Should seatbelts be mandatory?

[smurfy2day]

My father in law got a HUGE ticket because he wasn't wearing his seatbelt.

 

Does anyone else feel that adults should be able to make their own decisions about this kind of stuff? Give me a break!

 

[AngelAmidala]

Personally, I think it's safer to wear a seat belt in the front seat of a car. The back seat is a different story (in my opinion) but most definitely in the front seat.

Unless you like flying through your front windshield if you were in an accident.

 

[Help-me-learn]

Yes

 

[Help-me-learn]

The yes was in responce to the ? "Should seatbelts be mandatory?"

 

[Minstrel]

I do not believe wearing seatbelts should be mandatory.  I believe you are safer to wear them, but it should not be mandatory.  Too much government involvement into personal life.

 

[GodBoy809]

i think its good to have seatbelts be mandatory cus they can save your life and you never know when an accident might happen.

 

[mel3]

I prefer to wear my seatbelt so I don't have a problem with it. I think, however, adults should be allowed the choice. Kids are another matter. This should be mandatory with the strictest of law enforcement penalties. I get VERY nervous when I see children not properly restrained. It is not unusual seeing young children standing in the front seat. Or worse, seeing a child atop a parent's lap while riding down the road. It should not take a genious to figure out this is simply too risky and ironically is an accident waiting to happen. Yep, leave the adults alone but go after the adults who insist on not proctecting their children. No one in their right mind wants their child to become a statistic.

 

[KristiXP]

Yes I think seatbelts should be mandatory. Even in the back seat, think of all the room in the back seat that a person could be thrown around in...I think a person would be injured more if they weren't buckled in the back seat than if they were.

I know a girl who got into a car accident and she was thrown out the back window because she wasn't wearing her seatbelt. She was thrown 6 feet from the car, and got a concussion. You need to wear your seatbelt no matter where you go.

 

[Blessed-one]

yep, definitely. People don't know what's good for them (excuse me), so enforcement is needed.

 

[\o/]

I vote for less government and more personal responsibility.

 

[sunshine]

absolutely I think that seatbelts should be mandatory for everyone. usually it's a case of people not realizing how valuable a seatbelt is until they've been in an accident. I know that after being in a rather severe car accident a few years ago, that seatbelts can definitely save your life. yes, I did suffer some chest pains after my seatbelt "caught" me, but I'd rather that than have been thrown thru the windshield.
I agree with mel3 on the importance of strapping in kids and having proper infant seats. I can't stand to see parents letting their kids bounce around in the backseat without seatbelts. kids are too precious for that! it still bothers me that most school buses don't enforce the seatbelt rule, in fact when I was in elementary school, many of the buses didn't even have seatbelts. what a lesson to teach kids!

 

[allieisme]

I also think seatbelts should be mandatory. absolutely. They save lives, and and thats why its a law...It has nothing to do with interferring in personal lives at all.

 

[AnnMercy2]

Yes, I believe that seatbelts should be mandatory for all. I don't believe that the goverment is trying to interfer in personal lives with this one. Their just trying to save lives. It's been proven that seatbelts save lives. So I'm all for it. Especially in school buses, has anyone ever seem those video clips of school bus wreaks? Those kids go flying, literaly go flying through the air, those kids wouldn't do that if they had seatbelts. But unforutally, the only seatbelts I've ever seen on buses are on the buses for special ed children. They should be in every vechicle, personal and otherwise. Thanks for letting me rant, it felt good

Anna

 

[Knight]

Has anybody bothered to ask why seat belts are mandatory in some states? Or, to be more precise, why you can be stopped by the police just to check your seatbelt sometimes? The answer is money. The state/local governments make a nice sum of money from seat belt offenses.

Don't get me wrong. I always wear my seat belt and, when driving, I always require my passengers to do so also. It is just a good idea. What I don't like is the government requiring me to do so. I will allow that all children should be buckled in and I will even allow that there should be a law for it. However, once a person becomes an adult then they become responsible for themselves. If they don't wear one and get killed then that's their fault.

What isn't necessary is my tax dollars paying the police to spot check for seat belts when they could be out there catching real criminals.

I have the same attitude about bicycle/motorcycle helmet laws.

 

[waterwizard]

Originally posted by Blessed-one
yep, definitely. People don't know what's good for them (excuse me), so enforcement is needed.

I don't believe we need government to tell us what's good for us.

Someone I know said this: "When the government begins to establish what is good and imposes it by law, we cease to become a free people."

I believe it completely.  We need to be responsible for our own decisions, not let the powers that be make them for us.

 

[Sharky]

Well i've read in the bible that God wants us to follow laws and pray that those laws are good. Well it said something along those lines. Hmm, can't remember verses.

Lousy goldfish memory....

 

[Knight]

No one is arguing about following the laws.

The issue is the laws themselves. Nobody is saying that we should break them. We're saying that the laws should change.

 

[Kristy]

I think it should be a choice to the adult. I am vertically challenged (short) hee hee. my seat belt fits right across my neck if I were to get in a wreak the seatbelt would tighten I would lerch forward and the seatbelt would go right into my throat. A friend of mine has thyriod deises and is serverly overweight. So much that she can not wear her belt because it wont fit around her.
I like it that the kids have to wear them in fromt or back. In Indiana our kids cant sit in the front seat even unless they are over 12.

 

[mel3]

My pastor is also a school bus driver. I have questioned why seatbelts are not placed in school buses. Evidently, or supposedly I should say, tests have been done . They affirm that seatbelts are actually considered non safe on the school bus. In the event of a wreck or a fire ignite on the bus after an accident, it would be more difficult for the child to release the belt and get out of the bus fast enough.

 

[Knight]

mel3
Your pastor is correct. I am an engineer who currently works on school bus design. Tests have shown that seat belts on school busses would actually create more problems than they solve. Plus the sheer mass of a bus makes it likely to do more damage to the vehicle that impacts it than the bus itself. Basic physics at work.