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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