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Re: not wearing a seat belt... doesn't the incessant dinging make it worth it to buckle up? Even if there were no benefits to them at all, I'd buckle up just to not hear that noise.

I do think it's worth pointing out the flaw in the "but seat belts are mandatory" argument: driving is a licensed activity. Of course, the exact same argument can be applied to requirements set by private businesses to differentiate between "customers" and "trespassers". It's more of a stretch when government seeks to require private businesses to make requirements of their customers, although we started down that slide with legal purchase requirements years ago.

I don't think I have seen any evidence that seat belt usage leads to riskier driving. But that does not mean that risk compensation does not exist. While it doesn't seem to be an observed factor with seat belt usage, it has been associated with bicycle helmets on children, and anecdotally I *have* observed it with coronavirus mask usage (i.e. people stand farther away if you are not wearing a mask). I suspect that we don't see risk compensation in driving because driving is a skill beyond a means of reducing risk: you want to be a good driver for the sake of being a skilled driver, not merely to reduce risk.

Lord Gonchar said:

Who thinks about everything that much?

Talk about sanctimonious...

RideMan, that’s absolutely a thing in the bike world.

GoBucks89 said:

Fair point. Though something that is missing isn't optional. I recall when they did add them, seatbelts were optional. The statement (made in jest) about restraints being optional made me think of that.

This is circa 1987 (give or take a few years); my childhood friend Dave and I used to marathon Blue Streak and immediately remove the seat belts after we left the station to enjoy the ride holding on for what felt like dear life (although I doubt we were in any danger). I have no idea if they actually checked the seat belts before leaving the station, but I remember thinking it was hilarious and "daring" to take it off.

Honestly, I mostly remember the laughter. Good times.

And kpjb; there are simple ways to disable the seat-belt alarm. But you're right; negative reinforcement is a thing.

So has anyone ever messed around in a Subaru? It stops it self both forward and backward from obstacles. It stays in the lanes decently well it had adaptive cruise and a million other safety related gadgetry. How many people are riding around in these and are paying that much less attention because the car will catch their screw ups?

Technology and advancements make people less aware and also dumbs down the population to an extent.

Lord Gonchar said:

[a bunch of nonsense]

I know you spend a lot of time on this forum being facetious, so I don't want to look like a fool by issuing a serious response to something you said when you were just being silly. I guess that's part of the riddle that is Gonch. I have to assume you know that people that habitually wear their seat belt don't actually think about putting it on; it just kind of happens after awhile. It's a zero-burger. And we also don't drive around in fear of getting into a serious accident. Again, I'm sure you know all of this.

What I'm struggling to apply a charitable interpretation to is the fact that you seem completely unconcerned by the potential to orphan your kids if you were to get in a serious accident while not wearing your seat belt. Jokes about your beautiful corpse flying through the windshield aside, leaving your family behind would be the result, wouldn't it? Yes, it wouldn't matter to you, because you'd be dead, but it would absolutely matter to your loved ones. Does that not register with you at all? It must not, because even a tiny amount of register would compel you to wear a seat belt, since wearing one is, again, a nothing-burger. I mean, what are you gaining? The satisfaction of being a rebel? The ability to do yoga while you're driving? I just don't get it. Even bikers that don't wear helmets, I can understand. I'm sure the sensation of wind blowing on your face and through your hair unimpeded is very pleasant. But not wearing a seat belt strikes me as senseless.

I love dark humor, and I'm with you in terms of not going through life worrying about everything. I usually appreciate the way you manage to keep things light around here by not taking yourself or anything else too seriously, but in this case your flippancy comes across as a cheap cover for callousness and selfishness. And honestly, I hate directing words like that at a guy I don't know, so I sincerely apologize if I'm crossing any lines. I just don't know how else to express my reaction. When you have a family, you are responsible for, you know, not dying.

Bakeman31092 said:

When you have a family, you are responsible for, you know, not dying.

And I'm not dead. Looks like I'm doing a pretty good job.

kpjb said:

Re: not wearing a seat belt... doesn't the incessant dinging make it worth it to buckle up? Even if there were no benefits to them at all, I'd buckle up just to not hear that noise.

Oh, every vehicle has some sort of method in place to turn that **** right off.

And it's one of the things I've loved about the Camaro from the start. It dings one tiny ding when you first take off and never dings again until you turn it off and restart.

In the Jeep, I literally had to do some bizarre dance like hold the brake, buckle the seat belt in, count to ten, remove it, pump the brake, put the seat belt in again, count to ten, hold the brake again, put the seat belt in count to ten... I don't remember exactly, but it was a hilarious procedure.

We can objectively measure that seatbelts reduce fatalities in accidents. I mean, if you just said, "I get off being the contrarian," I'd probably accept that. But yeah, pretty weird thing to defend after the suggestion that insisting people wear masks is sanctimonious. It's like the argument that people looking out for each other is somehow the exclusive domain of conservatives or liberals.

I'm not arguing anything. I'm saying I don't wear a seatbelt. Feel free to. Or not. It literally doesn't matter. My not wearing a seatbelt doesn't affect you in any way - without having to connect more dots than I find reasonable.

You have it exactly backwards - not only was there a moral superiority in tone regarding in mask wearing in this thread, now there's one on the subject of seatbelt use.

Again, I wear a mask even though I'd prefer not to because I'm respectful of your concerns about yourself and my potential to harm you. Same reason I wouldn't point a firearm at your face.

I don't wear a seatbelt because it's not something I feel the need or desire to do. This is justifiable to me because it literally only directly affects me - unlike not wearing a mask in Target.

But if we want to have a Coasterbuzz sort of conversation:

The NHTSA says a little less than 15,000 lives are saved by seatbelts each year. They also say that an additional 2500 could be saved if it weren't for people like me.

They also say that in 2016, over 37,000 people died in car accidents in the US.

So if everybody wore seatbelts the yearly fatality count (based on 2016) would be closer to 34,500. (the actual total minus those that theoretically could have been saved)

And if nobody wore one, the yearly fatality count (based on 2016) would be closer to 52,000. (the actual total plus those that were otherwise saved)

Isn't it Dave that suggested a few times that we suck at risk assessment? He might be right.

(For the record, there doesn't seem to be a number from the NHTSA regarding how many people died in their seat belt.)

And that's as close as I'll come to 'defending' my lack of seatbelt use. I don't even feel like it's an issue, let alone one that needs defended or discussed.

For the record, I also smoked, am decently overweight, would not be adverse to unprotected sex with "new friends", drive at an alarming rate of speed sometimes, use power tools without proper safety equipment, have done sketchy electrical work, don't always wear the proper footwear when I run somewhere - which isn't often (see the overweight thing) - drink alcohol, love the smell of gasoline, don't always follow my doctor's advice, never read the terms of service before clicking "agree", have literally balanced items on top of other items and then stood on them to reach something high, have done some really questionable **** with BB guns, often take the stairs two at a time just for fun, and once shot a man just for snoring.

The seatbelt and helmet thing was brought up as an analogy (a better one than sunscreen 😉) and I chimed in. If anything I was defending mask use under current circumstances because it is a simple consideration for others...and juxtaposed it with my lack of seat belt use (the analogy made to which I responded) as an example of something I don't do because there is no courtesy involved. Because, trust me, if wearing my seatbelt saved the life of everyone else, or not wearing it killed others, I'd be glad to buckle up.

I'm a model citizen.

(I do suppose that under certain circumstances in a head-on collision, my body could bust through the windshield of my car and then directly through yours and I could become a projectile that kills you in an accident, but I have to imagine the numbers on that sort of thing are pretty low)

Lord Gonchar said:

The NHTSA says...

They also say that wearing a seatbelt reduces risk of moderate to critical injury more than they reduce the risk of fatal injury.

I used to not wear a seatbelt, until I grew out of the "I'm invincible" phase of my life, and realized I'm less worried about dying in a car accident than getting some horrific, debilitating injury. If I'm dead, I'm dead. But dealing with a debilitating injury for the rest of my life? Or my family having to deal with me and my debilitating injury for the rest of my life? No thanks, I'll just wear a seatbelt. I don't know what the likelihood of a debilitating injury is, but the nonexistent "cost" of wearing a seatbelt makes it a no brainer, for me at least.

I'm 100% with Gonch here. Put me into the category of "Who the hell cares what other people do, as long as it doesn't affect me". People put WAY too much energy into things that should have -zero- impact on them.

One big example I come across fairly often is making the choice to not have kids. It's insane how many people get riled up or offended if you point blank tell them you have no desire, don't want that bourdon or care if someone can wipe your ass when you are old. This is one topic that seems to come up quite a bit with coworkers or family, as it seems everybody has had baby-fever the past few years... They are always the one to initiate said conversation.

It legitimately can upset people. Why the hell would anyone else care about my (or others) decisions such as this? Misery loves company, that's for sure... I hear enough of their hardships and regret to last me a lifetime (or two).

Anyway....

Want to wear a seatbelt? Hi-five!

Don't want to? Hi-five!

I mean as Gonch stated, it's not something that directly puts additional danger on others. In some cases, would it be so bad to get projected through a windshield vs. the other potential outcome?

One example:

The other night when walking the dog with the girlfriend, heard a ton of sirens in the neighborhood. Start smelling smoke. Saw something glowing in the distance, so we hopped in the car to see what all the commotion was about. My dog gets hella-excited for any chance at a car ride so he was game, of course. Saw a car engulfed in flames on the freeway near my house from the overpass. Eventually found out the driver hit the center median and their car caught fire. Bystanders pulled over to try the person out of the vehicle, with no luck. They could not open the door. I assume the driver was unresponsive (those details not released). He went up in flames with the car.

In this extreme case, perhaps no seatbelt would have projected the person to safety (even with some insane injuries...!) when he hit the center median? Small chance, but I think I would also prefer to take the second or two of being superman out my windshield and taking my chances than burning alive.

That being said, I always wear my seatbelt... So I would have also become a scene from a HHN house.

We are regressing, as a community here in CB land and as a country. We went from a discussion about wearing masks to whether or not we need to be wearing seatbelts...which I kind of thought was already settled.

I've only been in my new job a year now (and what a crazy year it has been) but I if I had to guess I would say I've had at least half a dozen auto accidents in town where the fact that the driver or passengers were wearing their seatbelts was a factor in those individuals' lack of serious injury or fatality. I'm in just one community of 68,000 people...but I don't need any more evidence than that.

Whether Gonch wears a seatbelt or not isn't something I'm going to give a lot of thought about but because I generally enjoy everyone in this community I'd encourage everyone else to take the 2 seconds or so to buckle up.

I do have a funny tale. My father's friend was a Marine Corps helicopter pilot. I remember him arguing vehemently about the seat belt laws and why he shouldn't be required to wear one. My father challenged him on it in front of me once. Said friend was in a helicopter crash, where his being strapped in was one factor in him surviving. I just remember my dad's friend yelling at him..."what's your (bleeping) point". My father just walked away.

If Gonch died I’d be sad.
If Gonch was a vegetable I’d be even sadder.
Unless he was a brussel sprout, then slurp.

I feel like somehow this discussion got caught up in our personal opinions on seatbelt trying to be imposed onto others. I couldn’t care less if you wear it or you don’t. Nor should you care if I do. My problem with seatbelts isn’t anything to do with our personal choices. It’s that they aren’t our choices to make. I should be able to decide to wear it or not. I should not have that decision made by a government. Especially one which allows much more harmful items to remain legal.

Don’t get me wrong, leave the other stuff legal and allow the choice to be made by the citizen. It just shows that the government is not driven by what’s good for the majority. It is driven by dollars and cents.

I guess we're here now.

In 2010, there were 32,999 people killed, 3.9 million were injured, and 24 million vehicles were damaged in motor vehicle crashes in the United States.... Each fatality resulted in an average discounted lifetime cost of $1.4 million. Public revenues paid for roughly 7 percent of all motor vehicle crash costs, costing tax payers $18 billion in 2010, the equivalent of over $156 in added taxes for every household in the United States

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812013

Ergo, Gonch dying by not wearing his seatbelt will cost each of us 4 tenths of a cent. I suspect this will further validate your argument in your mind. But the broader implication is that when people die it costs everyone else money. Prevention of those costs is the courtesy you extend to others in your society, not just your carcass flying through their windshield. The real shame is that some government had to mandate rules for drunk driving/speeding/wearing seatbelts/wear masks and we just don't in the first place because it's logical and considerate of others.

Wouldn't we all rather our $156 go towards something else if a large portion of it could be attributable to preventable behavior? My taxes (in part) go towards paying bills for a group of people who don't think their actions affect anyone. We already have accepted drunk driving as unacceptable behavior, and yet I pay $34 a year for people who die while doing it. Eliminating deaths due to excessive speeds saves us another $32, and eliminating deaths that could have been saved by seatbelts saves us $15.

Lord Gonchar said:

never read the terms of service before clicking "agree"

I was with you until this. But that one is unforgivable.

I have a long story about how not really caring about my impact on others was an interesting and complicated way of not caring about myself without having to admit it. Turns out that cognitive dissonance was a big load, and it grew bigger with time until I couldn't hammer it back with increasing <addictive-behaviors-x-y-and-z> without sh*t blowing up.

Looking back on it, there was probably no other way for that to go.

All I keep thinking about is this:

I would agree that to some degree the conversation has...regressed. That's a polite choice of words.

All I know is that in one page, Gonch said he and his wife don't wear seatbelts and has subsequently been told (by people who don't even really "know" him) that 1) he doesn't really know how to love or care about his wife or children, 2) probably doesn't experience authentic empathy, 3) is most likely psychologically underdeveloped, 4) doesn't care about his impact on society...and now he's been told 5) that the real problem is that he doesn't really love himself. By association, his wife is being told the same things.

Because they don't wear seat belts.

Hi-Five?

I actually don't care whether Gonch wears a seat belt, but that's only because I don't know him. If my wife didn't wear a seat belt, I absolutely would care, and if my constant pleading with her to put the damn thing on was always met with stubborn refusal then I honestly don't know how I would handle that. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Bear with me as I draw this analogy, because it will probably seem ridiculous at first, but if I should only care about things that directly affect me or people that are close to me, then why should I care about domestic policies that discriminate against minorities (after all, I'm not a minority), or foreign policies that get people overseas killed or displaced (after all, I live in America)? Why should I care how my powerful, resourceful country responds to genocide in a Middle Eastern nation, since it doesn't really affect me personally? Well, maybe you agree with that sentiment, in which case I guess this is where we part ways. But if you do care about these things, even though they don't affect you (beyond having a macro impact on the health of the society that you live in), then maybe you can understand my reaction to the seat belt wearing of others.

Gonch's seat belt policy doesn't affect me, on multiple levels (I don't know him, and his death would not result in my death), just like the disproportionate criminal penalties for possession of crack cocaine vs. power cocaine doesn't affect me, on multiple levels (I don't use cocaine, and I'm white). But that policy still seems deeply wrong to me, because as a human being I have a sense of compassion and fairness. I sort of view the seat belt thing in the same way. Gonch has a policy that could potentially affect the people that love and care about him if he were to be involved in a fatal accident that would've been non-fatal had he been wearing a seat belt. With respect to Gonch's policy--and I know it's not actually a policy, but that's the word I'm using to keep the analogy tied together--the people in his circle of loved ones are innocent, in that they have the potential to be emotionally devastated through no fault of their own, because of someone else's poor decision. Well, I have thoughts about that, and I'm compelled to share them here in an environment that encourages open-mindedness, thoughtfulness, and intelligent debate.

Does that mean I care? Well, I don't know. I'm not emotionally invested, and I don't intend to drag on about this much longer, because I know it won't change Gonch's mind, nor anyone else's. I'm not mad at Gonch, and I don't expect him to defend his position. But the whole notion of only caring about things that directly affect you? I don't know where that line gets drawn.