I was focusing on the false equivalence between casualties from vehicles and those from contrived scenarios. Vehicles are a leading cause of death. If you start from empirical reality instead of the abstract concept of “danger” then it is not a mystery why there are seatbelt laws but no goomba stomp laws.
Having acknowledged the shift from that to this new consideration, the question of whether many casualties could have been prevented by seatbelt use. The answer is yes. Many casualties would have been prevented by use of a seatbelt.
Traffic today is denser and faster than even at the time seatbelt laws were introduced. High-performance cars are very accessible today. Road speeds are higher — you can’t drive as fast in some rickety steel Cadillac from the 70s as you can in a Tesla. Brakes and tires have also improved significantly, so people have more confidence driving fast.
You are questioning why, out of all dangerous things, we have seatbelt laws, but we don’t have laws against things that are equally or more dangerous than not wearing a seatbelt.
My answer is that you are looking at it backward. Seatbelts are legislated because way more deaths occur from cars than from contrived alternatives like skiing over toddlers. It has nothing to do with comparative danger or individualism. It’s about scale and aggregate social impact. If toddlers were getting mowed down by the tens of thousands per year, we would have specific laws against that too.
The number of traffic deaths far exceeds the number of goomba stomps
I mean seatbelts weren’t always mandatory so by capita were people being hurt by other people hurling through the windshields a lot back then?
I was focusing on the false equivalence between casualties from vehicles and those from contrived scenarios. Vehicles are a leading cause of death. If you start from empirical reality instead of the abstract concept of “danger” then it is not a mystery why there are seatbelt laws but no goomba stomp laws.
Having acknowledged the shift from that to this new consideration, the question of whether many casualties could have been prevented by seatbelt use. The answer is yes. Many casualties would have been prevented by use of a seatbelt.
Traffic today is denser and faster than even at the time seatbelt laws were introduced. High-performance cars are very accessible today. Road speeds are higher — you can’t drive as fast in some rickety steel Cadillac from the 70s as you can in a Tesla. Brakes and tires have also improved significantly, so people have more confidence driving fast.
Dude you’re arguing against points I’ve not made. My point isn’t even about the broad category of “casualties from vehicles”
You are questioning why, out of all dangerous things, we have seatbelt laws, but we don’t have laws against things that are equally or more dangerous than not wearing a seatbelt.
My answer is that you are looking at it backward. Seatbelts are legislated because way more deaths occur from cars than from contrived alternatives like skiing over toddlers. It has nothing to do with comparative danger or individualism. It’s about scale and aggregate social impact. If toddlers were getting mowed down by the tens of thousands per year, we would have specific laws against that too.