Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsstat.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsstat!laura From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP Newsgroups: net.auto,net.flame Subject: Re: seatbelts make sense Message-ID: <739@utcsstat.UUCP> Date: Sun, 3-Jul-83 05:00:19 EDT Article-I.D.: utcsstat.739 Posted: Sun Jul 3 05:00:19 1983 Date-Received: Sun, 3-Jul-83 05:38:56 EDT References: <153@aplvax.UUCP> Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada Lines: 101 Rich Greenberg writes: It is unreasonable not to wear seat belts. Not wearing seat belts results in more people having worse injuries; it means higher insurance premiums for everyone. Are those people who oppose these systems on the basis that they are intrusions into their "personal freedom" also bothered by the intrusions that result in safer tires, brakes, steering, etc.? Are they bothered by the intrusions that make their children's pajamas flame retardant, or the intrusions that make their homes safe from electrical fires? Why don't these people grow up ? I guess since I am one of those people I had better answer this... Not wearing seatbelts *now* means higher premiums for everyone. This is not an absolute law of the universe. If everyone who agreed to wear seatbelts had lower premiums and everyone who did not had much higher ones, then both the seatbelt wearers and the Insurance Companies would benefit. The non-seatbelt wearers could pay for the right to not wear seatbelts (rights are not by definition FREE, by the way) and (though I wear a seatbelt and cant really presume to understand those who dont) ought to be happy. You will have to think up a very stiff way to penalise those who dont wear seatbelts but have agreed to with their insurance, but governments are notorious for discovering nasty ways to penalise people for fraud, so this ought to be relatively easy. so vanishes argument #1. As for the other intrusions -- I am not bothered that safer ways of doing things exist. I am bothered when I am legally forced to do something which I may make a conscious decision not to. Setting a standard for safe cars (whether this involves tires, steering or anything else) is a good thing when unsafe cars can harm other people. This is not the case with seatbelts, except in that if I drive with someone who does not have seatbelts in his car I am at a risk. Since I can always refuse the ride if I am unwilling to accept the risk, this is hardly the same sort of situation as the "safe brakes" one you outline. Perhaps an better analogy is mountain climbing. Mountain climbing is dangerous. Lots of people get killed climbing mountains. If you climb mountains you may have a hard time getting life insurance. On the other hand, nobody does any serious mountain climbing without being aware of the risks. Are we going to ban mountain climbing because it is dangerous? Actually, I would have found your comment about the kid's pajamas rather amusing, had it not been the basis of one of the greatest tragedies I have ever witnessed. In Honduras, while I was working at a hospital there, they tried the same thing. All pajamas had to be fire resistant. Since an awful lot (there is no way to get a correct estimate since no accurate census exists) of children die and are severely burned with the coal oil lamps they light their homes with (no electricity, remember) this sounded like a fine idea. Alas, there are very few textile plants in Honduras (and the major one had just burned down in a strike at the time). They all added something like FIBERGLASS (we never found out for sure what it was) to the pajamas. No poor person could afford imported American clothes. What was the result? As people bought the new pajamas and put them on their babies, their babies' skins were litterally torn away by the material in the pajamas. You get babies who are raw from head to foot with massive infections due to the pajamas they were wearing. It was worse than the burns, where at least the wounds scab over. Babies died. We noticed what was going on, and spread the word that the pajamas were lethal. But the textile industries could not invest more time and money in a better pajama, and the government would not recind the law. It was only when people stopped giving their children pajamas that we stopped seeing the cases. This was worse than it sounded, for among the poor, pajamas are often the only clothes of children; the others are too expensive. There have been several governments in Honduras since I was last there. For all I know, you can get the old pajamas (which offered some protection from scalding, another killer of the young) these days. If not, then I bet you see a lot of naked mestizos y indios in Honduras. This is the problem with allowing the government to impose safety upon people. If they do a bad job, it will take an infinite number of refinements. Had the textile industry not been forced to sell only fireproof pajamas, then they would have had longer to prepare good pajamas. Had mothers been able to buy the old pajamas, there would have been fewer pajama-killed babies. At some point, you have to make the safer option AVAILABLE, and trust that people's natural intelligence will dictate to them that they should use it. If people are too stupid, then you must educate the people. Denying them the opportunity to make responsible decisions only makes them inept at making responsible decisions when the next time comes. Thus you need more and more laws as people become less and less able to make responsible decisions for themselves. Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura