People are driving on public roads, using public first responders, being taken to the emergency room, etc.

Not wearing a seatbelt costs society time and money.

Just because society chooses to voluntarily take on a responsibility does not/should not give it the power to mitigate it.

The cost to society is voluntary and self imposed.

I can't unilaterally decide to pay for you and then use that to impose whatever rules I want on you.

You're not wrong, but this is also an argument that you shouldn't ever be allowed to do anything dangerous or risky.

We allow all sorts of dangerous activities with the same problems. If we're worried about the rescue and medical costs, we should definitely ban skiing, skydiving, climbing, etc.

Unless done alone in a windowless, lead-sealed basement, almost anything we do affects others. It's too easy to take away freedom that way.

I wear seatbelts; I could understand insurance contracts not covering costs if the insured didn't wear a seatbelt; but I don't think government should mandate it. I'm not anti-regulation; I agree with the table saw safety requirement.

It's not only your life at risk.

A British road safety advert:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=mKHY69AFstE

As I said, everything we do affects others. That can't be the sole basis.

Without regard to the merits of this particular case, in general, the offering of public services shouldn't be used as a pretext to infringe on freedoms.

The offering of public services would only be pretextual if it wasn't a genuine offer, right? So I'm not sure I'm understanding your argument.

Also public services are inherently shared services. The delay time and tax payer expense to individuals to have public employees to remove the dead bodies and broken windshields of folks who didn't wear seatbelts on the freeway is an imposition on the shared enjoyment of the freeway and on tax payer income.

Likewise even assuming every injury were treatable, every person getting their thumb reattached or whatever because of a preventable injury means a doctor's time isn't available to treat other injuries that couldn't be prevented. uninsured individuals with these injuries also increase the cost of insurance (one of multiple reasons why our medical costs in the US are higher per capita). Nor is every injury treatable to that extent.

Bet setting that aside, if you really want the freedom to cut off your own fingers accidentally, I bet all the dangerous tablesaws that currently exist will become available at garage sales or whatever very cheaply, so the frugal consumer still wins.

Arguably gives a whole new meaning to five finger discount.

When public services are offered on balance, neither infringement can be considered in isolation. You have to compare the two infringements (in this case seatbelt regulation vs hospital responsibilities). Fighting each absolutely can often result in more total infringement!

Your right to buy a massive truck for driving two miles to your office job without a reversing camera infringes on the right if my three year old kid to live when you back up out of a parking space and can’t see behind the massive and oddly clean truck bed.

Similarly, you aren’t the only one that gets to use your car. Assuming you have friends, they might like a lift from you and not risk their lives doing so because you choose FREEDOM! over seat belts. Or the friends of your kid that you drive to soccer practice. Their mums and dads would like the freedom to have their kids reach adulthood.

We live in a society. We’re not Doctor Manhattan floating above the surface of Mars in perfect solipsistic isolation. It’s not about the government. It’s about your friends, family, neighbours, and community… all of whom are represented by the government.

The safety of your three year old child is your responsibility. If your child is run over then it’s due to your lack of adequate supervision in the face of lack of capability of the child to avoid the accident and/or education of not to stand in the way of moving vehicles.

So if I run over your child because I chose a grossly unsafe vehicle, then that's your fault, not mine.

You won't blame me. You'll blame yourself.

Got it.

Where exactly would you draw the line where responsibility would lay on this hypothetical car driver if even running over a child would be someone else’s fault?

That’s a legitimate question. Does it need malicious intent otherwise it’s up to everyone to protect themselves from others and no one has a responsibility to mitigate harm?

People's actions have impact on the ability of public services to function. Do you think parking a semi trailer in front of the ER is a "freedom" worth defending? What kinds of deterrence or punishment is appropriate?

You are aware that “first responders” send you a bill after you use their services, right? And that’s in addition to taxes and levies that fund them in the first place. I don’t mind the seat belts of course, but let’s not pretend that all of that is free of charge to begin with. Besides, first responders will likely need to be there anyway in most situations where a seatbelt would save your life.

In a lot of countries there is no bill, it's all paid for by taxes.

Which is why seatbelt mandates make sense, they reduce the cost for everyone.

Who do I send the bill to when I'm stuck in traffic for 2 hours waiting for them to mop up the ejected person?

In the US that bill is typically paid for by insurance, which means that, even if your neighbor needs the ambulance, you're paying for it in the awkwardly socialized form of raised premiums or perhaps even more awkwardly removed: lower direct compensation due to employer provided health care comprising a larger share of your total comp.

Doesn't using seatbelts still reduce cost then, as it can prevent you from having to pay for first responders?

I don’t think that’s why we mandated seatbelts. I don’t see any particular reason to believe either way, that seatbelts save money or cost it—if people die quickly they don’t cost the medical system much at all.

I think we mandated seatbelts because they prevent tragic deaths and cost almost nothing to manufacture. Sometimes we actually do impose on people’s liberty in the interest of preventing them from doing something stupid, and there’s no reason to pretend otherwise.

I mean, if we did look up the data and found that they actually do end up costing more, would you be in favor of banning seatbelts? I certainly wouldn’t!

This is a hilarious example of Hacker News tech bro style libertarianism, right down to the part where you think that you can just use your intuition as a substitute for knowing literally anything about car safety. Outside of ridiculous dumb money VC-funded startups, you can’t actually parachute into an industry and just make shit up.

What is? My post?

Double check it, I haven’t claimed to have any evidence, and I’m saying that the life-saving aspect is sufficient to mandate seatbelts.

We should require bubble wrap on every person. Not mandating it costs society time and money.

Show me the cost-benefit analysis that a lack of bubble wrap is causing a huge number of ER visits and amputations every year, and we'll talk.

Since nobody walks around in bubble wrap I don't think there would be any existing cost-benefit analyses.

I was using bubble wrap as a joke thing more than an actual suggestion. My point is, just because something would lower the number of costs to society doesn't mean we should start mandating it.

An example of something that for sure saves lives and lowers public costs is mandating adults wear helms on bicycles.

> An example of something that for sure saves lives and lowers public costs is mandating adults wear helms on bicycles.

That's potentially a bad example. The largest cause of mortality (or lost quality-adjusted life years - QALY) is from cardiovascular events, and those events are inversely correlated to physical activity levels. Cycling is physical activity, and helmet laws, where passed, have typically coincided with a marked decrease in cycling.

Under some reasonable assumptions, helmet laws cause less cycling, which causes less physical activity in the population, which causes more cardiovascular events, and the overall negative QALY impact outweighs the relatively small positive impact from fewer head injuries (especially compared to government pro-helmet safety messaging that has been optimised to minimise cycling deterrence while increasing helmet uptake as an alternative policy).

Cardiovascular disease imposes costs society, both direct costs through the medical system, and opportunity cost in lost taxes when workers die.

If we apply the logic above, those costs provide justification for mandating and criminalizing diet and exercise.

If you can't see the difference in the practicality between a massive effort to police everyone's diet and exercise regime and telling commercial saw manufacturers that they can't continue to sell a specific highly dangerous product, I cannot help you.

If the criteria and principle used for justification is social cost, the case is far stronger for criminalizing diet.

If you don't think the logic holds true, that means you think there are other relevant factors besides cost. What are they and why don't they apply to saws?

I think the huristic most people use for most laws is if it impacts them or not. People object to diet police because impacts them. They are fine with saw police, because it impacts someone else. Saw users already have a choice, and can freely buy safety saws if the want.

In short, people like telling others what to do, but not being told what to do.

> An example of something that for sure saves lives and lowers public costs is mandating adults wear helms on bicycles.

For sure huh :)

See my older post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39658466

TL;DR:

"Cycling UK wants to keep helmets an optional choice. Forcing - or strongly encouraging - people to wear helmets deters people from cycling and undermines the public health benefits of cycling. This campaign seeks to educate policy makers and block misguided attempts at legislation."

&

"Enforced helmet laws and helmet promotion have consistently caused substantial reductions in cycle use (30-40% in Perth, Western Australia).

The resulting loss of cycling’s health benefits alone (that is, before taking account of its environmental, economic and societal benefits) is very much greater than any possible injury prevention benefit."

&

"Cycling levels in the Netherlands have substantial population-level health benefits: about 6500 deaths are prevented annually, and Dutch people have half-a-year-longer life expectancy. These large population-level health benefits translate into economic benefits of €19 billion per year, which represents more than 3% of the Dutch gross domestic product between 2010 and 2013.3."

I think you know what I am talking about. Actual helmet usage. Wearing a helmet is safer than not wearing one.

If you look at the number of auto deaths 100 years ago it is lower than today. You can't use that ad proof that seatbelts cause deaths. Instead you have to look at other factors like the amount of drivers. With my helmet example you would look at lives saved from wearing the helmet.

Secondly, I've seen some studies (I think it was in the UK, but didn't feel like trying to find it) that showed people dying younger is actually more cost effective since older people have larger medical expenses.

Yes, and the point I was making is that some safety interventions make sense and are not at all analogous to trying to cover everyone in bubble wrap.

If you had an iota of a real point to make, you wouldn’t need to resort to these sorts of ridiculous analogies.

How about sticking to arguing against the actual thing you have an issue with, on its actual merits and drawbacks. I understand that it’s less attractive because it requires actual research and knowledge instead of just throwing “BUBBLE WRAP EVERYTHING!!!” comments over the fence, but HN deserves better than this drivel.

You could argue the same about people playing sports instead of safely exercising in a gym. And what about those consuming drugs? An argument to ban all drugs. If that's the standard there are a ton of activities you will curb or ban.

We have required safety gear to participate in most sports leagues too…

These rules are sponsored by “Big Shin-guard” and everybody knows it.

By law?

Well you won’t be allowed to participate, and could be trespassed if you refuse to follow the rules… so kinda

That's not remotely "by law."

If I could start a league tomorrow where shin-guards were optional, would the police come knocking or not?

If not, there's no law. There's private rules.

The whole question under debate is whether actual laws are necessary for this situation. I fail to see how appealing to voluntary association rules have any bearing on the question.

You wouldn’t be allowed to use public fields without insurance, and no one is going to insure you if your whole thing is “no safety gear”. So you would have to use a private field.

So the practical effect is identical to seatbelts; you can absolutely operate without seatbelts/shin guards, but only in completely private facilities.

Easy compromise: if you die without a seatbelt (or helmet for a motorcycle) you are considered to have fully donated your remains for medical and scientific use, no opt-out or exceptions.

Dying from a crash doesn't mean you don't put pressure on social services. You could die at the scene (first responders and paramedics still), on the way to the hospital, upon arrival, or hours or even days after.

This does nothing to alleviate those pressures and the number of organs that are useful for transplant after a violent crash (that kills the occupant!) is basically zero.

It’s mostly head trauma is both cases, the kidneys should be fine

Safety has 100% been a factor in many of my tool purchases, mistakes happen, especially to amateurs, and most people would rather not lose fingers to a hobby.

But why?

I remember a time before seatbelts were compulsory and very few people wore them.

> I am against government mandates in regards to seatbelts.

I’m personally for seatbelts* and against mandates for their use. Giving the government another tool to meddle in the lives of people and a law that’s easy to selectively enforce seems like a worse tradeoff than a few people who will decide to not wear one and avoidably come to grief as a result of their choice.

* To the point that I added them to a car of mine that didn’t originally come equipped with them. I like them and wear them regularly by choice, as should be the case.

Don't even bother trying to get a rational explanation for this.

This kind of mentality is not rational.

> I am against government mandates in regards to seatbelts.

No one cares, you don't have a good enough reason. It's ok to have some kinds of mandates. I don't want my tax dollars going to pay EMS and police to shovel your remains off the highway because you wanted to drive like an idiot.

This has got to be the absolute worst argument in favor of seatbelts, and will only ever amount to preaching to the authoritarian choir. For everyone else your argument actually serves to undermine support for public services like first responders - if the societal cost of such services includes the legislating of personal behavior simply to keep the financial cost of said services down, perhaps the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

I really don't care, frankly. I'm just tired of grown adults stamping their feet and yelling "Idawanna!"

Well the harder you push your personal choices as a prescriptive agenda, the more people are going to stamp their feet and yell "Idawanna!". There are plenty of things like this that seriously affect other people (eg that whole mask thing), so I'd recommend spending your credibility on those rather than burning it on things with a tiny blast radius.

Are you against public health measures in general?

Let me put it this way: I once “red-teamed” the constitution, and walked away with the conclusion health justifications were the biggest vulnerability point. Imagining a constitutional APT, I’m very wary of justifications that rely on it…

What is the point of society if not to look out for one another? Protecting you in the end makes me safer too

I think it’s more about mandates from a government vs looking out for each other.

The original fear of mandating seatbelts was it becoming a slippery slope, and the government continuing to mandate other aspects of citizens lives.

A similar fear happened when drunk driving was outlawed, but obviously its implications in harming others was a good justification for it.

With seatbelts, it’s less harm on others if I don’t wear it, more so a strain on society as a whole (first responders, more serious medical attention)

In general though I agree that governments shouldn’t be mandating what individuals can do to themselves. The argument lies in how much those actions effect others in a tertiary sense (doing drugs only effects me, but if I go into a coma that’s a strain on society and a blurry line. If become violent because of those drugs, it’s more concrete)

Meanwhile alcohol is legal, and is involved in more murders and domestic violence than any other substance.

The federal government's responsibilities is literally to collect taxes to maintain a standing army, and to coordinate cross-state issues that the states themselves for some reason aren't able to regulate themselves. That's what its scope is supposed to be. Are states not able to pass the table saw regulations they feel is appropriate for their citizens? I feel like they are. Why does the federal government need to step in and mandate .. table saw laws for our states? For me it's just another small step in the long line of steps towards having one overarching federal government that controls everything, like other countries have, which the US is not supposed to have.

I've never understood this nonsensical fear of federal oversight. Didn't we learn federalism doesn't work when the states fought each other over pandemic supplies. I recall some saying, this stuff is ours, get your own. And why does it make sense for some backwater state to decide to dumb down their residents with a crap education system. Isn't that a race to the bottom if a state is left alone to elect inferior education, which is a real issue in the American South? Some states will choose to be dominant intellectually and others will choose conspiracies as history. That makes no sense to me at all. I also recall a certain French prime minister say it gave him great comfort to know each child in France was learning poetry.

It is hard to say if something works or not without defining a goal.

Federalism would probably work fine for the country in general. Lots of human suffering would occur in states that elect dumbasses, but the high-productivity parts of the country would continue along just fine, and probably actually benefit without the need to keep sending money.

In some case, voters might change their tune as they actually have to face the consequences of electing unhinged ideologues.

But, it would also involve lots of pain and suffering falling on vulnerable people, so it isn’t worth it.

> Didn't we learn federalism doesn't work when the states fought each other over pandemic supplies.

The US learned between 1776 and 1789, under the Articles of Confederation. That's why they made a new constitution with a stronger centeral government.

And yet still with limited powers. (Though I have to admit that table saws probably fall under interstate commerce, certainly more so than the subject of other cases that were decided to be: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich )

Unfortunately FDR's justices overturned that aspect of the constitution long ago.