The police cracked down on people who were not wearing a seatbelt over the memorial day weekend here in my town. No suprise many of those drivers were also drunk or breaking some other law, and some had no license or insurance. There was a big outcry of people whining that they got a seatbelt ticket…
Guess what? I didn’t get pulled over…Why? Cause I WORE MY SEATBELT. Why? Cause its a GOOD IDEA.
Its no ones business they tell me. Its their own choice they tell me. Seatbelts do more harm than good they say. I don’t need seatbelts, my car has X number of airbags. I WANT to be thrown out the window and clear of the wreck…Yes that was actually said by someone here locally.
You can either keep getting pulled over and complaining about it, or you can stop being a brain stem and wear your seatbelt.
When some drunk idiot plows into you and sends your head through the windshield I don’t want my tax dollars having to pay your welfare because you’re now an unemployable mush mellon. You see your decision to be an idiot CAN affect others. I understand just plain lapbelts often caused great injury, but who has just plain lap belts these days?
How hard headed do you have to be to not understand that a seatbelt saves lives and DRAMATICALLY reduces the likely hood of you being seriously disabled in an accident?
And please don’t be a prove to be an even bigger dolt by insisting that you know the 1-in-a-billion example of someone who was saved in an accident because he or she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. If you want to play that game I’ll tell you the story of the guy with brain cancer who put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger only to kill all the cancer cells in his brain, but left the rest of him unscarred. It may be true, but NO ONE WITH AN OUNCE OF INTELLIGENCE is going to recommend that you do it.
There is one thing about the seat belt laws that does not make any sense. All people in a moving vehicle are required to wear seatbelts, but motorcyclists and ATV riders over the age of 18 are not required to wear helmets (or stop at stop signs or red lights in this state).
Well I have had 3 friends tboned that life was saved because they were not wearing a seat belt. Officer actually said you would be dead if you had your seat belt on. One dead friend tree and car collision seat belt would not have made a difference, sure me hitting a car that turned left on green while I was a legal 45 mph, other driver no officer light was green I turn and and he hit me, busted the windsheild with my thick head, knee messed up a tad bit from headlight knob, all better now as far as I can tell. So I am not a fan of the seat belt, yes I believe it is good to use it, and I do occasionally, but my biggest problem is the constant tension drags me into the seat and causes back issues. So on long drives where I feel naked without a seat belt I put a clip in the belt to prevent the smoosh me into my seat and create pain.
Why? Because I hate the damn things. I also can’t stand to have the covers tucked in the bed. And I wear boxers, not briefs, because I don’t like feeling restrained in any way. I know it’s smarter to wear a seat belt, but I rarely do it.
I know cigars and cigarettes are bad for me but I smoke them.
Try as I might to live my life according to rationality and reason sometimes I can’t help but be human and have preferences and feelings.
I have a problem when the law forces me to do something because they thing it is GOOD for me. My former state PROMISED it would NEVER pull anyone over for a seatbelt violation when the law was enacted. It took 10 years but now they CAN. I can ride my motorcycle without a helmet in my former state because I was over 18, in my new one, I just need my own accident insurance to ride naked. I ALWAYS either belt up or helmet/glove/boot up when I travel. My choice, my right to choose, I’m financially responsible. I don’t like any elected officials making that choice FOR me.
@WheresRick points out the reason (maybe unintentionally) why we should all reject more government control over our lives. The argument is “My tax dollars pays your invalid care so my government gets to tell you what’s good for you”. What’s next? Take away my sugared soda because I have single-payer government healthcare? My Pop Tarts? Yup, those have already been proposed. Leave us alone and let Darwin add a little chlorine to the gene pool.
In my 2006 Crown Vic, Ford went through a lot of trouble to install a seat-belt warning chime that is VERY difficult to defeat…Difficult, but not impossible. Thank you Ford…(:
but motorcyclists and ATV riders over the age of 18 are not required to wear helmets (or stop at stop signs or red lights in this state).
In your post you ask the question " why are there no helmet laws in good ol Indiana? " A.B.A.T.E of Indiana is your answer . A bikers (citizens) rights organization originally formed to combat helmet laws and other infringements on motorcyclist’s “freedoms”. A.B.A.T.E now has chapters in each state and conducts the majority of motorcycle education /certification classes throughout the country .
Now all we need is a Pro Drunk Driving group to help make drunk driving legal because if you get a dui its infringing on your rights and its not a free country if you can’t drive drunk.
People refuse to believe the evidence about seatbelts for the same reasons they refuse to believe the evidence that vaccinations prevent outbreaks of infectious diseases and don’t cause autism, and the evidence that climate change is caused by carbon emissions, and the evidence that tobacco causes cancer, and evidence that mass shootings can be prevented. It’s called “cognitive dissonance,” and we all engage in it at some point.
I used to appreciate that Florida repealed its helmet laws because I knew how many people were waiting on organ transplants, but things have changed. Improvements in medical care mean more people are surviving severe brain trauma, only to live the rest of their lives wearing diapers and having their loved ones wipe the drool off their chins. The same goes for those who survive not wearing seatbelts. These folks who survive accidents while not protecting themselves almost always end up in medicaid facilities after the health insurance and money run out, costing taxpayers millions of dollars per patient.
If you’re not going to wear a helmet on a motorcycle or a seatbelt in a car, I’m okay with it as long as you have an advance directive and you’re registered as an organ donor.
In my 2006 Crown Vic, Ford went through a lot of trouble to install a seat-belt warning chime that is VERY difficult to defeat...Difficult, but not impossible. Thank you Ford...(:
At work we have a small bucket truck, its a 09 F550, The seatbelt chime goes off if you are moving it a very short distance, and then it continues to go off even if you put the truck in park and put the parking brake on. The incessant chime will not stop until you buckle the seatbelt or shut the truck off.
Well, I don’t even leave the garage without the belt on, and I stop and wait until the wife puts hers on before I drive on. There have been a number of kids over the past years that lost control and rolled over and were killed when they were ejected. I don’t like government control either, but cars are made different now. Most of the time the passenger compartment is still intack so if you can stay in the car, you’ll make it.
Coming home from work one day some years ago, a motorcyle passed me on the freeway. A few minutes later, I saw a cloud of dust a couple thousand feet ahead. When I got up there, a car had stopped quick due to traffic, the motorcycle drivers head smashed against the station wagon ahead of him, and the car in back of him ran up on top of the cycle. There was blood all over the wagon from the guys head and he was spread eagle in the next lane dead. No helmet on. For my sake, put a helmet on so I don’t need to look at something like that again.
There’s absolutely no question that wearing a seatbelt is safer than not wearing a seatbelt, just as there’s no question that wearing a helmet on a motorcycle is far, far safer. The real question is one of civil liberties. Is it the function of the law to protect us against ourselves? Or is the imposition of countless mandates to protect us against ourselves encroaching on our liberties?
I believe the function of the criminal laws is to protect the preyed upon from the predators, to protect us from the callous actions of those who would do us harm. If someone knowingly and willingly chooses to risk his/her life by not wearing his/her seatbelt or not wearing his/her helmet, If one chooses to risk doing him/her self harm, that’s a free choice upon which the law should not infringe as long as it doesn’t also endanger others, as long as the only endangered person is the one that made the decision.
I always wear seatbelts. I do so for safety. If someone else chooses not to, that’s their right. I choose freedom over “big brother’s” protecting me by overseeing everything I do.
I wear a seatbelt when I drive and protective gear when I ride because I’ve seen and experienced the benefits of doing so. I’ve seen it on the racetrack and on public roads that gear makes the difference between walking away from an accident and being carted away feet first.
Seatbelts work, I don’t even want to think how bad my great uncle and his wife would have been hurt if they were thrown from their 2002 accord rather than just belted in while the car rolled a couple times. They were driving from Colorado back to Texas when as far as we know my uncle hit a boulder just to the side of the road and then the car flipped multiple times. My great uncle suffered a broken hip but his wife only needed a neck brace for a few days. Just as I won’t ride a bike without a helmet I also buckle up every time.
Start with the ignition OFF and the driver and passenger safety belts unbuckled.
Turn the ignition to RUN (it is not required to start the vehicle.)
Wait until the seatbelt warning lamp turns off (approximately one minute .) 4. Buckle then unbuckle the driver safety belt 9 times, ending in the unbuckled state. Step 4 must be completed within 60 seconds .
After Step 4 is complete the air bag warning lamp will be turned on for three seconds .
After the air bag warning lamp turns off, buckle/then unbuckle the safety belt again. This will enable the beltminder if it is currently disabled, or will disable the beltminder if it is currently enabled.
Confirmation of enabling the beltminder is provided to the customer by the air bag warning lamp flashing 4 times per second for 3 seconds , followed by 3 seconds again.
Confirmation of disabling the beltminder is provided to the customer by the air bag warning lamp flashing 4 times per second for 3 seconds .
Customer programming of the beltminder is automatically exited after completion of the customer confirmation.
The beltminder will automatically exit the programming mode without changing its enable status if Step 6 does not occur within 10 seconds of the end of Step 4.
Performing Steps 1-12 permanently enables/disables the driver beltminder feature.
While programming the driver side, any activity on the passenger safety belt will abort the programming sequence.
The programming sequence aborts if a system fault occurs that requires the illumination of the restraints indicator lamp (RIL) at any time during programming or confirmation.
I try to ride my bike 5 miles one way uphill and into the wind a few times a week, and think I should get a helmet someday, shortly after I get bike pants with a padded seat. Sure my priorities are probablyy a little screwed up in many peoples opinions, but I have been bike riding since the 70’s and think common sense and observation are the keys to survival. I am a wary driver and cannot tell you how many cyclists and pedestrians do not even look at traffic when crossing an intersection. They just go, and I think they are the people that get hit.
Freedom means having the right to so stupid things. If we’re not free to make stupid decisions, of every decision we make has to be the government-sanctioned one, the one that the government says is the best one for us, than we have no freedoms left at all.
Some 16million allied soldiers died in WWII to ensure that we and the world would be free.
Unknown thousands of colonial soldiers died in the revolutionary war.
All these sacrifices were made so that we could live in a world, in a country, free to live as we chose and not under tyrannical rule of a government that mandated our every decision. The Constitution was written designed to create a balance of powers that would prevent tyrannies, and the Bill of Rights was written to specifically protect us from a government that only allows us to do what they think is good for us, and to prevent the tyrannies listed in the Declaration of Independence.
We now seem to have “evolved” into a country a large portion of which thinks that government mandates are the solution to all our daily problems. I submit that they are not. I submit that when we lose our right to make dumb choices, we lose our freedom. I submit that the right to make dumb choices IS freedom!
To me the issue is not about whether wearing seatbelts or helmets is a smart decision. To me the issue is far more serious than that.
I wear my seatbelt all the time, excepting two situations:
When I go out on trash night looking for metal. I’m cruising residential neighborhoods at 15 or so, and I’m in and out of the vehicle 10 or more times in an hour. There may well be a “milkman exepmtion” for work vehciles that make frequent stops; if not, there should be.
When I’m forced to seat three adult-sized folks on the bench seat of my F-150. The seatbelts make a tight squeeze a sadistic one. Fortunately, I don’t have to do this very often.
I dislike seat belt laws, because (in addition to everything mentioned) they serve as a pretext to an “are your papers in order?” police stop. Givent my liberty-philic stance, I really don’t like giving police an invitation to “snoop” on any motorists, without reasonable suspicion a “real” crime is being committed.
The freedom not to wear seat belts has less to do individual rights then does the laws enforcing them have support from insurance companies. We all like to thing legislation is made based on morality but in our state, it’s based on economics. As far as the repeal of the helmet law requiring riders to wear them, it was a numbers issue. There just aren’t enough of them to create an economic hardship when they die, to put it bluntly. Surviving an accident in a motorcycle is less likely then in a car and the long term expensive medical care is as well. That is a sad statement for one to see motor cycle riders as less relevant, but at least in our state, that’s the case. It’s much safer for a legislator to argue the passage of a law based on economics then it us morality when monetary statistics can be used.
Police do what they are told and enforce laws stringently if told to do so. If states pass a seat belt law as an economic issue that is supported by a lobby as powerful as the insurance industry, you can darn well bet it will be enforced. Individual rights stop at the door of a department store when the right to behave a certain way can affect the economics of a store. By the same token, the rights of a driver to behave a certain way are restricted too when doing so will affect the economics of others; namely businesses and insurance corporations and their insured.
So, if ones freedom to make dumb choices affects the economics of enough other voters or corporations, you can bet your freedoms will be restricted. It can be reasonably argued that wealth insures an element of freedom to individuals as well as providing freedom for businesses to operate. And if you engage in an activity that affects my wealth or that of a business I use, you are affecting my freedom. That is a legitimate argument for passing seatbelt laws as it is laws against smoking in public places.
The argument that somebody’s decision to not wear seatbelts is something that doesn’t affect anyone else is made moot by the reality that those who are severely injured wind up costing all of us huge sums of money for their medical care. No, this has nothing specific to do with Obamacare.
If you know anybody who works for a hospital, then you know that hospitals are frequently on the hook for the cost of medical care for those who have no insurance and/or for those whose insurance limits have been exceeded. Hospitals in this country spend tens of millions of dollars annually on “charity care” that winds up boosting the overall cost of everyone’s hospital care and also winds up boosting your taxes as a result of most states paying at least a portion of that “charity care”.
Additionally, insurance costs for everyone are impacted by the expense of insurance company payments for the treatment and care of those who are severely injured in car accidents.
I have no problem with people opting to not wear seatbelts, but I want those people to do the legal paperwork necessary to deprive them of all “charity care” at a hospital. In other words…if they have insurance, they should receive no treatment beyond the limits of their insurance. And, if they have no insurance, they should receive no treatment whatsoever. That is the only way to prevent their decision to not use seatbelts from affecting me and everyone else. Until the day comes that all non seatbelt wearers do this, then everyone else is paying–in one way or another–for injuries that would have been lessened by the use of seatbelts.