Buckle Up? Up Yours!

Anyone who thinks that resisting the anti-smoking movement is a losing battle can get inspiration from the few plucky souls who are fighting mandatory seat belt laws. One such pamphleteer calls my attention to three new Web sites devoted to the topic: www.seatbeltchoice.com, www.clickitstickit.com, and www.sukkahs.com/seatbelt. (The last, intriguingly, is a subdivision of a site that sells prefabricated sukkahs, the huts that observant Jews build during the harvest festival of Sukkot.) This seems to be a genuinely grassroots effort by people who recognize the importance of the principle involved. Scoff if you must, but "If we can make people wear seat belts…" is the opening line of many a paternalistic syllogism.

Comments

[pat]

Yes, I think that what I wear in my personal vehicle should be my own choice. Not some else making it a law that if I don't wear my seatbelt I can be ticketed by the police and as long as I'm not endangering another person I should not have to be forced to wear a seatbelt. Majority of the time I drive alone and forget to buckle up but I've been driving for over 20 years and I've gotten from point A to B without the help of a seatbelt and accident free too. Now, smoking is a different story I'm not a smoker but if someone smokes around me and the smoke bothers me I just leave the area, but when it comes to people in the work force and working with the public those people don't have a choice but to endure it. Public places smokers should have to go outside or in areas where smoking is aloud. I don't see a law stating you can't smoke and drive. The hands free for cell phone use I can go for that. Many times I've seen people on the phone weaving, not driving the speed limit, not paying attention because they are on the phone thats endangering others they need to be ticketed.

[Bill Holdorf]

Seat belt laws represent unabated tyranny on the march as each year law enforcement is expanded. Such laws infringe on a person?s rights as guaranteed in the Fourth, Fifth, and the Ninth Amendments, and the Civil Rights section of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Seat belt laws are an unwarranted intrusion by government into the personal lives of citizens; they deny through prior restraint the right to determine a person?s own safety standard for his/her own body, the ultimate private property. Not using a seat belt is a victimless, state-created crime that does not hurt or threaten anyone.

While seat belt use might save some people, there is ample proof that other people have been more seriously injured and even killed because of forced seat belt use. Also, some people have been saved because a seat belt was not used. In the latter case, the insidious nature of seat belt laws mandates that the victim is subject to a fine and possible arrest and jail for not dying in the accident using a so-called safety device chosen arbitrarily by politicians.

The government has no constitutional authority to knowingly maim and kill some people just because the government hopes to save others merely by chance. The government has no right to take chances with a person?s body: play Russian roulette with a person?s life.

Also, the millions of tax dollars spent annually in support of seat belt laws has never prevented even one traffic accident, the real cause of traffic fatalities?not non-seat belt use. Also, because some people feel safer wearing seat belts, studies have shown that they tend to drive more recklessly. This is known as ?risk compensation,? which is covered in more detail in the 1995 book, ?Risk? by Dr. John Adams, University College London, England. In addition to Dr. Adams, there are other professionals who have published in trade journals well documented research which clearly discredits the so-called benefit of seat belt laws, but key members of the national news media refuse to inform the public of such truth.

We do not need to spend millions of dollars for more seat belt law enforcement, for more forced seat belt use, for more traffic accidents. Tax dollars spent for traffic safety should focus on achieving more responsibly educated drivers, and more safer-built roads and vehicles in order to prevent accidents. Preventing accidents will not only save lives but will save the cost of property damage and, most importantly, save our freedom.

There certainly is nothing wrong with voluntary seat belt use, as it is with all other personal safety and health care recommendations in life; however, there is a great deal wrong with all seat belt laws. Such laws must be repealed in order to restore true liberty in the U.S.

Anyone who wants more facts why seat belt laws are wrong for America should contact:
.

Sincerely

William J. Holdorf
5839 S. Harlem Ave., #517
Chicago, IL 60638
(Garfield Ridge)
773-229-1933
[e-mail]

[Robert S Hattner MD]

A pertinent observation I have made about the mandatory use of auto seatbelts is that there are relatively easily obtained medical exemptions to their use.