. Saying that I hope everyone lives long healthy lives.
- jdiff 3y agoThey're not vanishing silently and peacefully into the night, they're killing themselves with chronic poor health. That's the entire problem, they're not dodging it, they're embracing, amplifying, and accelerating it.
- brightlancer 3y ago> But healthy people are more productive and are productive for longer Not nearly as long as they live, sucking up healthcare resources. "Unhealthy" people like smokers and the obese are more cost-effective, because they're nearly as productive per year and they die before needing the absurdly expensive medical care for old age. https://web.archive.org/web/20230728192509/https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230728192509/https://www.nytim...
- pengaru 3y agoThe primary effect of seatbelt laws is fundraising through pointless fines. And some informed folks have even argued that in modern vehicles airbags are so effective seatbelts could be worsening accident outcomes. (Elon Musk made this point in one of his podcast appearances re: Teslas)
- CJefferson 3y agoWhich informed folks? Can you provide any study about this, because I haven't heard of any.
- runarberg 3y agoPointless conjuncture. If you want to make this argument, you can at least provide some data on how much some police departments make by collecting seat belt fines, and compare it to other fines and cost of operation. I doubt the seat belt fines are significant enough to warrant this speculation. The airbag argument is even worse. Modern vehicles go through numerous safety standard tests, including real world experiments where test dummies are put in an actual car crash. If seat belts make the crash worse for the dummy than airbag alone, these tests would have shown it, and there would be publications about it in a peer reviewed science journal. If you are so confident, you should be able to find at least one such publication. I doubt you will.
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- eikenberry 3y agoThe problem isn't that people don't realize the behavioral issue here, it is that "we" can't decide on out to best mitigate the costs. People don't really seem able to address this as absolutists keep dominating the discussions not allowing any progress as that invariably requires compromises they are unwilling to make.
- DANmode 3y agoNo implied value whatsoever in Darwinism anymore, or what's the story?
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- consumer451 3y ago"Greed is good" - Gordon Gekko
- mcculley 3y agoIt baffles me that motorcycles are legal in jurisdictions that require seat belts in cars.
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- figassis 3y agoIt’s probably more dangerous for you not to ditch your bike than it is to stay on it when collision is eminent? I can’t confirm this though, but most times I’ve seen an experienced person fall off a bike, they don’t stay on it.
- consumer451 3y agoI can't tell if this is a serious comment or not. If it is genuine, did you mean motorcycles without helmet enforcement?
- mcculley 3y agoI am seriously baffled. I live in Florida, where motorcyclists are allowed to go unhelmeted while car drivers are required to wear seat belts.
- consumer451 3y ago> Donorcycles: Motorcycle Helmet Laws and the Supply of Organ Donors https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661256 https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661256
- 1270018080 3y agoDying early is a bigger violation of personal freedom depending on how you frame freedom philosophically. Ignoring delayed gratification or the future could make seatbelts seem like a violation of personal freedom. But living another 40 years because of a seatbelt could enable more opportunities for personal freedom.
- thereare5lights 3y agoDo you consider laws against drunk driving a violation of personal freedom and if not, why not?
- MostlyStable 3y agoSeriously? Regardless of your view on seat belt laws (or drunk driving laws for this matter) the difference is blindingly obvious: A drunk driver is _highly_ likely to kill someone else (I think I may have heard in the past that they are more likely to kill someone else than die themselves, although I'm not super confident on it). If you aren't wearing a seat belt, you're just going to kill yourself.
- lijok 3y agoIf you're not wearing a seatbelt and have a passenger in the car, you are highly likely to kill the passenger, especially if t boned.
- MostlyStable 3y agoWhile this does seem like it's true [0], at least in that case the other passengers know whether or not you are wearing a belt, and can, in extremis, choose not to ride with you (I'm going to ignore minors for the moment as that is a different and much more nuanced topic). When it comes to drunk drivers, other people on the road don't even know they are taking the risk. And of course, that ignores the fact that seatbelt laws do not differentiate between when you are driving alone (extremely common in the US) vs. with passengers. [0]https://glofin.com/blog/consequences-of-not-wearing-a-seatbelt/ https://glofin.com/blog/consequences-of-not-wearing-a-seatbe...
- RandomLensman 3y agoRear seat without a seat belt becomes a danger to people seating in front, for example.
- CSSer 3y agoNot quite. Passengers without seat belts are a hazard to other individuals in the vehicle too. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y3InF19dzlM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y3InF19dzlM
- kurthr 3y agoYeah, like red lights, speed limits, licensing, and most of the rules that govern driving on the road. Unless you're a sovereign citizen it's a privilege and not a right.
- RowanH 3y ago[From a NZ perspective] Except you don't live in a bubble. Fire fighters, ambulance staff, doctors, nurses etc have to pick you up in pieces and (hopefully) put you back together. The PTSD alone from horrific accidents must be hell on first responders. Can't imagine if we went back to the dark ages and had no seat belts with the cars/speeds we do today. So yeah on a closed area with no consequence (i.e. no one to rescue you) sure go for your life. But on a public road where people have no option but to rescue you if you fly through the windshield.... The taxpayers have to pay for your care. So it seems like a fair trade-off, if you're going use public roads, wear a seat belt.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- LAC-Tech 3y agoWouldn't it tend to kill off the more reckless drivers though? People to cool to drive safely. Roads might end up being a lot safer.
- devmor 3y agoIf reckless people were always the victim of their own actions, and always the only victim, the world would already be a lot safer. As you can see, that is not the case.
- traviswt 3y agoNot only that, but people driving faster because they feel confident in their seat belts hurt other people to a greater degree since they're increasing their own kinetic energy. I think this is commonly called risk compensation, but I prefer the alternative name risk homeostasis [1]. On the flip side, when trucks hauling heavy, dangerous loads have a frontal collision, their loads go forward through the cab, killing the drivers instantly. Makes them think twice before speeding and tailgating. In an AI future, maybe we'll have cars that purposefully hurt drivers when the AI determines they're driving recklessly. Don't like it? Turn on autopilot. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation
- bobnamob 3y agoThe “not harming anyone else” argument comes across as very inconsiderate as soon as you take traumatised paramedics/first responders into account.
- jonathankoren 3y agoTrue. Mandatory seatbelt laws are an insult to all the people that died needlessly preventable deaths. No price is too high for Freedom™. Thank god we learned our lesson when it comes to dead school kids.
- dude187 3y agoWhat lesson?
- jonathankoren 3y agoWell that Freedom™ isn’t free of course! Thank shooting victim for their service.
- Defletter 3y agoWhat are you even talking about? Stop with the point scoring and be clear in your words.
- jonathankoren 3y agoI'm literally saying that people dying of preventable deaths is seen as an acceptable price for society to pay so that a tiny few aren't inconvenienced or have their feelings hurt. If this idea sounds radical and needlessly trolling to you, it should. But this is not some sort of straw man. It is literally a popular position in contemporary American politics among those on the right. [1] For seatbelts we had on one side of the ledger preventable deaths, injuries, and if we're being callous, the economic drain that results from that. We also knew from looking at other countries that had these problems, that seatbelt laws massively reduce those negatives. On the other side we had, "But I don't wanna." When it comes to mass shootings in America, we've had 427 as of yesterday, the 218th day of 2023.[0] That's almost two a day. The United States is literally the only country where this happens. We know the solutions. We can look at how Australia reacted when they had a kindergarten murdered in 1996, and how they haven't had a similar instance since. When America had a kindergarten murdered in a similar way, the government shrugged it off, and even talking about reform was shouted down, because of "freedom". That's what I'm talking about. So if putting it out in such straightforward terms makes you uncomfortable, it should, because it's literally people dying and a majority of Americans wanting the dying to stop, versus a small number saying, "I don't care. I don't wanna. Your dead kid is the price I'm willing to pay to keep my hobby." [0] https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting [1] https://www.newsweek.com/nearly-half-gop-accept-mass-shootings-part-free-society-poll-1712960 https://www.newsweek.com/nearly-half-gop-accept-mass-shootin...
- matsemann 3y agoDriving a car is a privilege, not a right.
- jacquesm 3y agoNo, you have the freedom not to drive a car.
- gochi 3y agoMost laws and regulations are violations of personal freedoms. You can't enact the law of not killing somebody else without violating the personal freedom to do so as a simple but clear example. Anyways this article talks more about the details of events that happened surrounding the regulations.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dude187 3y agoYep, they are by definition. Personally, I'm strongly against a government causing harm to you if you decide differently on what you like to do in such matters
- GuB-42 3y agoYes it is, but generally, laws are violations of personal freedoms. An idea sometimes summarized as "My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins". It is less obvious with seatbelt laws, but the idea is the same. Generally, there are limits to the rights to kill yourself through recklessness. This is because it impacts much more people than you. If you die in a car accident because you didn't wear your seatbelt, first responders are going to try to save you, traffic will be blocked while the police investigates, your friends and family will be devastated, your employer will have to make up for the loss of an employee, other parties in the accident may be traumatized, etc... All that just for your personal freedom of not wearing a seatbelt. Lawmakers have decided that wearing a seatbelt does a lot of good to society at large (by not having to deal with reckless deaths) in exchange for a small violation in personal freedom. Sometimes it is hard to find a balance between personal freedom and the harm it may cause to others, but seatbelts are among the easy ones.
- Volundr 3y agoIt always amazes me when discussing seatbelts how few people seem to know that they don't just protect you, they actually make for safer driving for everyone. When a collision occurs or even just in the face of evasive maneuvering the seatbelt keeps the driver in the driver's seat at the controls, and keeps other occupants from becoming projectiles. It's much harder to swerve, brake, or do whatever is necessary when the driver is now sitting in the passengers lap.
- rootusrootus 3y agoNo, they are to protect the rest of us from you. If you are not in control of your car, then you are a danger to us all. And being unbelted is a really excellent way to find yourself out of control when something exciting happens on the road. If it were really just about containing the mess you make when you are ejected from the car, I'd be in favor of making it personal choice. But it's not.
- Defletter 3y agoIt's only a violation of personal freedom in the most obtuse sense where anything that dissuades or prevents you from doing anything you want (everybody's so creative) is an infringement on your personal freedoms. There's this saying that, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail; as for Americans, when all you care about is personal freedom, everything looks like an infringement. Something that went largely ignored by the personal freedom crowd during the pandemic is one's right to life. The government is duty-bound to protect your right to life, or at least it should be. And so it's not much of a decision between requiring masks to enter certain spaces versus letting vast swaths of the population die. (There's a great book about this called Emergency State by Adam Wagner). Here in the UK, the zeitgeist around the seatbelt wearing is different: there's not much, if any objection to seatbelt laws. And no doubt part of that is our socialised healthcare system: you not wearing a seatbelt is a direct burden on the taxpayer. You guys in America don't have socialised healthcare, or at least nowhere near to the same extent, but the question still remains the same... you still have insurance. Are you okay with your insurance premiums paying for stupid people inflicting themselves with entirely preventable injuries from taking an ideological stance against seatbelts? Your premiums will likely go up the more this happens. I remember one rather harrowing conversation with an American who said that, in such situations, the insurance company should be able to deny coverage... and I guess I'm just horrified at what kind of society that is that discards its citizens to die like that. Another point is that you are infinitely less able to control a vehicle in an accident while flying through the windscreen, so not wearing a seatbelt is not only a deadly danger to yourself, but poses an inherent risk to other drivers and pedestrians. And depending on the accident, you becoming a projectile can and will kill other people in the car (eg: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y3InF19dzlM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y3InF19dzlM). Does this not matter?