New Minnesota seat belt law will definitely save lives, prevent injury
The new Minnesota seat belt law is causing more motorists and passengers to fasten their seat belts, particularly after hearing that the fine and court costs for each unbelted person in the car could be over $100. In Anoka county, for example the fine and courts costs for each unbelted person total $110.
The new law allows a law officer to stop a car if he is sure the driver is not belted. Once the car is stopped, the officer can tag anyone who is unbelted and may check for drivers license, drunkenness and possession of drugs.
The Minnesota Legislature passed the more restrictive seat belt law after hearing from mothers of injured victims, looking at the data and taking advantage of $3.4 million in federal funds.
Minnesota’s Department of Safety says that of the 325 fatal auto crashes in 2008, 178 involved belted drivers and passengers.
The Center for Excellence in Rural Safety figures 40 lives in Minnesota will be saved a year with the new law in effect.
This law should force more young people to buckle their seat belts, and that’s important, because that’s an age group that causes accidents. Of 48 fatal automobile crashes involving people between 18 and 22 last year, more than half the drivers were unbelted.
Critics of the new law counter that forcing drivers and all passengers in the car to buckle up is just another example of intrusion into their private lives. If they want to drive without seatbelts and suffer injuries or death, that’s their business not the governments, so the argument goes.
Other critics contend the Minnesota Legislature approved the law to collect the $3.4 million in federal funds offered as an incentive to get the law passed.
So that’s the argument of people who do not take into account injuries and deaths to passengers or the driver and passengers of the car involved in the accident.
The Elk River Police Department, like most departments, is instructing its officers to ease into the enforcement. Already the department has noticed that so far more middle to older age drivers have been ticketed – not the young drivers.
In two cases where the driver has been pulled over for not wearing a seat belt, two drivers have been arrested for intoxication.
Police Chief Jeff Beahen of Elk River says the Minnesota Police Chiefs Association supported the law because they are confident lives will be saved and injuries will be prevented if everyone in the car is belted.
It remains to be seen if the law is either a nuisance or a necessary tool to protect the drivers who for whatever reason fail to protect themselves. – DON HEINZMAN
“…a necessary tool to protect the drivers who for whatever reason fail to protect themselves.”
Oh how ‘big brother’ caring, to be so concerned about we peons who are somehow unable to care for ourselves in the proper ways (as determined by Government).
How come it is “big brother” or “nanny statism” to offer mandatory seat belt use (goal, save and preserve life) but it’s not big brother or nanny state to tell a rape victim or an at-risk mother-to-be that she cannot have an abortion?
It smells like cafeteria Catholicism is the preferred method of governing public health and safety issues.
A question worthy of discussion; but apples and oranges. Or maybe straw man. Either way, irrelevant to the topic at hand.
That’s my point — it’s apples and oranges with “nanny state” criers deciding which to put on their tray and which to leave off. But fruit is fruit, so don’t argue that the government shouldn’t force you to have apples but should mandate that you can’t have oranges.
Haha, that’s confusing but it makes sense to me.
The government shouldn’t require seatbelts, but instead should require automakers to guarantee all vehicles will make that annoying beeping sound if you don’t have your seatbelt on. That seems to always work.
Also, while I’m in the mood of defending the government’s overbearing nature, continue to tax the H-E-double hockey sticks out of cigarettes. I’m 25 and healthy, and I shouldn’t be paying the same out-of-paycheck costs for health care as my 60-year-old lifelong smoker colleagues!!!
By the way… did you miss me MisterC because I’ve missed you.
“fruit is fruit”. Wow, you seem to have moved from straw man to non-sequitur.
You could actually discuss the SEATBELT LAW, and whether it is (individual and/or social benefits aside) an intrusion into personal liberty or not. Or you could continue with these tangential rantings. Whatever.
(BTW – methinks it could be a love, hate relationship!)
I’m glad you appreciate my style of comedy. I took a composition of comedy class with Garrison Keillor in college.
Let’s take McDonald’s… LOVE IT!!! But if the government stepped in and said they were going to ban the $1 double cheeseburger because it was contributing to higher obesity rates in children and higher health care costs for Americans, I would say “Thank you (insert fictional being of choice here)” I willingly ignore the delicious $1 burger because I know it’s bad for me. But, others are incapable of cutting that cord, so the government or the private company needs to do it for them. I would prefer the latter, but we both know that profit margins are more important that public health.
So, for seat belts, I, personally, do not see that as intruding on personal liberty BECAUSE of its social benefit. If you wanted to argue mandating seat belt use increases health care costs (it might, more injuries and less deaths) or adversely affects the average American, I will listen to your argument with an open mind, ready to jump the fence. But if you’re asking me to consider its intrusive value without factoring in its social benefit, that is not possible for me.
I won’t belittle your argument though (how pathetically cliche it is to use the term straw man), because I understand where you’re coming from. I simply do not agree with you. But without being disagreeable, I must admit I enjoy disagreeing with you.
“I, personally, do not see that as intruding on personal liberty BECAUSE of its social benefit.”
Individual or social benefit is not (can not) be the measure of Liberty. The argument can be made that an intrusion is warranted by a “compelling public interest” which warrants the limits on freedom/liberty/whatever, but it’s still an intrusion.
I don’t see the compelling public interest that outweighs the intrusion of personal Liberty on this. Mostly it’s for “MY” benefit, not others. Some see it differently (they’re just wrong!)
Now onto the important question, “Is it more cliche to use a cliched “straw man” approach in a discussion/debate; or is is more cliche to point out that someone else used the sadly cliched approach and thence use the term? Like the question regarding reaching the center of a tootsie-pop- the world may never know.
There is no center of your tootsie pop, MisterC.
Just a hollow core… a chocolateless void.
I just hope you’re not arguing as cut and dry, as black and white, as you make it seem. You’re arguing that the seat belt law, which aims to save and preserve life, does not offer a “compelling public interest.” Am I to assume you’re pro-choice, MisterC? Or, in your mind, is there “compelling public interest” to save and preserve the life of a fetus that was created as a result of rape or incest. Am I to assume you’re in favor of the legalization of marijuana? Or is there “compelling public interest” to make sure that chemotherapy patients are denied access to the safest and most effective natural drug which cures nausea?
I don’t care if you’re against the seat belt law, and again, I understand why you are in this instance. But don’t allow your argument to become a double standard. Then again, that’s coming from someone that ignores your “L” in liberty, the “G” in god and the”T” in truth.
To me, the definition of freedom and liberty is not having to live in a world of black and whites.
You seeemed to have read selectively- I did not say there wasn’t a public interest. I said I don’t see one that outweighs the intrusion on Liberties. The classic example used is yelling “fire” in a theater – I see the compelling public interest to curtail that kind of Free Speech.
“To me, the definition of freedom and liberty is not having to live in a world of black and whites.”
That’s a pretty weak definition of Freedom & Liberty, but my guess is it was tailored for this post more in an attempt to take a jab at me; rather than be a succinct, refined definition of what you really believe.
Your postings seem to lean that way – more acerbic than engaging.
I guess I don’t get behind the pulpit for a blogging sermon like some do. But good job on realizing it was a selective definition while failing to find the motive, Matlock. “Compelling” was the key word in quoting you, but I’m sure you think that was less of a “weak” word and more of a solid foundation for your argument. But you pay selective attention in your own way, ignoring my direct questions (perhaps pretending they were rhetorical, though I genuinely don’t know how you view medical marijuana or abortion). Ah, the sins of the father.