seat belt - always -

Big_A · Jan 22, 2004

I'm not saying that using all safety devices at your disposal is a bad idea, I just want to know when does it stop? If I decide that wearing a helmet should be standard fare for car drivers, and I beat my drum or blare my trumpet loud enough, it becomes a great idea and some liberal thinking state decides it should be a law. Then other states follow suit and wham, we have another safety law on the books because we don't know how best to take care of ourselves.

There are a heck of a lot more people out there that are sucking off of Joe and Jane tax payer than people that got hurt because they didn't use their seat belt. If it makes you happy to wear one, then by all means, do it. Just don't tell me I have to!

beltfed · Jan 22, 2004

No such thing as a seat belt for my Iseki Tractor, nor ROPS nor anything else. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

jrdellaratta · Jan 22, 2004

My concern for personal safety went through the roof once I had children.
My new JD has a fixed ROPS and seatbelt, things I don't have on my smaller Kubota 185, the tractor I learned to drive on when I was 12 (and we still have it for mowing between the vines).
Now that I have kids, I'm convinced 12 was too early for me to start driving that thing unsupervised, although I guess I was rather careful, even back then.
Now, even when I'm just moving the JD from the driveway into the garage (after hosing it down or something), and if my older 3 yr. old daughter is watching from the safety of the porch steps, she always yells, "Daddy! Seat-belt!!!"

I have seen my father take unnecessary risks, to this day, and I get so mad at him, because 1) I want him around for alot longer, 2) It's a stupid way to go, and 3) Since I'd likely be the one to find him, I might lose my taste for my tractors if one is involved in an accident that maimed or killed one of my family.
Soon after I bought my JD, he was using it, and had to come to me and confess that he couldn't get it restarted, after he got off to clear some brush from under the rotary cutter. I scolded him, because it told me he got off the tractor without disengaging the PTO, and the JD's safety features kicked in and killed the engine.

PineRidge · Jan 22, 2004

My Uncle used to feel the very same way about seat belts that some of you do. He was driving to work one morning years ago and was hit broadside by a lady that did not see a stop sign. My Uncle was thrown from the car and it rolled over on top of him and crushed him to death. The police at the scene said that he would have easily survived the accident if he had worn his seat belt. His son, Rick was 5 at the time, Susan his daughter was 9. The family was never the same after that and Mildred has not remarried to this day over 30 years later. Every time I buckle my seat belt I think of my family first, it really is your choice to make.

keeney · Jan 22, 2004

... If it makes you happy to wear one, then by all means, do it. Just don't tell me I have to! ... 

This is of course the essence of the question - how intrusive should the government be in our lives? Is there a difference in them intruding directly vs. them making the manufacturer do it?

How would we feel about of instead of passing a law to mandate seat belt usage, they made a law such that the tractor wouldn't run without the seatbelt being used? Most people would be mad that the tractor had the added cost of the seatbelt interlock even though they always use the seatbelt anyway! Those who don't use seatblets would be additionally mad that they have to bypass the interlock they were forced to buy even though they didn't want it.

It also might be illuminating to think of it in terms of dangers we could never possibly decide for ourselves. Should the government regulate the safety of our food? The safety of power plants? The safety of the houses that we live in? The reasons behind all of these types of laws is that the average person does not have the expertise (or time) to evaluate every product they buy or use. If the government doesn't watch out for people in those situations, who will?

I don't see much of a distinction between a law that mandates that you can only sell cars with safety glass vs. you can only use a car with a seatbelt. Both add to the cost and inconvenience of using a car during non-collision operation. One restricts the manufacturer, the other restricts the user.

I think the issue here is not if the government should be in the safety business, but really the old issue of government decisions made for political or stupid reasons vs. reasonable reasons.

- Rick

Lazy · Jan 22, 2004

Hi
Like states that mandate seatbelt laws but let people ride motorcycles without helmets.

When you get so use to people watching out for your well being then you forget to look out for yourself. They don’t talk about the people that were trapped in cars and burned up because the seatbelt failed and wouldn’t release.

Charlie.

Bird · Jan 22, 2004

( They don’t talk about the people that were trapped in cars and burned up because the seatbelt failed and wouldn’t release )

I've heard that as a theory, Charlie, but can you tell me where I can find an actual case of that ever happening? I'd like to obain copies of the police report of any such accident.

MossRoad · Jan 22, 2004

Here, read this then come back here and let us know what you think about it. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Lazy · Jan 22, 2004

Hi
Maybe some safety devices are a replacement for common sense and responsibility. I’m not against all safety devices. I can think of a lot of things more hazardous to your health than not wearing a seatbelt or getting off the tractor while it is still running.

What about school busses that are not required to have seatbelts. Maybe the driver is required to wear one. Near St. Louis just a week or so ago one turned over on its side on Interstate I-70 Lucky no one was killed just a few injuries.

When asked why school busses were not required to have seatbelts it was stated it cost too much money.

Bird on the seatbelt failing I don’t have any Info at hand that would support my statement but I will do some research, but suspect the police wouldn’t include it in their report.

In NASCAR racing they have mandated the wearing of head and neck restraints because the head keeps moving even if you stop the body causing neck injuries, I suppose that will be next, cars with a HANS device.

Charlie

Bird · Jan 22, 2004

( suspect the police wouldn’t include it in their report )

Well, I retired from law enforcement 15 years ago, but in the 24 years and 10 months I was doing it, and with getting acquainted with police officers from every state and many foreign countries, either from visiting each other or as classmates at the Northwestern University Traffic Institute and the FBI National Academy, I suspect you're mistaken. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif If there was any evidence of that happening, every officer I've known would have included it.

As the link Mossroad provided explains, being ejected from the vehicle is the worst thing that can happen to you in nearly all cases but, yes, there actually have been cases in which a person ejected was not as seriously injured as it was believed he/she would have been had he/she not been ejected.

Now I'll also admit to some degree of prejudice; I started wearing seat belts in 1962, and on December 29, 1965, I was in the passenger seat in a squad car that hit a tree head on. The impact was severe enough that it broke my seat belt (probably because in those days they did not have the retractors and seat belts frequently were allowed to fall outside and have doors shut on them which may have weakened mine). And since the seat belt broke, my head went partially through the windshield. They found my uniform cap still stuck in the broken glass, that thick bill on the cap was cut completely through and I had small cuts all over my head and on my eyelids, but no deep cuts. I managed to get out of the car before I lost conciousness (first officers on the scene thought I was dead) and you've probably never seen anyone as bruised, black and blue, and bloody as I was, but I've no doubt I'd have been dead if that seat belt hadn't slowed me down. My partner didn't have his seat belt on, and he survived (miraculously), but I went home that same night; he was in the hospital a long, long time after multiple surgeries. My wife has only had one accident, but it was a rollover, totalled the vehicle, and her seat belt undoubtedly save her from death or serious injury. And my youngest daughter is convinced her seat belt has saved her from serious injury, if not death, three times.

So, yes, I wear'em; wouldn't be without them, but like a lot of people, I didn't want a law saying I had to. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif We all like the independence to make our own descisions I think. But I think we also understand the economic costs to all of us when someone is injured or killed because he/she didn't use available safety devices.