I've always hated this one because there is a significant contingent of people who disagree with seatbelt laws -- even if they themselves always wear their seatbelts -- because it's a central example of a law that shouldn't exist when the role of criminal law is to save innocent people from bad people and not idiots from themselves.
And then the campaign feels like a direct attack on the people who don't agree with the law, which encourages defiance, which is the exact opposite of the intended effect. With the further effect of making people angry while they're driving a car, which dangerous in itself.
The cynic may also notice that such laws are commonly passed in order to generate revenue, in which case stimulating defiance could be fully intentional because more defiance generates more revenue.
I'll try to help reframe it into a context were it is harder for you to disagree
> the role of criminal law is to save innocent people
e.g. Law abiding tax payers, companies that hired the people who didn't want to use seat belts, their families and anyome else who would suffer if they were injured
> from bad people
in this case careless drivers who'd drive without a seatbelt.
Not related to you but possibly mildly interesting and somewhat related to reckless driving and reckless behavior generally :
Around here I guess we are the spoiled brats of the world, so when quarantine laws went into effect employees in permanent positions who were quarantined still get full pay.
Then it turned out a number of people took advantage of even this, crossed the border into Sweden (who has a totally different approach, they still -last I heard - go for "herd immunity now" it seems)
After all, food is cheaper on the Swedish side and then you get a paid holiday, right?
So we recently changed the rules to make sure that wont work anymore ;-)
Seriously: some people amaze me in how little personal benefit they have to have see to put everyone at risk.
You are using a line of argument that would justify prohibiting meat, cheese, corn syrup, skydiving, mountain climbing, NASCAR, sailing, tobacco, alcohol, pizza, Coca Cola, desert foods and non-procreational sex. They all risk your life for a momentary personal benefit when someone else might prefer you not and then live longer.
It's also essentially arguing that no one has a right to intentionally end their own life no matter how much they're suffering if their continued existence is beneficial to any third party.
You don't owe the benefits of your continued existence to anybody else, so whether risking your life is bad is a determination you get to make for yourself.
> So we recently changed the rules to make sure that wont work anymore
Naturally. But there are two problems with that.
First, it's not really analogous to seatbelt laws, because if you don't wear a seatbelt then you could die but if you get a virus and spread it to five other people who each spread it to five other people etc. then thousands of people could die.
And second, those people are then in a different country which is making its choice in a different way. They may be wrong, but they're sovereign, and it's the people who live there and intentionally go there who suffer the consequences. What you should do is not let those people come back without being quarantined.
We might not end up agreeing today but I'll admit you argue well.
I'll note though:
- In both cases one persons carelessness hurts others, only to a much stronger degree in the original version.
- I agree, and it is obvious to me that one persons relatives or employer cannot have a say in everything and that some risky behaviors should be allowed as for example skydiving might actually be healthy.
- I agree that maybe it shouldn't fall under criminal laws, I mean I see no reason why a person shouldn't get a visa or a gun permit because they were caught without a seatbelt, but I still want a way to make more people use it. (On a side note, I don't think seatbelt goes on permanent record around here.)
I also guess people with tax paid health care might care more than people who have individual insurances pay for their health care.
Regarding my other example:
the rules are for Norwegians that leave the country to buy cheap meat or booze and then come back - fully aware that they should self quarantine.
With the previous rules they would enjoy a complementary free holiday, paid for by their employers and taxpayers.
That won't be tolerated anymore.
As for the Swedes yes, I agree, they are free to do whatever they want and I think I was careful to not judge them, I'll wait with that until we see the end of this pandemic.
This was an interesting hypothesis. I enjoyed the idea so I wanted to see what probability I should assign the idea that the defiance-effect overrules the compliance-effect. Interestingly, there is one state which does not have a mandatory front seat adult passenger seat-belt law which gives us the ability to test what effect that has.
New Hampshire: No adult front-seat passenger seat-belt law. Beltedness: 67.6%
Lowest beltedness (any law): Massachusetts (73.7%), secondary enforcement (i.e. if you violated another driving law then you can be cited for the seatbelt thing too)
Regardless of the paternalism angle (which I'm sympathetic to because I would like drug use to be permitted, etc.) this would appear as evidence that the defiance-effect is overruled by the compliance-effect. Certainly, it is sufficient enough for me to not look further into the subject.
Standard HN disclaimer so we don't get into some Internet war: Not attempting to refute anything you're saying. Just sharing my conclusions. Your priors and your weights to evidence may yield different posteriors. I do not require you to convince me and I am not aiming to convince you. The hypothesis I wanted to test may slightly vary from yours due to my interests being different and to aim for easier falsification. The existence of this disclaimer is not intended to be evidence that I believe you will engage in an Internet argument.
> it's a central example of a law that shouldn't exist when the role of criminal law is to save innocent people from bad people and not idiots from themselves.
Seatbelts increase the chance of remaining in your seat - and thus in at least partial control of your vehicle - mid-accident. That protects more than just the idiots - it protects any passengers, and it protects the pedestrian wheeling a stroller on the sidewalk, when the idiot's car goes flying towards them during an accident, by giving the driver a chance to steer elsewhere.
> And then the campaign feels like a direct attack on the people who don't agree with the law, which encourages defiance, which is the exact opposite of the intended effect. With the further effect of making people angry while they're driving a car, which dangerous in itself.
This doesn't measure anger induced traffic accidents, but anyone that easily angered on a regular basis will probably find some excuse to be angry no matter what if you ask me. At least if they direct their anger at a billboard instead of a fellow driver, they might be slightly less likely to get our of their car and start a fistfight?
> The cynic may also notice that such laws are commonly passed in order to generate revenue
This resonates with me, though, especially when prosecutors are... lax with evidence requirements.
> Seatbelts increase the chance of remaining in your seat - and thus in at least partial control of your vehicle - mid-accident.
Is this just speculation? Without a seatbelt you get thrown from the vehicle when you hit something, but by that point it's by definition already too late to avoid it, and then you're just in butterfly effect land. Maybe having someone in the car helps because they keep their foot on the brake and the car stays where it is, maybe that's bad because another car that hits the smashed car has to absorb a harder impact when the other car is held in place by the brake instead of being pushed away.
> Wikipedia has references suggesting it's done more good than harm on at least seatbelt wearing rates
This is not the right comparison because the thing to be compared is not seatbelt use prior to the campaign, it's seatbelt use under a different seatbelt campaign, e.g. one that emphasizes the risks to your life rather than the risk of a ticket -- which may actually be more effective regardless, because dying is a lot worse than getting fined.
> This doesn't measure anger induced traffic accidents, but anyone that easily angered on a regular basis will probably find some excuse to be angry no matter what if you ask me.
That's just a rationalization. Volatile individuals exist. Removing triggers for their volatility while they're engaged in a dangerous activity is an advantage.
"In addition to protecting you from injury as a driver, seat belts help you keep control of the vehicle. If you are struck from the side or make a quick turn, the force could push you sideways and therefore you cannot steer the vehicle if you
are not behind the wheel."
For some reason there's a lack of double blind studies on the exact statistics of if low/medium-speed T-bone impacts disloge the driver more often with a seatbelt vs without a seatbelt, but don't let me stop you from volunteering...
> Without a seatbelt you get thrown from the vehicle when you hit something, but by that point it's by definition already too late to avoid it, and then you're just in butterfly effect land.
Many lighter side tbone impacts might simply throw you into your passenger's lap, or even just into the center of the vehicle. Are you really asserting that in such impacts, being behind the wheel of your vehicle is no better than leaving it up to chance? I don't think you're that bad of a driver!
> This is not the right comparison because the thing to be compared is not seatbelt use prior to the campaign, it's seatbelt use under a different seatbelt campaign
There are external costs when someone doesn't wear their seatbelt. First responders are kept busy tending to their needs when they are injured. Ambulances and hospital resources are kept busy when they otherwise wouldn't need to be.
Rear seat passengers not wearing seatbelts can directly injure front seat passengers who did not consent to the risk.
To argue that the seatbelt law impacts on personal freedom seems shortsighted to me.
You are implying that the consequence of not wearing a seat belt and having an accident hurts only the idiot? That's not the case. There's a cost to society (we have to clean up the mess) and to the family (if any). It's incredibly selfish and irresponsible to take such completely pointless risks.
And yet there are still a large number of people who disagree with you, take the campaign as an affront and respond with defiance, which still makes use of that campaign instead of a less threatening one inherently dangerous. Notice that this is true even if you're right about the seatbelt law.
> There's a cost to society (we have to clean up the mess) and to the family (if any).
The cost of cleaning up the accident site is de minimis. The cost to the family is an internal family matter -- if you care about your loved ones, get them to wear their seat belts.
> The cost to the family is an internal family matter -- if you care about your loved ones, get them to wear their seat belts.
That's a nice ideal, but you have to contrast it with the systems-level view: people indeed are idiots, barely a step up from a chimpanzee, and absolutely need to be protected from their own idiocy. We all do, some to larger extent than others. We often don't notice it, because we've been born into a complex world, and have internalized many rules that protect us without even thinking about it.
Note that risking the lives of you and other people in the name of hurry is also a form of idiocy; a very common one with otherwise smart people. We're creatures of emotion after all, and the thinking mode that processes impatience isn't good at cost-benefit analysis.
>And yet there are still a large number of people who disagree with you, take the campaign as an affront and respond with defiance, which still makes use of that campaign instead of a less threatening one inherently dangerous.
Do you have figures to back that up or is this conjecture?
You can find polls of popular support for seatbelt laws anywhere. The numbers depend on the poll but generally some large plurality of people (e.g. 30-40%) disagree with the law, sometimes more.
It's obviously basically impossible to measure how many of them respond to the campaign by not wearing their seat belts, but out of what would be something like a hundred million people who disagree with the law, do you really expect the number to be zero?
Well, if I need to guess how many of the 30-40% people who disagree with the seatbelt law would use seatbelts if not mandated, and are now not using them to spite their own face, I am guessing a very low figure (not a large amount of people). Lower than the amount of people who were not using seatbelts and are now using them if for no other reason than to save themselves a fine at least.
It doesn't have to be larger than the number of people who use a seat belt because of the law, only the number of people who use a seat belt because this campaign was more effective than an alternative campaign that isn't so antagonistic, e.g. one that emphasizes the risk of death rather than the risk of fine, which you would generally expect to be a bigger motivator anyway.
And the better campaign may in particular be more effective at getting the people who weren't wearing their seat belts originally and still don't under this campaign, because they're more likely to be the defiant ones to begin with, so they're more likely to be receptive to a less antagonistic campaign.
You're asking for something you have to know nobody has polled on one way or the other.
But the number of people who disagreed with the law to begin with is probably a pretty good approximation for the number of people who disagreed with a campaign which is effectively promoting the law.
>You're asking for something you have to know nobody has polled on one way or the other.
Yeah, since you're arguing that the campaign was bad because people disagreed with it and stating it as a fact.
>But the number of people who disagreed with the law to begin with is probably a pretty good approximation for the number of people who disagreed with a campaign which is effectively promoting the law.
> Yeah, since you're arguing that the campaign was bad because people disagreed with it and stating it as a fact.
It is a fact. I've met people who do this.
> In what way?
There are people who disagree with a law that orders them to do something they think should be a personal choice. There are people who disagree with an ad campaign that orders them to do something they think should be a personal choice.
If you had to propose a hypothesis about whether a correlation exists between these two groups, what would it be?
If the only reason why people react badly to the campaign is the fact that they disagree with the seatbelt law in general, then the whole argument about whether or not the campaign was too aggressive is moot. They hate the campaign because of the law, not because of what the sign says.
From my perspective, I have to wonder if I don’t already pay enough taxes for the government to scrape my blood off the pavement after an accident without having to act as if it incurred more of a loss than me (who is a corpse in this scenario).
As usual the solution to this type of problem exists in insurance. If you get into an accident and you weren't wearing a seat belt then you pay correspondingly higher insurance premiums for the rest of your life sufficient to pay for the claims filed by other people not wearing seat belts who become disabled.
Assuming they want to be able to file a disability claim, because the problem is caused by the insurance to begin with -- if the problem is that people will be more likely to file an insurance claim then the solution is for those people to pay a higher premium if they want the insurance.
That's theoretically a possibility -- make it like smoking for health insurance. You have to answer the question up front but if you say yes you pay higher premiums and if you lie then it's justification for denying your claim.
A lot of people hate that because it means people can choose not to be covered and then have a Very Bad Time when they can't file a claim. But it's not like they have anyone to blame but themselves.
> to save innocent people from bad people and not idiots from themselves.
But you are also saving the idiots fellow passenger from the idiot when the idiot becomes a human missile in an accident.
There are SO many scenarios we don't think about when we go about our daily lives that others happen so see on a daily basis.
I ended up going to a seatbelt class because I got such a ticket once. It was led by a nurse who got involved because she was sick and tired of having people come into the emergency room absolutely destroyed.
I will also mention: I would imagine it's much harder for a driver without a seatbelt to continue maneuvers (and trying to avoid hitting people/things) when they are not properly secured and getting bounced around.
>it's a central example of a law that shouldn't exist when the role of criminal law is to save innocent people from bad people and not idiots from themselves.
Do these people also disagree with drinking/smoking age laws?
Some of them do. Some argue that that's different because then it is someone bad (tobacco company) hurting someone innocent (child who doesn't know any better).
Adding to that, age laws are also a far more complicated topic than it might seem at first glance. Young people will generally lack education and experience, while chronic exposure to some chemicals can have drastic effects on physical development. Worse, developmental issues appear to overlap extensively with the previously mentioned "bad people" that criminal law is hypothetically supposed to protect us from. Personal liberties aside, there would be significant consequences to society if we couldn't reliably produce at least marginally functional and healthy adults.
Related to that, in many countries there seems to be some expectation of the government looking out for younger people to at least a limited extent. Compulsory education and foster care come to mind among other things.
I guess what I'm getting at is that raising healthy children seems to be much closer to a serious public health threat (ex pandemic) than to engaging in a risky activity (ex white water kayaking) when placed on a continuum.
Smoking, drinking and driving without seatbelts all cause health risks to third parties (in form of second-harm smoking, crime&domestic violence, and bodies flying around the vehicle during an accident, respectively).
I think it would be better to discuss the "protecting idiots from themselves" angle using activities that harm only the people engaging in them.
I've always hated this one because there is a significant contingent of people who disagree with seatbelt laws -- even if they themselves always wear their seatbelts -- because it's a central example of a law that shouldn't exist when the role of criminal law is to save innocent people from bad people and not idiots from themselves.
And then the campaign feels like a direct attack on the people who don't agree with the law, which encourages defiance, which is the exact opposite of the intended effect. With the further effect of making people angry while they're driving a car, which dangerous in itself.
The cynic may also notice that such laws are commonly passed in order to generate revenue, in which case stimulating defiance could be fully intentional because more defiance generates more revenue.