Gender: Joined: 06 May 2006 Posts: 2136 Status: User
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 1:47 am Post subject: Mandatory Seatbelt Laws
You know what pisses me off? Mandatory seatbelt/helmet laws.
Not that I'm against seatbelts and/or helmets. I wear my seatbelt at all times in the car, and were I to climb onto some two-wheeled death machine I would definitely wear a helmet.
What we are talking about is our freedom as Americans. If I choose not to wear a seatbelt, no one else's safety is affected... so why is it illegal? Don't my rights extend until they trample on someone elses? And if so, whose rights are being trampled if Carl the Biker doesn't wear a helmet?
The issue here is that insurance companies are pressuring states into legislation that is questionably constitutional. The same with smoking bans, the same with youth curfew laws. I have had enough!
Gender: Joined: 13 Mar 2006 Posts: 6077 Status: Moderator
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 1:53 am Post subject: Re: Mandatory Seatbelt Laws
dodger wrote:
If I choose not to wear a seatbelt, no one else's safety is affected... so why is it illegal?
if I'm in a head-on with you, I'd much rather if you didn't fly through your windshield, through my windshield, and crack my skull open with yours, thank you very much.
Maybe that seems like too much of a long shot for you. Well if you're unbelted in the back seat during a head-on, chances are you're going to make it terrible for the person in front of you.
So yes, your flying body projectile is plenty a danger to others. Seat belt laws make sense.
Helmet laws... okay, I'll give that to you. If they're stupid enough not to wear a helmet, then they won't live to be stupid another day.
and I support the heck out of smoking bans. Public places are ruined by people smoking. _________________ Come into my den let me hear you cluck
You can be my hen and we can f(Bu-GAWK)
A bite to the leg, it's time to play
Baby, let me be your egg that needs to get laid.
- CEO Nwabudike Morgan
"The Chicken of Lust"
Gender: Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 2845 Status: User Location: Not there.
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 1:58 am Post subject:
FUCK HELMET LAWS!
I never wear a helmet. _________________
.daerps em pleh ot erutangis ruoy otni em ypoC .suriv erutangis a ma I
Gender: Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 3191 Status: User
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 3:22 am Post subject:
Seatbelt laws can get a little ridiculous if you ask me. Stopping people just because they're not wearing a seatbelt, and fining them for it? If you want to be idiotic, go ahead, you don't need to pay to do so.
In terms of physics, I'm not quite sure if a body can actually fly through a windshield and go into another car if they're not wearing a seatbelt. Unless they were going at really really ridiculous speeds, I doubt you can build up the momentum. It's more of a danger to other passengers in the car, and even then I'm not sure if they're too big to be a real hazard or not--loose things can get you, yeah, but maybe not a body. Plus, airbags are standard on cars now. While it won't guarantee safety, it'll probably stop you from flying through the windshield and interfering with another car. You'll still crash into it, but I doubt you'll injure anyone but yourself.
I couldn't find any examples on a google search or two of someone flying completely through a windshield into another car. A situation like the one Sneaks theorizes is really really really really unlikely, as far as I can tell and determine. Find me an example and I might think differently. And people flying around in your own car and injuring each other, well, that's the responsiblity of whoever is in there, sorry.
Educate them about helmets and seatbelts, yes, but is it really necessary to regulate their use?
As for smoking, some of the laws are getting really really ridiculous. While smoking is a pretty nasty habit, it is still perfectly legal. There aren't a lot of places where you can smoke now, it seems like... no restaurants or bars, not in offices, some places not on the street. I don't see the problem with allowing at least some of those places to have smokers.
Though I say the smokers and the non-smokers have to both stop being such assholes about it. _________________
I'm sure Steveo will jump in here and verify that he's seen stuff like this in his EMT job, where the one idiot without a seat belt bounced into other passengers and killed/injured them. _________________ Come into my den let me hear you cluck
You can be my hen and we can f(Bu-GAWK)
A bite to the leg, it's time to play
Baby, let me be your egg that needs to get laid.
- CEO Nwabudike Morgan
"The Chicken of Lust"
Last edited by Its_The_Sneak!!! on Thu Jul 05, 2007 3:35 am; edited 1 time in total
Gender: Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 1818 Status: User Location: i aint no ho ho
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 3:30 am Post subject:
the seatbelt laws have good intentions and all, but i don't think they're necessary. all you can do is try to educate people, like fru said. smoking bans shouldn't be law at all...if a business like a restaurant wants to ban smoking, they're the ones losing smoking customers, and there will always be a competing business willing to take them. that's nothing the government needs to get involved in. helmet laws are like the seatbelt laws in that they are with good intentions but really shouldn't be mandatory.
edit after seeing dave's video- yeah, the guy without a seatbelt can do some damage in the car they're in, but not in others. it's the responsibility of everyone in the car, collectively, to make sure that shit doesn't happen. _________________
i rhyme in tsunamis and this is just a drop of it
Gender: Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 3191 Status: User
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 3:36 am Post subject: Re: Mandatory Seatbelt Laws
Its_The_Sneak!!! wrote:
dodger wrote:
If I choose not to wear a seatbelt, no one else's safety is affected... so why is it illegal?
if I'm in a head-on with you, I'd much rather if you didn't fly through your windshield, through my windshield, and crack my skull open with yours, thank you very much.
I was talking about that point, primarily. I wasn't denying that someone in the back seat that was unbuckled can fuck things up for every other passenger in the car. But I'd say that responsibility lies more in the driver's area--if you're driving, make sure everyone has their seatbelt on before you're going.
Also, Jon, in New Jersey you are not allowed to smoke in restaurants at all--state law, you're not even allowed a smoking section. Not too sure about bars in New Jersey, but in New York City you can't smoke in bars at all. I believe the California laws are even stricter. There are those laws already in place, unfortunately. I don't mind having it on a restaurant-to-restaurant basis, or just having a smoking section, but there are those who don't want even that.
Smokers and nonsmokers alike are freaking assholes. _________________
Gender: Joined: 13 Mar 2006 Posts: 6077 Status: Moderator
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 3:40 am Post subject:
smoking should be illegal, period. You want to reduce emissions, let's start with the most useless ones first, eh?
Tell me to just put up with it and I'll tell you to spend a year in a dorm where people smoke outside your window every night.
And even if they're smoking in the privacy of their own homes, there's always the idiots who fall asleep smoking and burn down the neighborhood/apartment building. _________________ Come into my den let me hear you cluck
You can be my hen and we can f(Bu-GAWK)
A bite to the leg, it's time to play
Baby, let me be your egg that needs to get laid.
- CEO Nwabudike Morgan
"The Chicken of Lust"
Last edited by Its_The_Sneak!!! on Thu Jul 05, 2007 3:44 am; edited 1 time in total
Gender: Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 1818 Status: User Location: i aint no ho ho
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 3:42 am Post subject:
i honestly didn't know that laws like that were passed anywhere but bars in new jersey. i thought the others were just being thrown around as an idea. i can't think of a single restaurant i've ever been to around here that hasn't at least had a smoking section. most of the time though, the "sections" aren't walled off, it's just smokers sit on one side of the room, nonsmokers are a table away on the other side. it's pretty pointless. also,
fru wrote:
Smokers and nonsmokers alike are freaking assholes.
aren't we all just freaking assholes in one way or another? _________________
i rhyme in tsunamis and this is just a drop of it
Gender: Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 3191 Status: User
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:12 am Post subject:
Its_The_Sneak!!! wrote:
smoking should be illegal, period. You want to reduce emissions, let's start with the most useless ones first, eh?
Tell me to just put up with it and I'll tell you to spend a year in a dorm where people smoke outside your window every night.
And even if they're smoking in the privacy of their own homes, there's always the idiots who fall asleep smoking and burn down the neighborhood/apartment building.
People are going to do it anyways. Look at illegal drugs. Marijuana, cocaine, heroin, whatever. There's still a thriving trade of all of it. It's dangerous, yeah, but for the most part it's your own life that you're fucking up. And the violence surrouding the trade. Our prisons are full of drug offenders: lookie here. Making things illegal is not going to help. Look at the history of prohibition of alcohol in the United States. Mind you, it also depends on how they'll enforce/punish it. Yes, they are the number one cause of fires, but doing some googling I found information on cigarettes that extinguish themselves that are now mandatory in Canada and New York state, and I'd imagine in other places since the article I found is from 2004: here. It may not be perfect, but someone is doing something.
Full disclosure: I tend towards a hey-let's-make-drugs-legal state of mind, not necessarily because of personal use (fuck, I'm pretty much perfectly god damn sober) but because the drug policy in place seems very ineffective. I'm still for anti-drug education, even though a lot of it sucks.
And yeah, there are a lot of smoking laws in place. I know in good olde NJ you can't buy cigarettes until you're nineteen, of all ages--a few other states do too. As for other states' bans on smoking in workplaces, indoors, outdoors, et cetera; check it. Bans are all over the place, some at state and some at municipal level.
Gender: Joined: 13 Mar 2006 Posts: 6077 Status: Moderator
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:15 am Post subject:
fruiterian wrote:
stuff
If it's illegal, they won't be smoking outside my window, and if they do, I can call the cops and get them arrested for it, so making it illegal would solve the crap out of my problem. _________________ Come into my den let me hear you cluck
You can be my hen and we can f(Bu-GAWK)
A bite to the leg, it's time to play
Baby, let me be your egg that needs to get laid.
- CEO Nwabudike Morgan
"The Chicken of Lust"
Gender: Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 4367 Status: User Location: Look where my hand was.
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:33 am Post subject:
fruiterian wrote:
Seatbelt laws can get a little ridiculous if you ask me. Stopping people just because they're not wearing a seatbelt, and fining them for it? If you want to be idiotic, go ahead, you don't need to pay to do so.
It's more so a stacked-on violation. Usually they pull you over for speeding first or something. _________________
Gender: Joined: 13 Mar 2006 Posts: 6077 Status: Moderator
Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:35 am Post subject:
or they pull you over on it so they can find the crack in your trunk if you're suspected of carrying it or black. _________________ Come into my den let me hear you cluck
You can be my hen and we can f(Bu-GAWK)
A bite to the leg, it's time to play
Baby, let me be your egg that needs to get laid.
- CEO Nwabudike Morgan
"The Chicken of Lust"
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If I choose not to wear a seatbelt, no one else's safety is affected... so why is it illegal? Don't my rights extend until they trample on someone elses? And if so, whose rights are being trampled if Carl the Biker doesn't wear a helmet?
