I’ve just been watching the news. Sadly, a young man was killed in a quad bike accident. He wasn’t wearing a helmet.
Most of the news item was about whether helmets should be made compulsory. The bereaved family were quoted saying, “Helmets should be made compulsory so that no family should ever have to go through this again.”
Setting aside the “helmets debate” what has happened to the belief that we are personally responsible for our own actions? Helmets are widely available. The deceased could have worn one whether it was compulsory or not. Why do we need a law to impose somethign he was free to do anyway?
I unicycle at 5 - 15 mph mainly on soft ground and I choose between no helmet, an open helmet or a full face according to my assessment of the risk. I don’t need a law to tell me. I take responsibility.
(Laws about dealers giving proper safety advice, or helmets meeting safety standards are a different thing. Any fool can see there is a risk and that a helmet might be a good idea, but it may require specialist knowledge to choose the right helmet.)
Similarly, we have a serious problem in this country with binge drinking. “They” are saying we should increase the tax on alcohol, or cut licensing hours, or ban “happy hours”. Yet I live in the same country, and I can afford as much drink as I want, but I don’t end up in casualty every Saturday night.
And riding through town on by big bright yellow motorbike with the headlight on, it amazes me how many pedestrians don’t even look before crossing the road. Their safety has become my problem.
As for my actual thoughts on the matter, I don’t have a freakin’ clue. On the one hand we are pummeled with advertisements that show how damn much fun it is to drink. Happy beautiful young men and women frolic on beaches, scantily dressed, playing dynamite sing along Stones covers, Coors Lights in hand, while in tiny letters we are told to “Drink responsibly”.
Lexus automobiles speed sexily around picturesque curves with smiling self-satisfied macho men gripping the steering wheels, their sexy wives by their sides. Or Cadillacs with buxom single independent women at the wheel zip purposefully through tunnels asking us if when we turn on our cars they return the favor. All the while in tiny letters at the bottom we are reminded, “Closed track with professional driver, do not attempt.”
And daily we are bombarded with credit card offers inviting us to take advantage of low rates and to enjoy the benefits of “membership”.
While on the other hand, of course, we all possess some common sense and should be able to figure these things out.
So until someone tells me I can’t take a shower without installing a handrail and wearing protective headgear there because of the likelihood of a fall, I’m going to let others decide what is best. I am content to be told that I have to wear a helmet, not eat trans fats, and not smoke in the car with my kid in it. It isn’t something I can get worked up about. Is it the best of all possible worlds? Probably not, but it’s not the worst either.
Yeah, thats about the only bad part. But a glass of wine at dinner. A few beers at a friends birthday. A few shots here there. Im not out drinking to get drunk. If I wanted to, I could easily get myself home by walking, unicycling, biking or driving, but even with just a few drink in me Ill stay at whosever house I am at for the night.
You have just stated that you are content to let big brother move into your home uninvited. You will become (even more) complacent with time. Big brother will to your astonishment become very obese while staying at your place. You will act surprised when he is too fat to walk back out your door when you ask him to leave. He will forever reside with you living off the fruits of your labors. The time to act is now.
I have to disagree. I’m not unaware, I’m just not interested. It is in the nature of government, like all organizations with self preservation in mind, to be in my business. That government is in my business is sometimes good, sometimes not. Sometimes neutral. I happen to be one who believes that government can play a positive role in my life.
All these so-called personal safety regulations don’t concern me that much. But for the record, on matters such as the Patriot Act, while I’m certainly not an activist, I do at least communicate my concerns to my elected representatives.
And it surprises me that you think you know more about what I said than I do.
One of the problems with personal responsability is that it’s an unfair fight. For example, it is my personal responsibility to be on time for work. if I’m not on time my boss will (understandably) get cross because he is paying me for work that I’m not doing. I also have a personal responsiblity to my son to be a good mother.
For me, part of being a good mother is taking my son to school in the morning. That’s OK. If I drop him off at school at the earliest time they will let me then I can easily get to work on time. Everyone is happy.
Or should I say, WAS happy, because now there are two sets of road works (don’t know what the term is in American, sorry). I can no longer get to work on time if I take my son to school.
I have a personal responsibility to be a good mother and to be on time for work. However I cannot change the time that they will let me drop Sam off at school, neither can I change the time that I have to start work. And definately no one aksed me if they could dig up the road (and I’m sure they wont compensate either me or my boss for the time that I am stuck at the traffic lights rather than working).
So despite my responsiblity to both being a good mother and being on time for work, I cannot do both because of something that is totally out of my control.
(I know that this analogy does not stand up for the helmet example, but that was not the title of the thread )
If nothing else it’s at least an excellent story and a good example on its own. But I have to ask the question, “fair?” Where does fair work (or play) into anything?
From what you posted, the family is not going after the quad manufacturer or others in trying to place the blame elsewhere. Instead they are thinking of the future and trying to protect other people like their son. They’re not offering opinions on whether they thought he was stupid or not, but odds are, there are plenty of other young men out there who are less smart than he was.
Does telling people it’s smart to wear a helmet make them smart? No. Does my insurance end up costing me more because of idiots who don’t think their brain is worth the price of a helmet? It used to for motorcyclists, I know that much.
The helmet argument is harder because it has the variable of activity associated with it. How about seat belts? When we talk about them, in general, we’re talking about what we do in our own cars (without worrying about what we do in other forms of transport). Nobody argues that seat belts vastly improve your odds of survival in a crash. If they do choose to argue, you can bury them in tons of evidence that they’re full of crap.
So should wearing them be a law? In terms of natural selection I’d say no. In terms of the mathematics of auto insurance (where it ends up impacting me), I’m a yes.
Helmets… In addition to being uncomfortable to wear in general and very inconvenient in the rain where you would much prefer a nice hood, those things can end up costing you a lot when it gets stolen by some nice people. Then a bunch of cops on their motorbikes stop you, act very important and pushy, give you a fine that’s three times the price of a new helmet and ride away dangerously after idling their bikes aggressively. Somehow, paying that fine doesn’t get you a new helmet.
And, for some reason, people who use their mobile phones when driving get the same fine as scooter riders who don’t wear their helmets. Now, let’s see, how many people are endangered when a driver is on the phone? Lots… How many are endangered when a scooter rider hasn’t got their helmet on? Arguably, none(or maybe just one, but their own).
Oh, and yesterday, when unicycling, I saw a cop car drive by. The policeman behind the wheel was texting on the phone. Who’s gonna fine him?
They have them in England on long-distance coaches. And you’re told in the beginning of the ride that you’re “required by law” to wear them. Which is stupid too, because a six-hour coach ride is bad enough without seatbelts tieing you immobile.
A potential solution there would be to have two colors of license plates for motorcyclists. One color for those who mark that they will wear a helmet 100% of the time and another color for those who want to be able to go without a helmet. The insurance companies can charge different rates based on which license you choose to get.
If you have a license plate color that says you will always wear a helmet and are caught riding without a helmet you get a big fine and the insurance company gets notified.
That keeps personal choice and balances out the costs for those choices.
My anthropology teacher likes to go on about how personal responsibility died when monotheistic religions started to arise. When you look into the meaning behind the polytheistic religions its all about personal responsibility because you were(or became) the god. In monotheistic religions the god is separate from you and as such takes the responsibility for your actions upon itself. It all makes much more sense when my professor tells it.
He would say that this idea of “God wants me to do this” or “I’m right because I have God on my side” has permeated over centuries into areas completely unrelated to religion where people don’t feel wholly responsible for their own actions anymore. Its now embedded in our culture.
Now we put more and more of the responsibility of upholding laws on other people (i.e. law enforcement) instead of just abiding by the rules or listening to our own consciences.
Nope. It makes no sense, sorry. I don’t know about other religions but Christian ones are based on the statement that we all have the free will.
And as people having free will we, ourselves are responsible for our actions.
And ad meritum – the whole problem could be arranged to be self solved:
people wearing helmets (or having their belts buckled) should have higher insurance discounts: as simple as that.
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I don’t know about other religions but Christian ones are based on the statement that we all have the