Martin84, although 8vFTW is clearly a halfwit, he didn't say anything about willingly not using a belt just because he believes he should have a choice in the matter and neither has anyone else on this thread.

I know wearing a belt is easy for most (I wear one) and I know it's sensible. But why does the state act with paternalism and violate sovereign individuals when other behaviours are allowed.

For instance why does the state not enforce alcohol rationing. Nobody needs to drink to excess and the potential benefits in terms of reduced illness and violence would be colossal, literally tens of billions per year.

A similar approach could be taken with fatty food, smoking and any number of destructive behaviours.

We could have a far happier, more peaceful and more prosperous society. The public would be grateful for being forced to do the right thing.

Governments have shied away from such action but they might be changing their minds. Have a google of 'Nudge' to see your future.

So presumably you're in favour of my alcohol rationing idea?

I'm not criticising you personally, I respect your stance. I'd just like some honesty. You believe that the state knows better than the citizen and should be allowed to use coersion to force us to do the 'right' thing, yes? Even if those actions only directly hurt the individual, the state shall protect us from ourselves.

In other words the individual is not sovereign nor should he be.

I like that bit

Attempting to compare regulated seatbelt use and rationing of alcohol is misguided. Alcohol is a legal substance and merely drinking too much on one occasion is in itself unlikely to bring someone to significant harm. Failing to wear a seatbelt can, by omitting its use on only one occasion, lead to dramatically more serious consequences from a collision, not only for the person not wearing the seatbelt, but also potentially those sharing the vehicle with them, their families and anyone else affected by a serious injury or death.

The inconvenience and infringement on any 'right' between the two is entirely different, too. Wearing a seatbelt is, for the majority of people, perfectly comfortable. It does not impinge unnecessarily on your movement, as what movement should there be within a moving vehicle? A seatbelt does not make the job of preparing to drive or alighting from a vehicle unreasonably onerous. There is little or no inconvenience to the general motorist or passenger in putting on, wearing or removing a seatbelt. Were you to constrict someone's right to imbibe a substance that is perfectly legal, that does not carry likelihood of significant harm from single event infringements and that is unlikely to render innocent others harmed by the actions of the imbiber, you are unreasonably restricting someone's freedom to enjoy their lives as they see fit.

In the case of seatbelts, there is a high level of benefit for a low level of inconvenience, to prevent a high potential for harm not only to the wearer but also third parties in any one singe incident. The same cannot in any realistic stretch of the imagination be said for rationing alcohol.

Beat me to it... +1

ETA - by 40 minutes - should probably refresh the tab when I get round to reading it!

A guy I worked with never wears his seatbelt.
Around 8 years ago He never turned up for work one morning, then we found out he crashed his BMW sliding sideways and hit a stone bridge, car was split in two. And he was chucked out where the back of the car should have been.
The seat belt was connected to the rear part of the car which was around 50meters away from where the seatbelt clicks in by the seat. If he was wearing seat belt he wouldn't be here today.
I would rather take my chances and wear my seatbelt tho, and I have an Audi which is better lol

You know I'm getting really fed up of this one-extreme-or-another method of debating on here. It's endemic across society and politics these days. If you think the NHS wastes too much money then apparently you don't support health spending and want children to die, as if there's no in between. I believe the law is correct in regard to seatbelts so therefore I must also want alcohol rationing and everybody put in glass tubes like in the movie Surrogates? Is it impossible to believe the former without the latter? Is that not allowed?

You can say they both follow the same principle but that's how a simpleton works through life. You can say alcohol rationing is the same as the seatbelt law, but putting all aspects of life into rigid boxes never got anybody anywhere, this is where a brain comes in and that little known thing called common sense to decide what's reasonable and what isn't.

I will say the only thing I have less faith in than Government is the British public. People are stupid, there's no getting away from this. People do need to be told what to do and treated like children. If people had common sense we wouldn't need a seatbelt law, but we have people who want to be free to die in a mangled pile of metal and glass just because they don't like being told what to do, which is the very definition of thick spastic. You may say such actions only affect the person who makes the choice but I disagree, like I said the ambulance people who have to pick up all of your body parts, put them in a bag and tell your parents what happened are also affected and they have to do that often enough for unavoidable reasons without you making it happen for avoidable ones.

Your example of alcohol is flawed because one person can have ten pints and be fine, where as the person beside him can have ten pints and die. A car crash at 50mph without a seatbelt is a different matter with practically no grey area. If the public had common sense we wouldn't need drink driving laws, yet there's still people who choose to drive when they know they're smashed and shouldn't be driving. What about the mobile phone law, millions of drivers still use a phone while driving and it's something which could end someone elses life because they're slower to react, yet the only way to decrease the numbers of people doing this is to threaten their wallet. The public had plenty of chances to make their own choices - they made the wrong ones, so now the state has to do it for them.

Sad state of affairs.

Alot of that comes from arrogance and the 'I won't get caught' mentality.

So yes, the British public on balance, are stupid.

I was born shortly after the law was changed and was brought up with my parents making sure everyone in the car wore a seatbelt. They were the type who wouldn't move the car until you put it on and I just got so used to instantly putting it on the moment I got in the car it's not even a conscious act anymore.