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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
Then it should be suuuper easy to find evidence of a fatality due to a human projectile from a car accident if this is such a huge concern.
I'll wait. Don't worry, I'm patient.
Edit: I wonder how many of you are on the case now. Good luck! I'd hate for all of your pearl clutching to be for naught!
Edit 2: Almost an hour in! Man, it's really starting to look like this is actually just a non-issue, and an excuse to (literally) police other people's behavior and choices that you don't like!
Edit 3: Six hours later, and still looking like a non-issue!
Edit 4: it's been fifteen hours - I think I'm going to call it here. The "human missile" myth clearly has no basis in fact, and is no reason to mandate seatbelt use.
Not a person but a laptop
I bet you weigh more than a laptop. Even if I wasn't killed by you, if I was hurt more because of you I would be pissed.
Sounds like we should mandate strapping down all objects in the car then, right? Since you're arguing we mandate that for people?
By law, cars should come with multiple tie-downs all over the interior of the vehicle, and it should be illegal to have an object in the car over five pounds not secured by them. Right? Because you're so concerned about this one case you were able to find that wasn't even a person?
I must say, this is a very stupid hill to die on.
I'm not going to gore websites for your pleasure, but liveleaks used to be a gold mine for you apparently
This is a proven fact. If you want to ve a complete moron, then you're no better than a flat earther or an antivaxxer, in which case fuck you and I'm not going to waste my time on you
Google it meathead Being ejected from a car in a crash significantly increases the risk of fatal injuries, with statistics indicating that around 81% of people ejected from vehicles in accidents are killed, according to Carpey Law. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that occupants ejected from a vehicle are three times more likely to suffer fatal injuries compared to those who remain restrained, according to Newsome Melton. Seat belts are the most effective safety equipment in preventing vehicle ejections.
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
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.
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
Not everyone's cut out to work in medical care - it's a tough field.
While true, this is a dumb take reflecting why rules like this are important.
Just to quote that person from another comment in this thread:
This is what it looks like when people are unable to admit they were wrong.
Her words, you have to be a psychopath not to be affected by the shit you see in the hospital, and you don't want to be only treated by psychopaths do you?
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.
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?
Shitty whataboutism
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.
At least the other people complaining and downvoting here are bringing actual arguments to the table and engaging in productive dialogue.
What a useless comment.
Clearly from a country without socialized healthcare...
Yes, because that's the dangerous activity that causes the most additional load.
What's the average BMI in your country with socialized healthcare? What are your criteria for which dangerous activities we should and should not be allowed to engage in due to additional load on the medical system?
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.
The difference being, of course, that drunk driving has an incredibly high chance of negatively affecting others, while not wearing a seatbelt has an incredibly low chance of negatively affecting others.
Depends on how many people are in the car doesnt it?
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.
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.
Tail lights and the like are required for the safety of others. Seatbelts are basically the government being your mom and making you wear a winter coat because she worries.
The same goes for regulations requiring air bags, crumple zones, tempered glass windows, and other safety features designed to protect the occupants of a vehicle. If seatbelts are government overreach, then so are these. It's my God-given right to die as violently as possible in an easily-preventable accident.
Those are regulations upon the automobile industry.
They can make seatbelt installation mandatory, but forcing people to wear them is a violation of personal freedom.
It is what it is. Motorcycle helmets are exactly the same. Your state may require them, my state has declared helmet laws unconstitutional. This is from New Hampshire, the only state where seat belts are not required:
[New Hampshire has] "a strong emphasis on individual liberty and a reluctance to infringe on personal freedoms, rooted in their state motto, "Live Free or Die". Many residents and lawmakers believe the government should not dictate personal choices, such as whether or not to wear a seat belt. "
I'm not the person you responded to here, but the difference is that all of those things are very likely to cause negative externalities to other people, while, as I've pretty definitively shown in this thread, that's not at all the case with the negative outcomes of not wearing seatbelts, which are almost entirely limited to the person making the decision.
The United States has some very rural areas where you can be the only vehicle on the road for miles. "Stupid" driving is safer for other people there than "smart" driving is in more populated areas.
But if you're not in favor of totally deregulating public roads in areas like that, then let's look at just the light situation.
Having a light out is much easier to notice than whether or not someone is wearing a seatbelt, and is also used by law enforcement to pull people over, meet quotas, etc.
If I don't have headlights, but your taillights work, I can still see your vehicle in front of me and avoid a collision. Likewise, if I don't have taillights, but your headlights work, either you should see my vehicle in front of you and avoid a collision, or you shouldn't be driving at all if you can't tell you're getting closer to my vehicle.
In both situations, the lights on your car are sufficient to keep you safe if I choose to be "stupid" and drive without lights.
Do you also think it should be the law for car manufacturers to provide seatbelts? If you don't, then you've got an even worse take
Wearing a seatbelt should 100% be the law. It affects others, you're just doing mental gymnastics to pretend it doesn't.
If you didn't mandate seatbelt usage it would take up extra valuable hospital resources, extra valuable emergency response resources, and simply expose more people to death of someone they know.
Go live outside of society, if you truly feel this way. Honestly.
Take your downvotes as a small microcosm that the vast majority of society is not with you on this, and maybe reconsider.