Helmets seatbelts and maybe something to do with age(thrip)

[Zechs Merquise]

I can see the argument for seat belts being compulsory if the chance of you being thrown through the window puts others in direct physical harm. However, I find that rather unlikely. It's much more likely to be due to the nanny state!

 

However there really is no argument for people being forced to wear helmets on bikes. If someone is stupid enough to ride without a helmet and dies then it's there tough luck. What's more, there are religious exceptions in the UK for wearing helmets on bikes - which is utterly ridiculous. If it's OK for one set of people to do it, surely it's OK for everyone.

[Jonnas]

I had a violent crash a couple of years ago on a highway and got away scotch free

 

Good, 'cuz drunk driving just ain't cool typos are funny

[Sheikah]

@Oxigen_Waste Purely anecdotal. Maybe those people without seatbelt enforcement are subject to an entirely different environment (traffic differences, general differences in driver mentality; all could differ by population). You don't have proof that having no seatbelt enforcement means there's the same number of deaths/serious incidents. If someone is spotted not wearing a seatbelt and pulled over and warned, at the very least there will be a higher chance they'll wear it in future. They're not going to use a seatbelt even less as a result of the warning out of some weird spite.

 

Either way like I said above, so long as not using a seatbelt can have such a host of knock on effects on healthcare services and others, they will continue to enforce the law. And rightly so!

 

Regarding buses, it's very unlikely given at the speed they travel that you'd die.

 

I can see the argument for seat belts being compulsory if the chance of you being thrown through the window puts others in direct physical harm. However, I find that rather unlikely. It's much more likely to be due to the nanny state!

 

However there really is no argument for people being forced to wear helmets on bikes. If someone is stupid enough to ride without a helmet and dies then it's there tough luck. What's more, there are religious exceptions in the UK for wearing helmets on bikes - which is utterly ridiculous. If it's OK for one set of people to do it, surely it's OK for everyone.

 

I agree with the latter. Helmet safety has not really been properly proven, especially given there are tendencies for drivers to get closer to helmet wearing cyclists.

[Diageo]

You can' just generalise that if one place can work without seatbelt laws, all places can. There are many factors to consider including cultural differences, population density and size, education and climate. What may work somewhere else may not work here. It may be that laws are created because the alternative is not working, even if it works in other places. As an example, throwing up in a taxi incurs an instant €80 fine in Ireland. This law is not necessary in most other countries because it is not a regular occurrence there.

 

Regarding buses. They have trained and vetted drivers that are watched over much more extensively. Additionally, due to the size of buses, most collisions with other cars would have much larger effects on the other vehicles than the bus. They require much more turnover of people sitting in a certain location, drive at lower speeds, and remain within their designated paths.

[Oxigen_Waste]

It's like bluey said, we have fundamentaly different views and this is going nowhere. The big problem here is there is no right or wrong answer. There's an argument to be made for both sides and at the end of the day the difference is cultural and nothing else. It's too subjective. A great example of just how differently we see the issue is the fact that you see less deaths as a good thing, where as I see it as neutral since those deaths would've been the result of a choice. Let me just reiterate that I think that everyone should obviously wear a seatbelt. I'd just appreciate to be given the choice. But at the end of the day it doesn't bother me at all since I wear it anyway.

 

I'd love for helmet law to vanish though, for those leisurely strolls around town. Where the seatbelt is unintrusive, the same can't be said for helmets, as feeling the wind on your head really adds to the experience. I wouldn't ever not wear a helmet above certain speeds, though. It just feels good when you're joy riding through the woods (I always ride without it when in secluded woods or mountains where I know I won't be caught) or around town. Yes, I know I might die and I still think it's worth the risk.

 

Good, 'cuz drunk driving just ain't cool typos are funny

 

Wow... It wasn't a typo, I genuinely thought the expression was scotch free, and not scot. Oo

[Agent Gibbs]

Personally i think the law is needed to make you wear a seat belt, because there are some idiots out there who need looking after.....

 

That said, i'll leave you with an account from my Friend; He was in the army stationed in Germany in the early 90s and at the time he had a healthy disrespect for the law. One night after drinking all night in a club with his mate and their girlfriends, they set off in his BMW to sneak the girls back into the barracks. On the way there was a long straight road that had a deceptive slight bend halfway down which had a farm house to the side.....well he floored it and was going down there over a hundred, everyone except him was wearing a seatbelt. Well as you can guess with the speed, drink and a slight bend, the car left the road went into the farm land and crashed. The impact launched his friend and the two girls from the car, yet him the only one not wearing a seat belt, was still in the car, the airbag saved him.

 

Suffice it to say he got raped by the MPs and the German police and he was asked to leave Germany

 

I still don't know what to make of it, sure beyond a certain speed seat belts are less effective, but in my mind they all should be in the car, or all out

[Oxigen_Waste]

You can' just generalise that if one place can work without seatbelt laws, all places can. There are many factors to consider including cultural differences, population density and size, education and climate. What may work somewhere else may not work here. It may be that laws are created because the alternative is not working, even if it works in other places. As an example, throwing up in a taxi incurs an instant €80 fine in Ireland. This law is not necessary in most other countries because it is not a regular occurrence there.

 

Regarding buses. They have trained and vetted drivers that are watched over much more extensively. Additionally, due to the size of buses, most collisions with other cars would have much larger effects on the other vehicles than the bus. They require much more turnover of people sitting in a certain location, drive at lower speeds, and remain within their designated paths.

 

That renders the discussion moot, then, since we're in vastly different places in all of those categories. "Here" is meaningless if we're in such different locations, which we are.

[Goafer]

By the way 2, what's your take on buses (since they have no seatbelts)?

 

The explanation for the safety of school buses is explained by a concept called compartmentalization. In compartmentalization, the seats on the school bus are placed very close to each other and have high backs that are very padded. As a result, in an accident the student would be propelled forward a very short distance into a padded seatback that in a way is like an early version of an airbag. In addition, the fact that people sit high off the ground in school buses also adds to the safety, as the impact location with an automobile would occur beneath the seats.

 

I also read somewhere (although I can't find where now) that because buses have a greater mass than cars, they will slow down at a slower rate in an impact (or just plow through whatever they hit), so people won't be flung around as much, further negating the need for seatbelts.

 

Could be wrong on that one, but it seems to make sense.

 

 

 

 

And on the subject of the whole "It only affects me" thing: I'm fairly sure saying "Don't worry, this actually has nothing to do with you" isn't a valid way to comfort a grieving family member/friend. I used to think like that back when I was young and drove like a bit of a bellend (not massively so). Then I realised that there would be a lot of people who would be upset if something were to happen to me.

Edited October 21, 2013 by Goafer

[Blade]

Its a seatbelt. Regardless of "mentality" its not like its such a tremendous effort to put on.

[Rummy]

Try to keep it friendly guys.

[jayseven]

@Oxigen_Waste you have the full and proper backing of the law to kill yourself. Your family may accept your accident as something you were aware of, and you may enjoy many a ride around town sniggering at the fact that you have no seatbelt on. But if you flew out of your car and didn't die, but merely were reduced to a potato, you may change your opinion. Well ok let's be honest you wouldn't actually have the mental capacity to regret anything anymore because your brain's been replaced by a toilet pan and your dignity has been replaced by a man nappy and a constant game of "how low can my saliva go before the nurse gets it?"

 

Jamba attempted to reel in the subject of the intention of law earlier, and I think that's really the crux of the issue here, isn't it? If it isn't, then I do still believe that we need to clarify our definition of why laws exist, and what they are, before we can argue about freedom or totalitarianism.

 

I wanted to quote David Hume earlier in the (old) thread; he wrote a treatise On Suicide, which deals with how he argues sucide shouldn't be illegal. I've lost my copy and couldn't find an online source, so I gave up. But the general idea is that laws (used to) exist to protect the self, society, and the government. Killing yourself is fine but, as others have pointed out, not wearing a seatbelt can potentially harm others.

 

I get what you're saying, but it's no different to trying to ban US guns. If there were no guns in america then noone would die of gun crime, right? But if you love guns and you don't want to lose your guns you won't agree to a law to get rid of guns. If one day someone breaks in and steals your gun and shoots you (or just shoots you with their gun) then that would suck - but MURICA.

 

In your scenario; trying to enforce wearing seatbelts. If everyone wore seatbelts then nobody would die of not-wearing-seatbelt-related-deaths, right? But if you love not-wearing-a-seatbelt and you don't want to lose your not-seatbeltedness then you won't agree to the law that says WEAR YOUR SEATBELT. If one day a car crashes into you and the driver flies into your car and kills you or your girlfriend/nan/teenager-you've-got-in-your-car-thanks-to-all-that-charity-work-you-do because they didn't wear a seatbelt (MURICA!), or you/a passenger flies out and inflcits pain on another individual who had earlier that day promised to themselves that their freedom was awesome and there may be no god but HELL they're going to have a good existence, then that would suck, right? to someone, right?

 

I'm not writing well, and I have enjoyed many a taxi ride where there's been no seatbelt to put on... but sometimes I try to recognise why a law exists rather than take the narrow-minded view.

 

I have THREE cousins that are only alive today because of seatbelts. Only one of the incidents being their fault. In the 'fault' incident, the driver (my cousin) was kept conscious, thus able to ensure his 4 passengers made it out of the submerged car. Not only was his life saved but the 4 passengers, the 3 children of the passengers and the parents and families of various others. Thus I feel it is just juvenile to pick and choose 'evidence' of developed world laws and implications about seatbelts, or otherwise.

 

Of course speed and terrain factor into whether seatbelts are really necessary. But what beneficial difference does two seconds of putting a seatbelt on make? Blanket law for wearing a seatbelt is much more straight forward than deciding which particular incidents should be exempt, and far less time consuming.

 

Life isn't about freedom, it's about adapting to your lack OF freedom in such a way that you still recognise what you can control, and enjoy it.

[Sméagol]

Although neither of the posts involved were moved here, I felt it appropriate to respond here..

 

Will you let them watch any film they want? Playing games is probably worse because you actually carry out the acts you want. Parents are there to supervise their kids. Kids shouldn't be allowed to see or hear absolutely everything, there needs to be a filter of some sort. These government approved age ratings are the filter.

I could probably respond in a very elaborate way, but I’m not in the mood for a long post, so I’ll keep it relatively short.

It’s a hypothetical situation, and in this hypothetical situation, there may be a hypothetical person who also has a say in this matter, but if it were up to me, then yes, I’d let them watch and play everything they want. Nature vs. nurture.. I don’t know what has more influence, but I think it’s a lot of things that shapes a person’s character. I don’t think there needs to be a “filter”, but I think the parents should guide them of course. Obviously I can’t speak from experience, but as I see it now, I see my role as a potential parent as someone who gives advice, explain possible consequences of certain actions, but mostly, to try to get them a broad set of interests, and let them experience many things. I think violent games for example, will be balanced by other interests. Non-violent, games, other forms of entertainment.. If you don’t look after your kid, and violent games is al he or she plays, than that may mess him / her up. But not even necessarily. Each person is different, everyone has to follow their own path, and I really believe someone should be allowed to make his or her mistakes. I’ll try let them avoid the severe ones, but still. Again, nature, nurture.. They may be messed up, whatever you do, but, also again, everyone follows their own path. When I look at myself, I have certain problems, but being an alcoholic isn’t one of them, even though my dad let me taste everything, even the strong stuff. I also don’t have any urge whatsoever, to hold a gun, even for a sport. So, looking at my own experiences, I don't believe disallowing violent games is necessary. Anyway, to reiterate yet again, everyone is different, and this also influences how someone thinks about parenting. I think this way, you think another.. As long as we do our best, then hopefully our kids will do just fine.

 

Ehm that might not be short after all.