[Vision2020] Question for the Vision

[Paul Rumelhart]

Kai Eiselein, editor wrote:

> I believe that all persons under the age of 18 should be belted, and 
> officers should be able to pull over a vehicle if they see an unbelted 
> minor.
> Adults, however, should make their own choices.


Kai,

You make good points, but I have to disagree with you here.  One of the 
reasons you wear a seatbelt, aside from stopping you from being flung 
out of the car, is so that you can have the possibility of retaining 
control of the car in the event of an accident.  It's hard to stop the 
car or swerve to avoid something if you are under the dashboard 
struggling to get up.  Of course, this does no good if you smack head-on 
into a telephone pole, but if you careen off some other car, it would be 
nice if the jolt left you still able to regain some kind of control.  
Thus, someone not wearing their seatbelt can affect me directly, if I'm 
in the car that would have been hit if someone had not still been able 
to veer out of the way because they were buckled up.  This argument is 
mainly for the driver, of course, I don't feel strongly one way or the 
other about passengers who are of age.

As one other reason, I'd like to point out that wearing a seatbelt can 
help drive home, so to speak, the reality of how dangerous driving can 
become.  I swear, most people think they are in a video game and that if 
they hit something they can stick their arm out and stop themselves.  I 
like the idea of showing gruesome images as a deterrant, but perhaps we 
should also make them calculate the inertia involved and show them what 
those numbers can mean by showing them the results of crashes at various 
levels of force.

Paul
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