nycphotography

From the famous (or at least stickied) helmet thread:

That thread has careened out of control (as always)... so here's my take on seat belt laws (and safety laws in general) as a new thread:



There should be a federal law that every car has to be at least 600 HP and made out of not more than 15 lbs of aluminum foil.

Additonally, seat belts and airbags should not be required.

In fact, they should be prohibited, as should every other safety device, particularly ones designed to protect your progeny from the ill effects of your own actions.

Hey, you want to bomb around like an idiot? Go for it. At least you're more likely to kill yourself and your offspring than you are to kill someone else.



The law should also be accompanied by one that requires that if you are found to be 100% at fault in a fatal accident, either as a driver or as a "responsible supervising corporate representative with direct oversight" in other circumstances (ie the inspectors and burrocrats directly responsible for BP or Union Carbide type accidents) that your life is forfeit as a mandatory and obvious step of delivering to you the consequences of the accidents that have already resulted from your actions.

Hey, accidents happen, but when your accident costs someone else a life it, it's only common sense that you, being the one at fault really are the one that DESERVES to be dead. So hey maybe we can't bring back the innocent victim, but at least we can pluck the weed as well.

Now I know the hand wringing safetycrats will have a big boohoo over the idea... but if you really think about it, it actually makes perfect sense.

prathmann

Want to make any guesses as to what effect that would have on the rate of 'hit and run' cases in any accident where the at-fault party even suspects that there could possibly be a fatality?

As to the original question; my take on the evidence is that seatbelts are far more effective in actual use than bike helmets but I am opposed to mandatory use of either. While I use a seatbelt when driving I have disabled the annoying buzzer in my cars. I saw no need to have it going off every time I was moving the car up one more car length at a drive-up bank teller when I had taken the belt off to reach a pen and checks in the glove box so I could fill out the paperwork while waiting in line. Nor did I see a need for the buzzer to remind me to protect the luggage in the front seat while moving our daughter's belongings cross-country.

Looigi

Sounds like a great idea! Where can I get seat belts for my bikes?

chipcom 

I'm against helmet laws and seatbelt laws. I don't mind requiring the use of safety equipment for kids, who are allegedly not old enough to make their own decisions, but for the rest of us - suck on it, safety nannies.

Dan The Man

I don't see how it makes sense to fine somebody for not protecting themselves. Shouldn't the consequence be self inflicting? I mean fining someone is a kind of harm. If the point is to keep people from harm, then fining them is kind of a counter-intuitive way to go about it. Using punishment as a deterrent for avoiding another punishment is redundant and a waste of time. Same applies to helmets.

The only possible logic I can see is requiring seatbelts for drivers because it might be easier to slide out of your seat and loose control in a skid with no seatbelt, in which case they could present a greater danger to others.

sudo bike

nycphotography

Why would you think I'm not serious?

sudo bike

Aside from the fact that your suggestion is a) insane and b) will never happen?

frantik

i support mandatory seat belt laws
i don't support mandatory helmet laws for adults

i don't doubt that helmets work, but i think for most bike trips, the risk of danger is pretty low... low enough to allow adults to decide for themselves what kind of protection is needed. Most bike riders don't even get going much past 10-15 mph on a good day. Meanwhile, for a car, 15 mph is sloooow. An impact at average speeds on a bike will mean some bumps and bruises.. an impact at average speeds in a car could easily mean death

badbradclark

Seatbelt laws shouldn't be mandatory, but I understand why they are. There is much evidence that shows that in a serious accident such as a rollover, the seat belt will keep you in your car and prevent you from being thrown out of it and crushed by it. I had a cousin who died this very way. It just make sense to buckle up.

Mandatory bicycle helmet laws are silly - not because they aren't completely worthless (that's for another thread, but I do believe there is some worth to them) - but because there are so many situations in rural areas or suburbs where a helmet is just so not necessary. I make my kids wear a helmet (as do I ) when we are out on the open country roads where the speed limit is 55 MPH, but I don't if they are in town on residential streets or riding to their grandmothers 1/4 miles down the road.

closetbiker

Maybe someone in NZ knows

Bike seat belts made compulsory

frantik

^ i was looking for that link for this thread

onyourback

One of these days we will actually get serious about saving lives and saving money and pass a mandatory hour of daily exercise law.

Doohickie

Reductio ad absurdum

dynodonn 

At first I thought "WTF?, then I saw the date of when the article was posted, then I had a good laugh.

Looigi

I'd vote for a mandatory happy hour law.

closetbiker

At least there're some Kiwi's that have a sense of humor

nycphotography

Ok yeah, an actual law would never happen. If only there was a way to form a law so it would push the responsibility firmly back in the lap of the individual.

But I am dead serious about the concepts that such laws would reinforce.

nycphotography

Ok so granted, hit and run maggots are another problem. But why not address THAT problem separately? I never understood why people use corollary problems that are fixable as a reason to NOT fix a different problem.

My cars have been drilled 6 times while parked in NYC over the last 8 years, twice requiring trips to the body shop to be drivable, and 4 times just leaving nice big dents or scrapes. Not once did someone stop or offer to fix the damage.

Let's mandate that new cars carry an encoded transmitter that will (only) broadcast an ID for 5 seconds any time an impact is detected. Couple it with a receiver that will record the transmitted signals. Cost, maybe $50 per car (in mass qty at mfr cost).

Then, actually enforce hit and run infractions that cause damage, even minor ones in parking lots, with jail time and license forfeiture (and reimbursement for damages).

Viola, hit and run is solved, and not just on the freeway, but in parking lots too.

Dan The Man

I think you maybe underestimate the cost of doing stuff. What kind of spectrum will this device broadcast on? How much will it cost to build a nationwide network of receivers for these signals? FCC needs to okay the spectrum to use, or run it on existing cell phone network. That means a sim card for every car and negotiations with cell carriers. Who will produce it? Putting out an open contract to manufacture such a device will bring in some high bids. Who pays to maintain this wireless network? What kind of standards does it use? Is it a Federal initiative or a State inititative? Will the city police department run it? the FBI? will each insurance company have a finger in the pie?

chipcom 

pfft, we'll just piggyback on Amazon's free Kindle 3G network.

nycphotography

Um. Slow down. Why would you build a nationwide cell network to listen to data that only has value in a 30ft radius?

I'm a huge privacy proponent as well, so the transmitter only fires when triggered. The receiver would ONLY be in the same device as the transmitter. Use the garage door opener spectrum (for example) with a 30ft range.

Only the owner of the vehicle can read the recorded info, and all they get is a VIN Number. It would take a police report and a DMV query to convert the VIN to an owner's identity.

dougmc

Is the problem really so big that we need to equip every single car with transmitters and receivers?

You may say yes, but I'm pretty sure the majority of other people would say no.

And besides, the sorts of people who hit cars often and leave probably would just disable their transmitter. Sure, you could mandate it's checking at inspection time, but it's likely easy to enable and disable as needed, and if it's made to be difficult, it's going to cost a lot more than $50/car.

nycphotography

Just like catalytic converters, initially everyone just removed them, but over time more and more people just left them alone, until now, it's very rare I smell car that I shouldn't (based on make and model).

And if the problem of hit and run is not severe enough that we need to take action to prevent it, then people shoudn't bring up hit and runs as an excuse to not pin culpability on the guilty party in an accident.

For what it's worth, I think hit and run may be much bigger problem than we realize.

sudo bike

Firstly, I don't think we will make everybody safer by making everything less safe. We had cars with no seatbelts for quite some time. Did we experience lower fatal accident rates? No, even though there was a large risk of being thrown from a car. Seatbelts, especially nearer the time they were adopted, ended up saving many, many lives. I don't think there is any historical evidence that shows what you are proposing would work. In fact, I believe most points against it.

Did airbags increase the accident rates? I have a very hard time believing so. I would wager they've reduced many injuries over the years.

Aside from all this, no sane person would be on-board with turning all of our vehicles into tin-cans, especially with children as bystanders who get no choice in how their parents drive. There is certainly such a thing as risk compensation, but you've taken the concept way too far.

Secondly, as far as transmitters, ignoring for a moment that it's a system insanely capable of abuse, do you really think that's the same thing as catalytic converters? Especially when you are talking about such draconian punishment such as taking away someone's license for a minor bump? People would constantly be shutting them off for fear of being thrown in the clink by your imaginary totalitarian regime because they bumped another car while backing out in the parking lot.

How can you possibly think any of this is a good idea???