Should there be seatbelt or helmet laws?

1 Comment

  • Mekhong Kurt - 14 years ago

    I could have just clicked the second option. Then I thought about it a little while, and decided the phrasing is too mild to reflect my opinion on such matters.

    When what an individual chooses to do or not to do is highly unlikely to affect anyone else, especially in circumstances in which even if he *does* affect someone else, it won't be in any significant way -- fine: mark me libertarian.

    But my right to be an idiot ends at the tip of my nose when it comes to situations in which my idiocy may very well have a significant impact on others who have nothing to do with the situation in any direct sense -- yet get sucked into the black hole of circumstance I, in my idiocy, have created.

    That's a whole different kettle of fish.

    If a person rides a bicycle without a helmet -- or, far worse, a motorcycle -- there's a chance that if he gets run over and brain-damaged he *could* end up on MY tab, if he doesn't have any insurance. Now if he's got insurance, that is a mitigating factor if he uses it all up but still needs treatment that I, through my taxses, help pay. But it still makes me angry to think his hard-headed insistence on expressing his "freedom" stuck itself right straight into my wallet and, hence, my life.

    And I do resent that, mightily.

    *I* have the freedom, the fundamental *right,* NOT to be burdened by another person's willful stupidity.

    I feel the same about seat belts.

    Many years ago, a friend of mine was vehemently opposed to using his seat belt. I was working as a guard in the ER of the county hospital. One night an ambulance delivered a traffic accident victim who had died a particularly horrible death. She was trapped in her car and it burst into flames.

    The investigation showed that she had her seat belt on (which I foolishly told my friend, but I'll get back to that). She was in a sub-compact, and was trapped by the steering wheel; it certainly didn't help her cause that she weighed way over 300 pounds. (Not when the ambulance crew brought her in wrapped in a body bag, though.) Further, her door was jammed shut, according to the accident investigator, whom I knew, as he was a neighbor of mine.

    So, the lady's seat belt wasn't a factor in her terrible death one way or the other. Her obesity contributed to her being pinned by the steering wheel, and the door was jammed in any case. A couple of witnesses had tried to get her out -- they came to the hospital too, with bad burns -- but had to back off because the fire was very intense. (That it was intense was a blessing, in the sense it shortened the poor lady's suffering.)

    Well, as I said above, I foolishly -- stike that, STUPIDLY told my seatbelt-loathing buddy the story. The whole story, seat belt and all.

    Until the day he died -- of a heart attack, not in a car accident -- he loved to tell that story as "proof" that "seagt belts KILL." Of course, he always omitted the bits about her obesity, the steering wheel, and the jammed door -- they didn't fit his desired thesis.

    Though we remained close friends all the rest of his life, that was a very sore point between us, even many years later, especially because I happened along a couple of times and caught him giving the twisted version and stood him down over it.

    Seat belts save lives. Period. Full stop. I don't care what a person's political stand is, whatever it is *doesn't change the math.* Nor the science.

    One day when I was working in Dallas (Texas), I had a roommate who was a Dallas police officer. He came home one evening and was clearly pensive, so I asked about his day. He said he had been dispatched on a call where a window washeer had plunged to his death. Somewhat shocked, as I had just watched the local news but there was nothing about it, I asked if the platform broke or just what had happened.

    SUperman had refused to hook on his safety belt. But he couldn't fly when he fell out.

    That's my view.

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