Seat Belts

[nissangirl74]

The NHTSA thinks that charging a heftier fine for non-use will encourage people to buckle up. What do you think?

http://www.thecarconnection.com/marty-b ... -buckle-up

[Razi]

I wouldn't be too bothered if they raise the fine.

I like having my seatbelt on, or I feel like I'll slide off my seat if I corner hard.

[nissangirl74]

I wouldn't be too bothered if they raise the fine.

I like having my seatbelt on, or I feel like I'll slide off my seat if I corner hard.

It was very unnerving driving the roadster before we fixed the seatbelts. Not that there is anything safe about driving her on the open road, but I still feel much better with mine on.

A few years ago, my car insurance policy had a very strict rule on seat belt use. If you were in an accident and it was the OTHER driver's fault, if he did not have insurance, my insurance company would not cover the accident. AND they would drop you. Zero Tolerance.

[Ace2cool]

I wouldn't be too bothered if they raise the fine.

I like having my seatbelt on, or I feel like I'll slide off my seat if I corner hard.

It was very unnerving driving the roadster before we fixed the seatbelts. Not that there is anything safe about driving her on the open road, but I still feel much better with mine on.

THIS! You can ask Greg! I tried the belt and was kinda nervous when he told me it didn't work! :0
That car is an absolute joy, though.

[dre1507]

i always drive with seat belts, unless i'm moving from the parking lot at work the adjacent store's parking lot. people have been ignoring seat belt laws for quite a while now. bumping up charges still won't hinder the majority.

[frapjap]

i always drive with seat belts, unless i'm moving from the parking lot at work the adjacent store's parking lot. people have been ignoring seat belt laws for quite a while now. bumping up charges still won't hinder the majority.

Maybe not, but it'll (hopefully) fix more potholes and lower toll booth rates. In a perfect world that is...

[sx moneypit]

Not wearing your seat belt is as dumb as riding a motorcycle without a helmet.

[Loki]

Anyone who doesn't wear a seatbelt on purpose deserves whatever comes to them.

I used to know a real dumb b**** at work who purposefully never wore a seatbelt, because her friend got in a really bad accident and claims that if HE had been wearing his seatbelt he would have died. Statistics and logic fail some people.

[orangeNblue]

I think a bigger fine would definitely make people wear their seatbelt more. Especially in times like these where people need to hold onto whatever pennies they still have left.

Raising the price of the ticket wouldn't have any effect on road condition or toll prices. Actually if more roads had tolls the roads would become much nicer. Not that this is what I would want, just saying how it works...

[AppleBonker]

I think a bigger fine would definitely make people wear their seatbelt more. Especially in times like these where people need to hold onto whatever pennies they still have left.

I would disagree. Punishment is not much of a deterrent. If people want to be dumb, that's their choice. I just wish it didn't cost society money in healthcare/cleanup/whatever.

[Ajax]

My HS physics teacher had us go through the math of the forces involved in a collision based on the give of seatbelts vs the give of your dashboard. If I hadn't already been solidified in my use of seatbelts, I would have after that.

[Kompresshun]

I've always put on my seatbelt, even since I was young. I've always figured it's not worth the risk, even if i'm just driving down the street or driving through a shopping center, but that's just me.

[Encryptshun]

I remember all the cries of outrage when seatbelt laws were first passed, all the people claiming it was the government sticking their noses into our lives, mandating this and that, impinging on our freedoms, that it was because the insurance companies wanted to protect themselves from big payouts as cars got made of thinner and thinner material, blah blah blah.

Ditto motorcycle helmet laws (which still aren't consistent across all 50 states).

Funny how things change, isn't it? Maybe, sometimes, a law that is intended to be "for our own good", in fact IS.

Maybe in 15 years we'll be a little more open-minded about anti-smoking laws, taking junk food and sugary drinks out of schools, and mandating health insurance.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I always wear my seatbelt. Can't stand driving without it. Seatbelt provides needed lateral support.

However, I don't think it's the NHTSA's business if I or anyone else wears a seatbelt. It's easy for me to say "yeah, fine the idiots" when I'm on the same side of the matter as the law. But if I weren't, I'd be upset by this. If people don't want to wear seatbelts, they can feel free not to. I'm not going to stop wearing mine.

[Encryptshun]

I always wear my seatbelt. Can't stand driving without it. Seatbelt provides needed lateral support.

However, I don't think it's the NHTSA's business if I or anyone else wears a seatbelt. It's easy for me to say "yeah, fine the idiots" when I'm on the same side of the matter as the law. But if I weren't, I'd be upset by this. If people don't want to wear seatbelts, they can feel free not to. I'm not going to stop wearing mine.

The flaw in your logic is that it implies a perfectly closed system where the negative repurcussions only affect the person making the decision, MoD.

Driver chooses not to wear his/her seatbelt -- fine. Driver crashes or is crashed in to and goes to hospital with injuries exceeding what they would have otherwise had if the seatbelt had been worn. Driver's medical insurance or medicare/medicaid pays for medical treatment and incremental expence is disbursed to everyone in form of higher premiums or tax burden, whichever is applicable.

Now imagine that the injured party is a passenger (or, a kid who should be in a car seat). Driver's actions now not only affect him/her, but others in the vehicle who may not have the experiece or wisdom to make the right decision for themselves. If driver is not incented to make that decision FOR the other party, then it's not longer a "victimless" result.

Until everyone can be trusted to do the wise/honest/correct thing, we're going to have laws that appeal to that lowest common denominator at the expense of everyone else. The good thing, though, is that if we are complying with the law out of CHOICE, the fact that there's a law is transparent to us so we don't lose anything anyway.

[MinisterofDOOM]

It's a choice of a lesser evil.

I value personal liberty over the other theoretical benefits.

[AppleBonker]

I value personal liberty over the other theoretical benefits.

I love my personal liberties as much as you, but these aren't really theoretical benefits. People offing themselves through poor choices (safety/diet/smoking/drugs/etc) definitely increase the cost of healthcare. The only part that would be theoretical is if you removed that burden and the insurance companies decided to maintain rates in order to boost profits.

Personally, I'd be fine just offing all of the stupid people out there. Unfortunately, I don't think the 100 or so remaining humans could maintain the lifestyle currently afforded to them...

[Encryptshun]

I hear you, but how commonplace does the realization have to be before it ceases to be purely "theoretical"?

Edit* Page refresh pwnd. Adam beat me to it (and said it much better than I was trying to).

[hitbychance]

I always wear it unless i'm just moving the car around in the driveway or something, it's not worth the 172$ fine here

[gearhead05]

I don't care one way or the other about seat belt laws. I always have and always will wear mine so tickets for not using it will never affect me. If someone wants to be stupid and not wear it then that's their choice. However, if you ride in my car, if I start to pull out of the driveway, parking spot, etc. and the light on my dash shows that someone isn't wearing their seatbelt, I will stop and let them know someone needs to buckle up before I continue.

[breadbox]

Raising the fine won't change the behavior. They just want more money. Its BS. I wear mine but to legally stop a vehicle because one person in the car doesn't have it on and giving a ticket is crap. All you do is piss off the driver.

[TroubleBound]

I wear mine every time. Sometimes when i have a license and i'm in someone elses car i'll forget, but my s13's auto belts makes remembering pretty easy. Only shoulder tho i dont rock the lap, which is ticketable, but ill sneak it on if i get pulled. The lap belt is just awkward and weird, and mine doesn't retract well, adding to the annoyance.

[krash]

I don't get why people dont wear it. Its not like its a hassle or anything....

But honestly, its not as comfy without the seatbelt on for some reason.

[Urabus GodofTraction]

People who don't buckle up are slightly above a 2005-era Terri Schiavo in intelligence.

[tigersharkdude]

wear your seatbelt. Seatbelt in my old max saved my life, seriously. Doctors told me that if it wouldnt have been for my seatbelt I wouldve busted my skull on the steering wheel when I hit a tree doing ~60

[Dattebayo]

I don't think it's the NHTSA's business if I or anyone else wears a seatbelt. It's easy for me to say "yeah, fine the idiots" when I'm on the same side of the matter as the law. But if I weren't, I'd be upset by this. If people don't want to wear seatbelts, they can feel free not to. I'm not going to stop wearing mine.

Yes, they might as well have cops staking out bedrooms throughout the nation for having sex without a condom, too.

The only fine for seat belts that should exist are related to the child belt and safety seat laws.

[Bubba1]

Raising the fine won't change the behavior. They just want more money. Its BS. I wear mine but to legally stop a vehicle because one person in the car doesn't have it on and giving a ticket is crap. All you do is piss off the driver.

While its true there are going to be stupid people no matter what the law says, it does not mean the law should not be on the books.
Since there is a direct correlation between severity of injuries and the use of seatbelts versus not, don't be surprised to see insurance surcharges tacked on as well in the near future.

[Dattebayo]

don't be surprised to see insurance surcharges tacked on as well in the near future.

Too late. If you get too many tickets for no belt, it happens NOW.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

I dunno, I don't think raising the penalty will do a damn thing.
Hell, people still smoke despite the massive taxes on cigarettes, and also the blatant health risks.
I for one do not agree with the seatbelt laws, simply because if the cop wants to be a d!ck and write you up for it, he can, and there is NOTHING you can do (even if you were wearing the seat belt). I'm sorry, but my experiences with cops is not good enough to trust them with a damn thing.

[C-Kwik]

I dunno, I don't think raising the penalty will do a damn thing.
Hell, people still smoke despite the massive taxes on cigarettes, and also the blatant health risks.

I'll disagree. While I would concede that higher penalties will likely not raise usage to 100%, there will be some affect where people feel the risk of the higher fine is not worth it. The effect of this will likely increase over time as people actually end up getting cited and word of mouth starts to spread the magnitude of the fines. To what extent, I have no idea, but I would expect it to be measurable so long as the increase in fine is not trivial.

Smoking is a bit different. The feedback mechanism is slow. A smoker is likely not going to put much thought into a risk that won't affect them for several decades (perhaps). The risk of getting fined for an infraction is much more immediate. Consider for a moment. I drive over the speed limit often. I've had plenty of speeding tickets. I still speed. If they raised the fine for speeding to say, $5000, you can bet your a** I'm gonna stop speeding. Of course, one reason it won't ever get that high is it will likely incite change in how voters change their votes to seek change in the law (legislators would effectively be legislating themselves out of office) and it would cause more people who get fined to fight the ticket. For a case of $5000, a relatively small attorney fee to fight it could be justified. Courts don't want to be overloaded and hopefully legislators would think the same (as a matter of cost to handle an additional burden). That said, one question is what would be the negative aspect of raising the fine for not buckling up? Or put another way, would the potential benefits outweigh the drawbacks?

I wear mine every time. Sometimes when i have a license and i'm in someone elses car i'll forget, but my s13's auto belts makes remembering pretty easy. Only shoulder tho i dont rock the lap, which is ticketable, but ill sneak it on if i get pulled. The lap belt is just awkward and weird, and mine doesn't retract well, adding to the annoyance.

You should know that in a frontal impact, if you do not have the lap belt on, the top of your body will be restrained, but the bottom will not. As such, the bottom of your body will move forward and you'll basically end up sliding underneath the shoulder strap and could end up somewhat under the dash. Given that significant accidents have a lot of violent forces, I'd prefer to be in the most statistically safe position in an accident. Under the dash is not one of them. And if it doesn't retract well, why not replace it? I'll bet you replace broken parts in your motor and suspension right? Why is this any different?