!remindme 1 year
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
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Not wearing a seatbelt should be completely legal (once you're over 18). It's stupid, but it should absolutely be legal.
No. It also puts the other party's life (in a crash) in danger.
Nope, it doesn't.
The chances of that happening are so astronomically low as to be completely irrelevant, and it doesn't hold a candle to the violation of personal liberty.
?????? Astronomically low? Even a crash at 10 to 20 Km/h can turn you into a meat projectile, dumbass
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If you are a passenger sitting behind someone and you don't use your seatbelt you crush the person in front of you in case of a frontal colision, and if you are sitting next to someone and get hit from the side you can break both your skulls on each other
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the violation of personal liberty.
You live in civilization -- that's a choice you made. You adhere to a social contract. Your liberty after a certain point takes a back seat. This shouldn't need explaining.
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personal liberty includes children's right to have a parent alive and well for as long as possible even if they're too stupid to take measures against risk of an accident.
all laws are limits on personal liberty. that alone isn't a good argument against any law.
also if you're gonna say the risk of something is astronomically low you have to back it up. and even then it's not a good argument.
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My wife works in a hospital and receives patients from car crashes. If driving without a seatbelt was legal she would find another job.
Intact she has worked in a country where no one, even kids are required to wear seatbelts, and she doesn't want to work like that now
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This is like the 3rd or 4th dumb take I've seen come out of lemm.ee users within the past few hours.
Yall must be migrating from the highly intellectual youtube community section.
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Since you don't care about human life, maybe money matters more to you: Seatbelts decrease auto insurance costs.
I absolutely care about human life, and it's sad and senseless when people kill themselves with stupid choices.
I just respect their humanity enough to not impose my will on theirs, when their decisions don't cause significant enough externalities for the people around them to justify treating them as less human than I see myself.
Seatbelts decrease auto insurance costs.
And legal penalties for high BMI decreases health insurance costs, which are much, much higher than car insurance costs (as well as preventing far more needless deaths, since you're such a humanitarian).
Why is freedom of choice valid in the more egregious cost scenario but not less egregious one?
their decisions don't cause significant enough externalities for the people around them
I get that this is an onion-derived convo and I see the wishy-washy word there too.
But if I were to swerve and miss a child running into the street and run into your car instead, I will have assumed safety features would protect you when instead I've just killed someone not wearing a seatbelt. Humans are seriously squishy.
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Shitty whataboutism
While at it, we should legalize drunk driving. Drunk driving got a bad name in the past because irresponsible drunk drivers were drinking behind the wheel and purposefully running people over. My father drove drunk for 30 years and he was only in 7 car accidents. It’s non sense.
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I agree. It is VERY stupid to not wear one, but seatbelt laws in the US were a test of control, not safety.
Seatbelts are a constitutional violation on personal freedom. Argue all you want, but they are.
which part of the constitution was the seatbelt law supposed to be violating again?
See, this is what happens when they stop teaching civics in school. Article VIII § 2, "in the event that some means of transportation referred to as an automobile is invented, Congress shall enact no laws that infringe on the inalienable right of all men to launch themselves through the windshield of said automobiles."
At least read the constitution if you're gonna make claims like this
thats my bad. good catch.
I mean, then so is not allowing people to randomly test nukes on their own property.
As is every law against suicide or selling clearly harmful chemicals.
The penalty is a ticket, and rarely enforced, get over your shit.
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If you think about it, all regulations stemming from the DoT are.
They're infringing on my right to drive with no head or taillights.
They're infringing on my right to ignore traffic signs.
They're infringing on my right to drive on the left side of the road.
They're infringing on my right to drive a monster truck on the highway.
In a truly free country, I could drive my truck with 66" tires down the so-called "wrong" side of the road in the dead of night with no lights whatsoever. Sure, I might injure or kill someone, but I also might not, and stopping me from doing so is clearly stopping me from my pursuit of happiness.
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I know this is the onion but I'm honestly glad for companies like Subaru building in a way to disable the seatbelt chime. When I'm slow rolling a rocky dirt road at 10mph with no one else on it, I feel dumb wearing a seatbelt. Or having the windows up for that matter.
Praise be to Subaru for saving you from such a cruel fate. No one should have to feel dumb wearing a seatbelt!
Coincidentally, anyone feeling dumb for wearing a seatbelt most probably IS dumb (but not for wearing a seatbelt).
How are you so insecure that a seatbelt makes you feel dumb?
It's not about being insecure. I'm just old enough to remember riding in old trucks and cars that didn't even have seatbelts. They make sense for most situations and I wear my seatbelt, but there are sometimes situations where it just feels like unnecessary compliance.
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