Safety vs. Freedom

Don't forget the capitalists!

Seat belt laws are, ostensibly, for people's benefit. Really, though, they exist for the sake of insurance companies. It's about money.
 
So the ultimate conclusion of all this is that there should be no freedom at all and no danger at all. Won't that be nice? I feel safer already.
 
um tiassa, thats just not true. Im sorry but im sure i have actually atended more acidents than you have and seeing the damage done by someone flying through the front window of a car is horific.

The level of damage done to the car by the person flying through the window is insignificant in terms of costs compared to the expences to the health system, the goverment in terms of disability pentions and retraining when the person is unable to work again and in terms of the emotional and finatial costs to the family of that person. This is assuming the person suvives the crash through the window and the head first landing into the ashfelt. Im not even going to TRY to put a finantial cost to the deaths which result both to sociaty itself, buiness, or there families but it is quite large

the biggest surporters of seatbelt and helmet laws are actually the ambulance services, the police and the emergency room staff who see the costs of acidents on a daily basis. 1 person is seriously injured on our roads (in SA ALONE) EVERY HOUR, 24 people EACH DAY ect This dwalfs the road toll and most are compleatly preventable
 
Roman said:
When should people's freedom come before their safety?
If you own a gun, for instance, your kid is like 10x more likely to die from being shot with a gun- which also happens to be the same gun you own.
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who's fault is that? the gun owner, not the gun.

Should punishment only be administered after wrong doing, or as a preventative measure?
Drunk drivers don't do anything hurtful- until the careen into the other lane and wipe out a bunch of hot young white teenage girls. Then everyone is sad.
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if we apply the first part of this quote with the second then we should punish everyone that has ever sipped alcohol as a preventive measure.
in america i suppose this would be called a sin tax no?
 
Asguard said:
um tiassa, thats just not true. Im sorry but im sure i have actually atended more acidents than you have and seeing the damage done by someone flying through the front window of a car is horific.[snip]
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but had they been wearing seatbelts they would have been dead. simple physics will tell you that travelling 50m(flying through a windscreen) before hitting something will result in less force on impact than something that stops you about 5cm from where you started add to that the fact that the belt goes just below your neck, meaning your head(and therefore your spine) continue at full speed until jerking to a sudden stop.

seatbelts dont save lives, they save money. if you crash at a low speed it will prevent you getting a bump on your head, but if you crash on the open road it will snap your neck and kill you instantly, avoiding all those costly rehabilitations you spoke about.
 
mate, go back and redo the year 10 physic componant on road saftey again.

Seat belts are designed to INCREASE the impulse not shorten it, they strech in a very specific way and for a very specific length of time. The WORST seatbelt injury i have ever seen (and yes i have seen alot both on the road and in class) was brused ribs, a tare in the skin across the chest, and some abdominal brusing. That pt would have walked out of the crash except that the stering collom didnt colaps properly and fractured his leg. Needless to say the guy had no long term injuries (at 100km into a wall crash i might add)

Compared to the injuries sustained by an unrestrained passager. When you hit something the car has a tendency to go down which means the passanger goes UP. This puts the head and neck in the most vulnerable possition in that they hit the roof and window with the head tilted FORWARD (so the contact point is the crown of the head). This puts ENORMOUS force on the neck which has a tendancy to snap it around C3. C3, 4, 5 keep you alive.
 
I would like to point out that the seatbelt debate is a subtopic, and should be in it's own thread.
 
Asguard said:
Im sorry but im sure i have actually atended more acidents than you have and seeing the damage done by someone flying through the front window of a car is horific.
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Why do you care? And if it bothers you so much, why look at it?

And, yes, I am being serious. If it was a close relative or something, I could understand it, but why should you care if someone 10,000 miles away from you dies "horrifically" in a car wreck?

And more importantly, I suppose, is why you think you should be allowed to tell others how to life and whether to wear seatbelts or not?

Baron Max
 
Baron Max said:
Tell that to the people who were killed in the Twin Towers, Fraggle.
Or perhaps you can tell it to the people who were killed in Mumbai this past week.
Or tell it to the woman whose young daughter was raped and killed last week in Los Angeles.
Or tell it to the Japanese people who were killed with sarin gas in the subways of Tokyo a few years ago.

See, Fraggle, viewing things from a different perspective, than from the comforts and security of your own home, might make you realize that security is not a bad thing ....and that more people could use some of it.
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One of the worst fallacies of government is that bereaved people should be allowed to make policy. Bereaved people are irrational and often consumed by revenge, arguably the most evil of all human instincts.

As I have pointed out to you and most of the members before, terrorists have killed three thousand Americans in this century, whereas drunk drivers have killed one hundred fifty thousand. The most rational way to increase the security of all Americans would be to reduce drunk driving. Considering how much easier it is to combat than terrorism--the hard-drinking Brits and Germans have a very low incidence of drunk driving--it's a downright no-brainer.

But people get really emotional when a bunch of them are killed all at once by "heathen foreigners," and they perceive that risk as much more important than having FIFTY TIMES AS MANY OF US picked off steadily by our own neighbors.

This is exactly what governments are supposed to be for: To step in and "govern" people into being more rational and responsible, and not be guided by their primitive instincts. Instead, our government used 9/11 as an excuse to destabilize the Middle East, so we're all now in greater danger of attack than ever, and meanwhile 20,000 of us--seven times the death toll of 9/11--are still being killed every year by drunken Americans driving cars.

Security is not a bad thing, but irrational risk management is, and Americans are the masters of irrational risk management.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
As I have pointed out to you and most of the members before, terrorists have killed three thousand Americans in this century, whereas drunk drivers have killed one hundred fifty thousand.
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It was intentional murder with the terrorists, with the drunk drivers, it was accidental. Big difference, Fraggle ....even if you try to make some insane argument that the drunk did it intentionally ...which I assume you'll try.

Fraggle Rocker said:
Considering how much easier it(drunk driving accidents) is to combat than terrorism...
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But it's two different crimes, Fraggle. Comparing those in a crime-fighting way is like cutting off one's foot to get rid of an ingrown toenail. The two issues of drunk driving and fighting terrorism are totally, completely, absolutely not connected in any way.

Fraggle Rocker said:
...-the hard-drinking Brits and Germans have a very low incidence of drunk driving--....
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Brits and Germans don't drive nearly as far as Americans! We Americans like to travel great distances from home to get drunk.

Fraggle Rocker said:
Security is not a bad thing, but irrational risk management is, and Americans are the masters of irrational risk management.
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And yet we haven't been attacked once since 9/11. And you call it "irrational"? If we could do the same for murder in the cities, I suppose you'd call that "irrational", too, huh?

Baron Max
 
Tiassa said:
Seat belt laws are, ostensibly, for people's benefit. Really, though, they exist for the sake of insurance companies. It's about money.
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I actually think laws like that protect everyone. For instance, if you're not wearing a seat belt, I hit, and you die, I then have to live with that. If you had been wearing your seat belt, then I only have to live with the fact that I hit you. Big difference.

It's like states that don't have motorcycle helmet laws. They act like it's oppression, but the truth is I'd rather not kill you when you jump in front of me.
 
Roman said:
Why don't you like personal responsibility?

Believing other people should pay for your stupidity is shallow thinking./QUOTE]

I have no problem with taking personal responsibility, but unfortunately its not part of the modern legal system. Its always someone else's fault, so lets sue them. I believe this litigation frenzy started in the US.
Part of my job is training people, mostly young people, in a light industrial workshop. I've had accidents with students, as in amputation of digits. Believe me its very hard legally to land the responsibilty on their own action. Its a training issue, its an access problem, its a machinery fault, its anything but their own fault unless proved absolutely.
The authorities (in this case the uni) have to save people from themselves because society has removed personal responsibility from the population. Seatbelt laws fit in with this trend.
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Bricoleur

i have noticed that you often leave off the [ bracket closing the end of your
tags. Are you doing this on purpose? because its quite annoying:p
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Sorry Asgard,
Not doing it on purpose, just when I select some of the quote it turns out that way. Protocol here, should I just leave the whole quote intact and address it in toto?:)

Mr Hamtastic, you argue in a strange way. I'm sure there's a Latin term for it, but hyperbole comes to mind!:p Everything or nothing.... if there's not total personal freedom, the only other option is complete dictatorship.
 
no, just watch how much you delete. I know what your talking about, it only occures if you drag with the mouse. If you use shift + the arrow key you wont have that problem (or you can just selete the text, hold shift and then press the left arrow once to get rid of that selection) or you could just add it back in:p Its the button next to the "p" key on the qwerty key board
 
Mr Hamtastic, you argue in a strange way. I'm sure there's a Latin term for it, but hyperbole comes to mind! Everything or nothing.... if there's not total personal freedom, the only other option is complete dictatorship.
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He's taking after SAM in many ways, too, which is a terrible trend. Ham's a really smart person, who is totally wasting his brain by taking after that idiot's tendencies.
 
JDawg-no I said it earlier...

Bricoleur-Firstly, that's a pain to type, I'll be calling you Bri from now on. Secondly, no I'm just taking the argument to it's ultimate logical and pragmatic conclusion. I prefer to start there and work back towards a compromise, myself. :D
 
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