Wearing a seat belt

Growing up nobody wore a seat belt. I remember lying around in the back of our station wagon with my brother and sister just rolling from one end to the other. It was not until 1968 that all vehicles (except buses) were required to have seat belts.
It is a state by state law requiring people to wear seat belts. New Hampshire is the only state that does not require people to wear seat belts. The majority of states have fines that if you are caught not wearing a seat belt and from the data it appears that most comply.
The reality is wearing a seat belt is effective in reducing car deaths. Car crash fatalities are almost half than they were 40 years ago. I would gather just like any legislation that is inserting itself into people’s lives that there is push back but Government legislation does work. This has saved lives, money, and heartbreak. Sometimes we need legislation to help ourselves.
When we graduated from college, we took an epic six-week cross country journey by car. My Mom who had her own company (one of several) at that time worked with the automobile industry. Her words of advice to us before we took off on our journey is “wear a seat belt”. We did. Every day and now I feel uncomfortable without having one on.
When I was in Paris last week I noticed that in the Uber cars we took that if you did not buckle your seat belt in the back the noise would start beeping as it does in the front seat when you haven’t buckled in. The reason is that if everyone in France is not wearing a seat belt you get fined. I kind of loved it.
There is always such an uproar against Government involved in our lives but when it comes to seat belts, if you ask me, this is pretty smart one.
Comments (Archived):
Seat belts when we were growing up were totally uncomfortable if you recall! Now they have great design. Airbags might have been over reach when it comes to govt and cars and certainly the EPA fuel standards are into over reach territory. Will be very interesting to see how a car gets redesigned in an environment where no one has to actually drive-and it’s just a pod to get you from point to point.
It certainly will
.The improvement in fatalities is primarily due to air bags.Air bags are effective because seat belts keep the humans in a fixed location thereby making the airbags effective.Cars are being built safer every year from a structural perspective, absorbing more energy.Government regulation is always good when it works.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
In Switzerland, the police does road checks to ensure that all passengers are wearing their seat belts. Most Uber drivers will insist you wear it before they start driving. If fined, both the driver and the passenger receive the fine. And it’s paid on the spot by credit card.Slightly related (in terms of government regulation), someone told me this happens in China. If you honk (and it’s forbidden in the city), some automatic camera takes a picture of the car, and you get stopped and fined a few blocks later as they find you.Back to Switzerland, I once received a speeding fine in the mail after I was apparently clocked driving 6 km/h (yes, six – that like 4 miles/hour) over the speed limit on the highway (unintentionally of course). That’s government enforcing regulation to the T.If you want to see how citizen law is enforced, go to Switzerland or China.
.Alternatively, if you want to see how gulags, re-education camps, genocide, governmental organ harvesting programs work — go to China.Do not, however, speed.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Wow
My Mom who had her own company (one of several) at that time worked with the automobile industryNo way you are getting away without writing a few posts about all of that (the companies, what they did and so on).
Ha. Will get there.
No doubt you have been confronted with going on vacation with the kids having to take taxis or ground transportation and not having car seats with you.
I don’t even wear cars. Such an unfashionable look these days.