In the Sept. 17, 2004 The Daily Nebraskan 21-year-old college student Derek Kieper wrote an editorial railing against mandatory seat belt laws . . .

"Uncle Sam isn't here to regulate every facet of life . . . As laws become increasingly strict for seat belts, fewer people will respond positively by buckling up as a response to the laws. . . . There seems to be a die-hard group of non-wearers who simply do not wish to buckle up . . . I belong to this group."

Approximately 4 months later this was published in the Lincoln Star Journal:

". . . [Derek] Kieper, a 21-year-old senior . . . died early Tuesday morning when the Ford Explorer he was a passenger in travelled off an icy section . . . and rolled over several times in a ditch. . . . [Kieper] was ejected from the vehicle.'

I wear my seatbelt, but I don't think it should be a law or a ticketable offense.

They (the states) say "Oh, we care about your safety". I call major BS on this.

In Illinois, where I was last week, (and several other states) you can ride a motorcycle without a helmet if you want. However they will give you a ticket for driving a car without wearing your seatbelt.

Anybody that says it's about safety is full of caca. It is about REVENUE. How much can they extract from people, that's 100% what it's about.

As I mentioned, I always wear my seatbelt, but I hate the shoulder harness so I pull it out as far as it will go and tuck it behind the headrest.

Screw em!

I beg to differ.

An unbuckled soon-to-be-dead body thrown through the windshield (the result of the vast majority of unbuckled drivers and passengers) results in at least a 4 hour closure of the roadway (or freeway) as the White Caulk people do their business. A buckled-in body usually results in closure only long enough for the tow trucks to remove vehicles.

A favorite phrase here is: Time is money.

The government is saving us bucketloads of money with seatbelt and brain bucket laws.

I call BS as well. If the government was concerned about the health and well being of people, then why is alcohol and tobacco legal? I never ride in a car without a seatbelt on, but I don't think it should be a law that you have to wear one.

Skeptical, I'm not arguing the merits of seatbelts. They DEFINATLEY save lives. That's why I wear mine (although, as mentioned above, I put the shoulder harness behind the seat).

What I am arguing is when the government tells us that they are doing it because they "care" about our safety.

That is a crock of caca and it smelleth much.

In reality, it is the insurance companies that are behind the "Click-it-or-Ticket" campaign.

The insurance lobby "contributed" to politicians and they leaned on the Federal Highway Administration. The Feds told the states that they would take away their federal highway funds if they didn't go along with the program.

My neighbor who works for the Federal Highway Administration told me that's how it came about.

Plus it behooves the states to enforce it because they collect revenue from every ticket they write.

Banning alcohol and tabacco would get my yes vote if it came up on a ballot. The cost to me of the legalization of these two items is too much. (Health insurance and automobile insurance. If drunk people and smokers would kill themselves without using automobiles, hospitals and medical care, I wouldn't care. My pocketbook comes first.)

In reality, it is the insurance companies that are behind the "Click-it-or-Ticket" campaign.

But doesn't this help me out in the pocketbook too? If people were dying in car accidents at the rate they were in the bloody 60's, insurance premiums might be higher today.

If you think insurance companies pass along savings to the consumer, I've got a nice FEMA trailer I'd like to sell ya for a good price.

Skep, it does. It benefits us all for insurance companies not to have to pay out as much.

Again, though, what pisses me off is the government telling us that they are enforcing it because they "care about our safety".

That's what I call major BS on.

They don't give a rat's patootie about our safety. It's all about $$$'s

Totally!

The only reasons your premiums are not higher, is they can't figure out a way to extract the dollars from you yet. Trust me, they are working on it, right now, as you read this. They pass along NOTHING. That's considered "growth" and "profitability" which then becomes expected, and they do it again and again and again, every single quarter, if they can.

Has zero to do with your well being.

Re: tobacco and booze.

I think the laws should be on the aggragation and distribution of these things. Toss pot 'n poppies in there too, for good measure.

Natural substances, (and I'm gonna be generous and put booze in there because it can easily be made at home and it's basic) don't need laws banning them. Either people will consume them or they won't.

Where we get into trouble is refining that substance into something seriously potent, and seriously available. I see WAY too many ads for booze, and tobacco is everywhere too.

This stuff in refined and packaged form is a problem we don't need to have. All for cutting ads, and regulating the living shit out of those selling / distributing these things.

If the stuff was kept close to it's natural form, we just would not have the problems we do today. Besides, it's damn tough to regulate mother nature's kitchen!

The injuries caused to drivers/passengers not wearing seat belts cost all of society, not just the victims. What happens when someone injured doesn't have medical insurance? Who pays for that? Who pays for the disability? We all do.

Andrew

This is one of the major points made in seat belt diversion programs.

Those programs are typically delivered by ER / Trauma specialists, able to make an extremely compelling case for the use of seat belts.

I've essentially no problem with things as they stand now, but for all to quick and frequent insurance company bumps. And that's mostly because I really don't like most insurance companies. I think I'm getting ripped off, not that I don't understand the value of distributing risk.

Don't wear it, get caught, go to diversion. 90 percent of the people walking out of there will be absolutely convinced, making it a non-issue.

The guy that did mine (I got tagged in Canby, belt loose, trying to reach something --Doh!), made a great case, and informed us at the same time. One of the best experiences I've had.

Good enough, I think we should be doing more of it, for more of the same kinds of problems.

That is pretty much the one and only time I've appreciated efforts to coerce me into changing my traffic behavior. Why don't we do this more with speeding, for example?

...because our speed laws do more to make money than save lives, that's why. That's a problem we need to fix.

When we've got speed laws as defensible as seat belt laws are, then we will have good speed laws.

The diversion works, because the case for not wearing the belt is extremely thin.

Anyway, I think the law is the right thing to do, and I didn't think so, until getting up front and personal with a guy that deals with the impact every single day.

Trauma is the number one cause of death of people, far and away an order of magnitude higher than most all the other ones we hear about day in and day out.

Nobody talks about trauma. Perhaps we should.