OK you've pulled me in to provide my 2cents worth. I disabled my alarm for both passenger and driver side. If I'm backing my boat in or driving 5mph down a logging road I don't want to wear my belt or listen to that damn noise.
Better yet when the ice on the lake gets thick enough to drive on I sure as hell don't want a belt on if I go through (I know I know).
Whenever older people than myself ride with me some refuse to wear a safety belt because "it's amazing I got to this age without wearing a belt" (sarcasm intended). Also, my Dad was in a horrible accident and would have been killed if he had been wearing his seat belt. So, I don't think you could get him to wear one even at gunpoint.

 

Dads!

When my dad was young man he wrecked a tractor because his foot fell asleep.

What is his driving style the last 50 years?

1) cruise control NEVER

2) Right foot constantly moving.
When you look at the tach it goes
up to 2000, down to 1500, up to 2000, down to 1500...

Your head begins to nod with the rythemic moving of the car.

People go by feeling pity because they think you have car problems.

For 50 years, I swear.

 

Raoul,
That is the way my wife drives. That is why she is only allowed to drive with me in the car if it is a long distance trip and the cruise control is used at all times!!!!!!!!!!

 

I think anybody under 18 should have to wear a seatbelt but over that its up to you. ( I wear mine all the time) Only reason its a law is so insurance company's can wiggle there way out of paying claims. And so cops have yet another reason to randomly pull you over. (I have been pulled over a few times accused of not wearing one yet they are flat out lying) Insurance companys are a bunch of lawyers that count beans all day. Its crap I have to pay more on insurance because I have a speeding ticket. If I cause an accident thats another thing.

 

What irks me is that in Texas, a motorcycle helmet law was passed at the same time we were EXTORTED (federal highway funds) into passing the seatbelt law. Later they managed to get the helmet law repealed. How? I suppose they have a better lobby, I don't have a clue, but it pi$$es me off. I wore my seat belt all the time until they passed the law, then I quit. Call me an idiot if you want, but I don't think it is Big Brother's business.

With that in mind:

"They that would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety." Benjamin Franklin in the Historical Review of Pennsylvania 1759.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. " H.L. Mencken

 

You pay for it through your taxes for ssd and medicare claims to those injured enough to not be able to work after they recover. You don't just have to get hit by a crack *****! There is also this little problem we have here in the states with something called minimum liability. I've been in 4 accidents in my life with none of them being my fault. Every single time they were covered with minimum liability and another that just had no insurance.

A simple trauma can run $1,000 an hour for a badly broken bone and more complex problems with head injuries etc. can run $500,000 and up. I would be curious to see how many of us carry that sort of uninsured or medical coverage on our policies particularly if you had a couple kids and the lady with you. The other cool factor is when someone plows through 5 cars and injures them all, that insurance money dissapears quick between the 5 cars.

Getting back to the original post, I always assumed all the bells and whistles that go off when we don't wear our seatbelts is to keep us from plowing through an air bag. My dad is a paramedic and I have heard a few stories of people just getting crushed not wearing a belt during a major accident with the bags we have these days. Heck even done right your looking at wrist injuries and belt burns.

 

I can’t imagine not wearing my seatbelt. Just selfish, I guess, because I don’t want to get F**KED up in an accident.

 

Raoul-

I like you man. I have followed your posts here for a long time. I think this is just something we are just going to have to agree to disagree on.

I am passionate about my career, and feel some people are bitter about insurance without fully understanding exactly what they are bitter about.

Oh yeah, I was 1/2 way kidding about the nose thing.

Moving on...

I think people that do not drive with their cruise control should be hung by their toenails and beaten with shoe strings until they die...yes, DIE! DEAD!

What's worse than no cruise control? My mom drives with two feet! We'll be sitting at a red light, dead stopped, and the RPM's are hovering around 2500. When the light turns green, we pull 3 G's leaving the line. When we hit the speed limit, she's back to brake/gas/brake/gas. I would imagine she needs her brake pads replaced every other block or so.

 

Yeah, but what's the percentage of these accidents?! I can't imagine it's SO out of control that big bro made a law to 'save the taxpayers money'. My BS meter is going bonkers!

Just glacing over this report: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd...afetyequip.pdf I can't comprehend the laws...

And if folks didn't catch it earlier, I wear my belt everday. I just don't want to be told I have to. If I don't wanna wear it or forget while I drive around the block to a buddies, I think its BS I can get a ticket for that... seriously! I'm a rebel.. YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!! YOUR NOT THE BOSS OF ME!!! AAARRRRRGGHHH!!

 

Do you drink alcohol?

For every study that you show me that not wearing a seatbelt saves lives I'll show you a hundred that say that alcohol is directly related to deaths.

I have no problem with you drinking it, as I do not, as long as you sign a notorized document for each drink that says none of my tax dollars will go toward police presence to thwart drunk driving, sirosis and liver research, or heart disease related to alcohol.

thanks.

 

It might not be out of controll, but I have two friends that have had medicare pay well over 1.5 million in hospital bills fom head injuries on motorcycles. You can call BS all you want but i am a very small view of what goes on in a major city like i'm in. Heck, we have sig alerts daily and can't count how many times the medi-flight helicopter flies over my house to scrape up the half dead from the pavement.

A city like Los Angeles is X 10 for major accidents with the flow of traffic moving 90 plus.

I am with you all on the law though. I hate cops just like the next guy. I felt alot like you are now when helmet laws in cali came into law. Even though I always wore it, never did dig being told I had to till one day.

 

Seat Belt Alarm

 

This isn't the fault of the police. Really it's no one's "fault" other than the ignorant people that buy into the bs. The insurance companies are just trying to maximize profits (by reducing costs); the auto manufactures are trying to appease the insurance companies, and the cops are just there to accept the extra revenue and finding a "probably cause" loop hole.

 

AMEN BROTHER!! Woof woof woof!!

 

Funny how this:


Got to seat belt laws and rants.