Boy, I see a lot of points to respond to since yesterday.....
Big Tone wrote:
Thinking of something else for a minute; does anyone know if seat belts cause or make whip lash worse?
Sure they do. I had a neighbor who suffered with a bad neck for months after whiplash caused by the belt. It was a relatively minor rear-end shunt.
As I mentioned earlier, a piece of information which never sees the light of day any more is that immediately following the introduction of the belt law doctors reported a substantial increase in the number of victims brought to them with Hangman's Fracture, which as the name implies is a breaking of the vertebrae in the neck in a similar way to the hangman's rope, but in this case caused by severe whiplash.
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I can see the argument around choice of wearing a belt but does choice not become responsibility when there are other car occupants?
It still comes down to choice. If you don't want to ride with me because I refuse to buckle up, nobody's going to hold a gun to your head and force you. If you assess what you consider to be the potential risks of riding with me and decide that you're willing to accept those risks, then you've done so of your own free-will (influenced by how badly you might need the ride, of course, but still your own decision).
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If that new drug also provided relief where would instead have been severe injury or death for other 199 of 200 cases (and there was no other viable alternative that performed any better), then I think the general populous would be calling for it.
People might be calling for it to be available, but would they be calling for it to be forced upon everybody against their will?
There is an analogy there with seat belts. When it became mandatory for new cars to be fitted with belts, the government of the day announced that this was purely so that people would have the choice of using them if they wished. The people were assured that there was no way that the government would ever consider actually making
use of those belts mandatory.
Gee, the politicians lied to us. Now there's a surprise......
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Showing my age here but does anyone remember the Jerry Anderson car from Captain Scarlet, I think, where the driver of a car was facing backwards and viewed the front via a camera?
Oh yes! I remember Supercar and Fireball XL5 too!
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I notice the graph for motorbike rider fatalities dips at the same time the helmet law was introduced; 1973 I think
Yes, it was January 1, 1973 that helmets became mandatory in Britain. It depends how accurate the scale of the graph is, but to me it looks as though the numbers had already hit a low point
before then, and they started to climb again during 1973/74. Based purely upon the figures on the graph, I don't think there's any way to say that the helmet had any measurable effect on the fatality rate.
I was a couple of months shy of 8 years old in January 1973, so I'm not in a position to recall just how many people were already using helmets voluntarily by then, but I would imagine that the proportion was considerably higher than the number of people voluntarily using seat belts prior to January 1983.
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I'm still struggling to understand how the proportion of accidents where the wearing of a seatbelt would be detrimental to the survival odds outweighs those where it would be beneficial.
So are you arguing that it should all come down to a matter of probabilities? If the evidence suggested that some device was beneficial in more than 50% of cases, then its use should be made compulsory?
If not 50%, then at what point would you consider it appropriate to mandate use? 60/40? 80/20? 90/10?
As I said earlier, the proportions are almost impossible to determine due to other variables, but they don't really matter. It is clear -- and the government has acknowledged -- that in
some cases a belt will prove harmful rather than beneficial. Whether it's in 49% of crashes or only 0.1% is immaterial. The government is still forcing the use of a device in the knowledge that in some cases it will maim and kill, and the government has no right to do so, regardless of how many lives it may save.
Put simply, I am
not the property of the state to do with as it pleases.
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Dear oh dear. Helmets save more than they kill, same for seatbelts.
Not a very compelling argument for not using them.
I was not arguing whether helmets should or should not be used. The point I was making is that riding a motorcycle is much riskier than driving a car. As you said, you don't even need the statistics to realize that.
The comparison is that if I'm not to be allowed to choose whether I (arguably) place myself in greater potential jeopardy by not buckling up, then why should a person be allowed to place himself at much greater risk by choosing to ride a motorcycle?
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Everything in life is a risk, if you dont want any risk, then simply pull the plug on life and be done with it.
That really sums up the whole situation. Yes, there are risks associated with just about everything. But in most cases the jackbooted government doesn't poke its nose in and tell you what you must do to alleviate those risks. If it did, it would be illegal to go mountain climbing, skydiving, spelunking, scuba diving, or anything else which involves any sort of danger. Even indulging in unhealthy amounts of chocolate and candy bars could become a crime.
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Yes he does, thats why he wears leathers and a helmet, to help negate some of the effects the risk is likely to impose on his well being.
But there's no law requiring riders to wear leathers, is there? You could legally ride around wearing nothing but shorts and a helmet if you wanted to.
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Im up for it! Its irresponsible to climb mountains..........
......without a safety line.
Irresponsible, foolish, dangerous -- But not illegal. There's the difference.