T
The Question
There is an ad campaign on TV and radio across the country called “Click It or Ticket“. This is a program where people are told if they do not put on a seat belt in a car while driving they will be ticketed. Also in the new Senate Highway Funding bill there is a section which would allow police to pull over a driver for not wearing a seat belt even if they were not speeding or breaking any other laws. That there is are laws which requires you to wear a seat belt is really not in question. What should be questioned is need for such a law and if wearing seat belts really improves on the safety of our lives.
First some facts, seat belts already are a large part of most drives lives. 90% of front seat drivers and passengers wear their seat belts, while only 63% of back seat passengers put on the strap. Women wear seat belts more than men and the older you are the more of a chance you wear it. (RoSPA web site) Now there are other figures such as death rates in accidents and the percentage of who wore a seat belt and who did not. They are as follows: In 1997 there was 21,989 people killed in an auto accident of a car or light truck. Of these 38.5% wore a restraint of some kind, in real numbers that is 8,457 people killed even while wearing a seat belt of some kind. Now granted there were more people killed who did not wear some kind of restraint. But these numbers prove that wearing a seat belt is not the be all and end all way of saving your life or yourself from injury in an auto accident. In fact 2,378,000 people were hurt in an auto accident and the majority of them wore a restraint, some 77.6% or 1,846,000. All these figures come from The Disaster Center's Motor Vehicle Accident Death and Injury data Index. So this is the Federal government’s figures showing that even while wearing seat belts roughly 1/3 of the time you die in an accident and over 2/3 of the time your are hurt in an accident. So given the data how can anyone say wearing a seat belt really improves your odds all that much.
Now that the facts of how seat belts perform have been given lets look at the ethical side of making people wear them. America has many freedoms, freedom of speech, press, religion and self-incrimination just a few. Also in America there is the acceptance that a person is responsible for their lives. If you walk on the edge of a long drop and fall you can not blame anyone else. You walked on it, you are at fault for falling. This is true for many things in America why not for wearing seat belts as well. If you are in an accident and you get hurt and wearing your seat belt would have helped then you should have to pay more for insurance or not have the accident covered at all. If you are a person who does not wear a seat belt then you should have higher insurance rates because it is going to cost you more to be in an accident. This is one reason given by the government to have the laws to save people from injury and death thus saving money and lives.
So if saving lives and bodily harm is the goal here why is there not laws for having a heart attack because you are over weigh? Or getting a ticket for not only driving drunk but putting your body at harm with excusive amounts of alcohol namely your brain and liver? Why are those people who free climb cliffs and mountains, meaning no safety gear of any kind, not given a ticket by the government? It is a danger, some one could be killed or hurt but nothing is done to them. Why? What puts driving a car into this category of special attention by the government where laws on the driver and passengers are enacted? What could be the reason? Their own facts show that wearing a seat belt only slightly improves your odds of getting out of an accident unhurt or alive. So there must be some reason…could it be money? Would not having a law which gave a policeman the right to pull over a driver and give them a ticket generate money for a given state which had this law.
Then there is the gradual increment of how far the government can intrude in your life. The seat belt law is a first step, then it is how loud you play your music in the car. Here they would be trying to protect your hearing and all the medical bills which go along with it. Then it is if you can eat in your car, talk on the phone which some places have already outlawed. Then they will move from the car to the home. It would never stop and it would all be done for the public good. In America we have rights and driving without your seat belt is one of them. You made the choice of the kind of car, how fast and safe you drive it and if you want to take your chances and get hurt in an accident in that car by not wearing your seat belt. It is not a matter of money or anything else of why the states made these laws it is a matter of control and see how much they can take.
First some facts, seat belts already are a large part of most drives lives. 90% of front seat drivers and passengers wear their seat belts, while only 63% of back seat passengers put on the strap. Women wear seat belts more than men and the older you are the more of a chance you wear it. (RoSPA web site) Now there are other figures such as death rates in accidents and the percentage of who wore a seat belt and who did not. They are as follows: In 1997 there was 21,989 people killed in an auto accident of a car or light truck. Of these 38.5% wore a restraint of some kind, in real numbers that is 8,457 people killed even while wearing a seat belt of some kind. Now granted there were more people killed who did not wear some kind of restraint. But these numbers prove that wearing a seat belt is not the be all and end all way of saving your life or yourself from injury in an auto accident. In fact 2,378,000 people were hurt in an auto accident and the majority of them wore a restraint, some 77.6% or 1,846,000. All these figures come from The Disaster Center's Motor Vehicle Accident Death and Injury data Index. So this is the Federal government’s figures showing that even while wearing seat belts roughly 1/3 of the time you die in an accident and over 2/3 of the time your are hurt in an accident. So given the data how can anyone say wearing a seat belt really improves your odds all that much.
Now that the facts of how seat belts perform have been given lets look at the ethical side of making people wear them. America has many freedoms, freedom of speech, press, religion and self-incrimination just a few. Also in America there is the acceptance that a person is responsible for their lives. If you walk on the edge of a long drop and fall you can not blame anyone else. You walked on it, you are at fault for falling. This is true for many things in America why not for wearing seat belts as well. If you are in an accident and you get hurt and wearing your seat belt would have helped then you should have to pay more for insurance or not have the accident covered at all. If you are a person who does not wear a seat belt then you should have higher insurance rates because it is going to cost you more to be in an accident. This is one reason given by the government to have the laws to save people from injury and death thus saving money and lives.
So if saving lives and bodily harm is the goal here why is there not laws for having a heart attack because you are over weigh? Or getting a ticket for not only driving drunk but putting your body at harm with excusive amounts of alcohol namely your brain and liver? Why are those people who free climb cliffs and mountains, meaning no safety gear of any kind, not given a ticket by the government? It is a danger, some one could be killed or hurt but nothing is done to them. Why? What puts driving a car into this category of special attention by the government where laws on the driver and passengers are enacted? What could be the reason? Their own facts show that wearing a seat belt only slightly improves your odds of getting out of an accident unhurt or alive. So there must be some reason…could it be money? Would not having a law which gave a policeman the right to pull over a driver and give them a ticket generate money for a given state which had this law.
Then there is the gradual increment of how far the government can intrude in your life. The seat belt law is a first step, then it is how loud you play your music in the car. Here they would be trying to protect your hearing and all the medical bills which go along with it. Then it is if you can eat in your car, talk on the phone which some places have already outlawed. Then they will move from the car to the home. It would never stop and it would all be done for the public good. In America we have rights and driving without your seat belt is one of them. You made the choice of the kind of car, how fast and safe you drive it and if you want to take your chances and get hurt in an accident in that car by not wearing your seat belt. It is not a matter of money or anything else of why the states made these laws it is a matter of control and see how much they can take.