Contemplating safety tyranny

[JohnStOnge]

You suck at reading.

Getting in a motorvehicle accident without a seatbelt on=higher chance of fatality than driving period.

You may drive and get in an accident, but you don't have a chance of dying if you aren't in an accident.

We're done here. You have a flat earth understanding of reality, and the reason your opinions are so unpopular is because they're static and illogical, not because you possess some form of higher intelligence.

I think I read you fine. Here is what you wrote:

There are multiple factors that contribute to wrecking in a car accident and even further factors in determining whether or not said accident could be fatal. Suffice to say, the chances of one getting in a car accident are greater than one being critically or fatally injured in a car accident.

So to show how your comparison is false, I'm showing how deciding to go somewhere does not increase your chances of fatality.

The "comparison" I made in the post to which you were responding was of a scenario in which one stays home and watches a movie on TV vs. a scenario in which one drives their motor vehicle to a theater to watch a movie.

I think any reasonable person would read "I'm showing how deciding to go somewhere does not increase your chances of fatality" to mean you don't think that making the decision to drive to the theater instead of making the decision to stay hone and watch TV increases the chances of fatality.

As you say, you don't have a chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident if you're not in a motor vehicle accident. But I think it's pretty obvious that you have a much greater chance of getting into a motor vehicle accident driving to the theater than you do sitting in your house watching TV. I can't believe I'm having to say this but the probability of you you dying in a motor vehicle accident is defined by the probability that you get into a motor vehicle accident multiplied by the probability that you're going to die if you get in a motor vehicle accident. Obviously, the probability that you're going to be involved in a motor vehicle accident is pretty close to zero if you're sitting on your couch watching TV. It's possible. Someone could come crashing into your house and hit you and that would be classified as a motor vehicle accident. But the probability of that is very low. Orders of magnitude lower than you being involved in one if you're out driving.

And yes there are other factors such as the type of accident. On average having someone crash into your house probably has a different fatality rate than getting into an accident when you're out driving. But surely you can see that the probability of dying in a motor vehicle accident is greater when you're actually out on the road driving a motor vehicle than it is when you're sitting in hour home.

[UNI88]

If you talk on a cell phone, it has been demonstrably shown that you are less focused and while driving the chances of having an accident increase because of the distraction factor. I don't think that really needs to be cited.

sure, if one person does it, it's trivial, but we have a whole society who does it than the chances spike as well, even if it's random.

As I wrote at the start, the issue is one of altering a very tiny risk to a somewhat higher or very tiny risk. It's not that there is no increase in risk at all associated with cell phone use. It's that it is still a very small risk. The risk picture is not altered substantially.

What you get at in the second paragraph is a mindset I think is dangerous to liberty. There are over 300 million people in the United States and millions...probably tens of millions and maybe hundreds of millions of vehicle trips every day. And there are undoubtably (for example) millions and probably tens of millions of instances in which cell phones are used while driving every day. Very small risks translate into what appear to be large numbers when the numbers of times those very small risk are incurred is very large. So if you think in terms of managing us as though we are a population of animals (yes, we're animals but you know what I mean) instead of treating us as individuals you're going to find plenty of reason for controlling our behavior in order to reduce very small risks to somewhat smaller very small risks.

If you're looking at the individual you might think something like this:

"if that person makes choice B instead of choice A, the chance that someone will die will be one in 1 million instead of 1 in 2 million. That means the chance that nobody will die will be 99.9999 percent instead of 99.99995 percent. Either way the chances that nobody will die approach virtual certainty. So there's no reason to interfere with the choice."

But if you're looking at that choice being made 10 million times per day in a large population you start thinking, "We could "save" over 1800 lives per year by stopping people from making that choice."

The problem with letting the second way of looking at things govern society is, again, that we make all kinds of choices that alter risk like that. The scenario I gave about the choice between staying home to watch a movie or going to a theater to watch one is indeed an example of one; whether you choose to accept it or not. And if we are going to live anything like free lives that's the way it's going to be. Since we have accepted the premise, we have opened the door for people to use it when they decide that a particular choice should be denied.

When you're looking at something like telling someone who is driving a vehicle that they must wear a seat belt or can't use a cell phone you are interfering with their choices because of something that might but probably won't happen in their individual case. And the probability that it won't is overwhelming. It's not like there is even a good chance, by any reasonable standard of what a "good chance" is, that it will happen.

So in summary what you're saying is that if the government can mandate seatbelt use for safety reasons (because while the chance of death or serious injury from not wearing your seatbelt during a drive is infinitesimally small that number is magnified by the number of number of people spending x amount of time in a car to the point where the mandate will statistically save numbers of lives) why can't it close down all theaters and mandate that people watch movies at home because comparatively you will also save a lot of lives by keeping people who otherwise would have driven to and from the theater off of the road and in the relative safety of their home?

[JohnStOnge]

You know YT I'm going to honor you by doing something I've only done once before on a message board. I am going to say that you remind me of the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RZ-hYPAMFQ[/youtube]

[youngterrier]

You suck at reading.

Getting in a motorvehicle accident without a seatbelt on=higher chance of fatality than driving period.

You may drive and get in an accident, but you don't have a chance of dying if you aren't in an accident.

We're done here. You have a flat earth understanding of reality, and the reason your opinions are so unpopular is because they're static and illogical, not because you possess some form of higher intelligence.

I think I read you fine. Here is what you wrote:

There are multiple factors that contribute to wrecking in a car accident and even further factors in determining whether or not said accident could be fatal. Suffice to say, the chances of one getting in a car accident are greater than one being critically or fatally injured in a car accident.

So to show how your comparison is false, I'm showing how deciding to go somewhere does not increase your chances of fatality.

The "comparison" I made in the post to which you were responding was of a scenario in which one stays home and watches a movie on TV vs. a scenario in which one drives their motor vehicle to a theater to watch a movie.

I think any reasonable person would read "I'm showing how deciding to go somewhere does not increase your chances of fatality" to mean you don't think that making the decision to drive to the theater instead of making the decision to stay hone and watch TV increases the chances of fatality.

As you say, you don't have a chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident if you're not in a motor vehicle accident. But I think it's pretty obvious that you have a much greater chance of getting into a motor vehicle accident driving to the theater than you do sitting in your house watching TV. I can't believe I'm having to say this but the probability of you you dying in a motor vehicle accident is defined by the probability that you get into a motor vehicle accident multiplied by the probability that you're going to die if you get in a motor vehicle accident. Obviously, the probability that you're going to be involved in a motor vehicle accident is pretty close to zero if you're sitting on your couch watching TV. It's possible. Someone could come crashing into your house and hit you and that would be classified as a motor vehicle accident. But the probability of that is very low. Orders of magnitude lower than you being involved in one if you're out driving.

And yes there are other factors such as the type of accident. On average having someone crash into your house probably has a different fatality rate than getting into an accident when you're out driving. But surely you can see that the probability of dying in a motor vehicle accident is greater when you're actually out on the road driving a motor vehicle than it is when you're sitting in hour home.

So you admit that you're changing the goal posts here......we're talking about making the road safer so you're hyperbolically saying if we want to make them so safe we should just not get on the road.....makes perfect sense. Except not really.

[youngterrier]

As I wrote at the start, the issue is one of altering a very tiny risk to a somewhat higher or very tiny risk. It's not that there is no increase in risk at all associated with cell phone use. It's that it is still a very small risk. The risk picture is not altered substantially.

What you get at in the second paragraph is a mindset I think is dangerous to liberty. There are over 300 million people in the United States and millions...probably tens of millions and maybe hundreds of millions of vehicle trips every day. And there are undoubtably (for example) millions and probably tens of millions of instances in which cell phones are used while driving every day. Very small risks translate into what appear to be large numbers when the numbers of times those very small risk are incurred is very large. So if you think in terms of managing us as though we are a population of animals (yes, we're animals but you know what I mean) instead of treating us as individuals you're going to find plenty of reason for controlling our behavior in order to reduce very small risks to somewhat smaller very small risks.

If you're looking at the individual you might think something like this:

"if that person makes choice B instead of choice A, the chance that someone will die will be one in 1 million instead of 1 in 2 million. That means the chance that nobody will die will be 99.9999 percent instead of 99.99995 percent. Either way the chances that nobody will die approach virtual certainty. So there's no reason to interfere with the choice."

But if you're looking at that choice being made 10 million times per day in a large population you start thinking, "We could "save" over 1800 lives per year by stopping people from making that choice."

The problem with letting the second way of looking at things govern society is, again, that we make all kinds of choices that alter risk like that. The scenario I gave about the choice between staying home to watch a movie or going to a theater to watch one is indeed an example of one; whether you choose to accept it or not. And if we are going to live anything like free lives that's the way it's going to be. Since we have accepted the premise, we have opened the door for people to use it when they decide that a particular choice should be denied.

When you're looking at something like telling someone who is driving a vehicle that they must wear a seat belt or can't use a cell phone you are interfering with their choices because of something that might but probably won't happen in their individual case. And the probability that it won't is overwhelming. It's not like there is even a good chance, by any reasonable standard of what a "good chance" is, that it will happen.

So in summary what you're saying is that if the government can mandate seatbelt use for safety reasons (because while the chance of death or serious injury from not wearing your seatbelt during a drive is infinitesimally small that number is magnified by the number of number of people spending x amount of time in a car to the point where the mandate will statistically save numbers of lives) why can't it close down all theaters and mandate that people watch movies at home because comparatively you will also save a lot of lives by keeping people who otherwise would have driven to and from the theater off of the road and in the relative safety of their home?

Basically, that's what he's saying. It's a terrible analysis and analogy that deflects from the actual discussion. The discussion is how do we make roads safer. We're not trying to prevent people from doing anything, we're trying to make what they do do safer for the rest of us.

John sees it as "WELL HER DER YER TRYING TO MAKE THINGZ SAFER BY TELLIN ME WHUT TO DO THEREFORE WHY DONT U STAY LOGICALY CONSESISTENT AND JUST MANDATE I DO NOTHIN AT ALL" +5 paragraphs of senseless babble
and he's totally missing the point.

It's not about regulating your life, it's about regulating traffic and interaction between individuals to minimize fatality. By participating in society, compliance is the price you pay, or suffer the consequences.

It is not I who is the "black knight" in this scenario Jon, it's you. You're just too stubborn to see it.

[youngterrier]

If you talk on a cell phone, it has been demonstrably shown that you are less focused and while driving the chances of having an accident increase because of the distraction factor. I don't think that really needs to be cited.

sure, if one person does it, it's trivial, but we have a whole society who does it than the chances spike as well, even if it's random.

As I wrote at the start, the issue is one of altering a very tiny risk to a somewhat higher or very tiny risk. It's not that there is no increase in risk at all associated with cell phone use. It's that it is still a very small risk. The risk picture is not altered substantially.

What you get at in the second paragraph is a mindset I think is dangerous to liberty. There are over 300 million people in the United States and millions...probably tens of millions and maybe hundreds of millions of vehicle trips every day. And there are undoubtably (for example) millions and probably tens of millions of instances in which cell phones are used while driving every day. Very small risks translate into what appear to be large numbers when the numbers of times those very small risk are incurred is very large. So if you think in terms of managing us as though we are a population of animals (yes, we're animals but you know what I mean) instead of treating us as individuals you're going to find plenty of reason for controlling our behavior in order to reduce very small risks to somewhat smaller very small risks.

If you're looking at the individual you might think something like this:

"if that person makes choice B instead of choice A, the chance that someone will die will be one in 1 million instead of 1 in 2 million. That means the chance that nobody will die will be 99.9999 percent instead of 99.99995 percent. Either way the chances that nobody will die approach virtual certainty. So there's no reason to interfere with the choice."

But if you're looking at that choice being made 10 million times per day in a large population you start thinking, "We could "save" over 1800 lives per year by stopping people from making that choice."

The problem with letting the second way of looking at things govern society is, again, that we make all kinds of choices that alter risk like that. The scenario I gave about the choice between staying home to watch a movie or going to a theater to watch one is indeed an example of one; whether you choose to accept it or not. And if we are going to live anything like free lives that's the way it's going to be. Since we have accepted the premise, we have opened the door for people to use it when they decide that a particular choice should be denied.

When you're looking at something like telling someone who is driving a vehicle that they must wear a seat belt or can't use a cell phone you are interfering with their choices because of something that might but probably won't happen in their individual case. And the probability that it won't is overwhelming. It's not like there is even a good chance, by any reasonable standard of what a "good chance" is, that it will happen.

Tell the people who've died thanks to other people who were distracted while driving how "small" of a risk driving while distracted is.

You continue to miss the point. Just because there are exceptions to the rule does not mean that there isn't a general trend. By this logic, shooting someone in the face doesn't always kill them, so they means shooting people in the face should be legal if they have consent. The difference is here that you can't have my consent to drive distracted.

Keep swinging, black knight

[ODUsmitty]

As for overburdensome environmental regulation, we are likely miles apart. The link between DDT banning and thousands of people that have died from a disease once thought eradicated (malaria) comes to mind. Dr. Walter E Williams of George Mason University has some interesting thoughts on that topic.

The onset of tougher environment regulations for air, water, oil exploration, etc. all have the net effect of making it harder to do business in this country. When the EPA declares CO2 a pollutant, with global climate change theory behind it, I struggle to understand whether this is a scientific issue or one of political power on a global scale. I am in industry, so I understand the challenges of Boiler MACT, BFR compliance, tighter phosphorus wastewater regulations, etc. coming down the pike means to US industry. While the goal is good and mostly well-intentioned (except for climate change, in my opinion), there has to be a balance of needs between the environmental and economic parties involved, and in my opinion, the pendulum has swung too far on the environmental side.

Thanks for the insults, by the way. Papa Smitty always told me that liberals are the most tolerant and open-minded of all groups, just as long as you agree with their positions. Cheers.

Pretty laugable coming from the guy who just called Tod every name in the book because he has different views on issues.

I agree that there needs to be a balance between environmental and economic concerns. However, I think that many people are too quick to dismiss the environmental side as irrelevant.

FWIW, an oyster producer here in Washington state just decided to move his entire operation (farms and whatnot) to Hawaii due to ocean acidification in the Puget Sound, so it's not as though human impact on the environment can't have long term consequences for businesses and industry.

You have got me there. However, Tod was advocating government confiscation of corporate intellectual property rights, and using Bernie Sanders as his source of said "good idea". To call him a communist really is not much of a stretch, but the additional adjectives used were , admittedly, not necessary.

[CID1990]

Wedge I forgot to mention: the number one cause of moto accidents is other oncoming drivers turning left in front of the biker. Not really pertinent, but an interesting fact.

I understand, used to have a bike. People get in the habit of looking for a larger vehicle than a bike, and probably misjudge their speed as well. Scary stuff, and the reason I got off my bike for good was because of a buck pronghorn turning in front of me.

I am that guy on the bike in front of you that slows down at intersections. Especially when I see some soccer mom on a cellphone up ahead in the turn lane. The last close call I had was in Vietnam, but I generally have pretty good situ awareness and I havent scared myself off the bike yet.

[CID1990]

JSO not gonna quote reply you but you are way off. Driver inattention is the number one cause of traffic fatalities and cellphone use while driving has become a damn scourge. There's mounds of independent non-government sponsored research on the subject so go look it up.

Your chances of being killed in a car accident are much lower than your chances of actually being in a car accident. You'd be the first guy on here ranting and complaining the minute you got rear ended by some teenager texting like an idiot.

50% of the people in this country have absolutely no business operating a motor vehicle and now we allow those same idiots to use cellphones while driving. It IS a concern. As long as the government doesn't allow lynch mobs we need those rules on the books. The day I'm allowed to go whack the guy who killed my uncle is when I'll agree with you that we can deregulate driving.

[JohnStOnge]

SO not gonna quote reply you but you are way off. Driver inattention is the number one cause of traffic fatalities and cellphone use while driving has become a damn scourge. There's mounds of independent non-government sponsored research on the subject so go look it up.

I have looked at such data and research many times. My statement was that using a cell phone while driving is not "dangerous" by any reasonable standard of risk. I'll use some of that research to illustrate what I'm talking about.

I would link the documents I'm going to use but they are pdf documents and I'm on my wife's Apple. When I navigate to pdf documents on my wife's Apple I don't see any internet address I can copy and paste like I do with Windows. But you should be able to Google them. For a cell phone use relative risk estimate i referenced a document called, "Cell Phones and Driving: Research Update December 2008" by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. For data on risk of accident per mile driven I referenced "Traffic Safety Facts, 2010 Data" published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in June, 2012.

I will not go through a description of what I did unless you ask me to. But I derived a rough estimate of the risk of someone driving 10 miles under "average" conditions not using a cell phone and that of someone driving 10 miles under "average" conditions using a cell phone. And based on that I calculated the percent chance that the driver would get through that drive without being in a crash for each scenario. I calculated it for being in a crash instead of being injured or killed because the document I referenced for relative risk reported it for crash and also because it's going to result in the highest probabilities.

What I got is that the driver who didn't use a cell phone would have a 99.998 percent chance of getting through without injury or causing injury while the driver who used a cell phone would have a 99.992 percent chance.

If you think that going from a 99.998 percent chance of being in a crash to a 99.992 percent chance of being in a crash makes the difference between something being "dangerous" or not then you and I just disagree on the definition of dangerous. If somebody tells me that there's a 99.992 percent chance that something I do isn't going to cause any problems I'm not going to feel that I'm doing anything dangerous.

"Dangerous," to me, implies that there's a reasonably high probability that adverse consequences are going to result. While I was Googling to respond to your post I saw one document that esimated that 11% of drivers are on a cell phone at any given time. Think about that. If it were "dangerous" to do that by any reasonable standard of what "dangerous" is there would be a whole lot more vehicle accidents than there are.

The fact that one situation has a higher risk than some other situation does not automatically make the first situation "dangerous."

[BlueHen86]

Just wear the seat belt and quit complaining.

[CID1990]

Thats a lot of ink spilled to make a flawed argument JSO.

People can drive all day and not find themselves in dangerous positions. In fact, you can also talk on a cellphone and as long as you do not find yourself in a situation that requires your full attention to avoid an accident, you'll be fine.

Think about what you said- if people spend 11% of their time talking on cellphones while driving, then if it is truly dangerous there would be many more accidents. Nobody is implying that somehow cellphone use is so dangerous that you are guaranteed to have an accident when you do it.

It is proven that driver inattention is the primary cause of traffic accidents. You are wasting your time trying to convince anyone that a driver talking on a cellphone is somehow just as attentive to the road or their reaction speed is just as acute as someone who is not on the phone.

It has also been shown that you are 4 times more likely to be involved in an accident when you are suffering from cognitive distraction caused by cellphone use.

[JohnStOnge]

Think about what you said- if people spend 11% of their time talking on cellphones while driving, then if it is truly dangerous there would be many more accidents. Nobody is implying that somehow cellphone use is so dangerous that you are guaranteed to have an accident when you do it.

It is proven that driver inattention is the primary cause of traffic accidents. You are wasting your time trying to convince anyone that a driver talking on a cellphone is somehow just as attentive to the road or their reaction speed is just as acute as someone who is not on the phone.

It has also been shown that you are 4 times more likely to be involved in an accident when you are suffering from cognitive distraction caused by cellphone use.

CID, what I'm getting at is that one thing entailing more risk than another thing doesn't make the first thing "dangerous." You know I can compare standing inside my house and standing outside my house. If someone cared to they could probably find a difference in risk between the two. But if they find, for example, that standing outside entails more risk...that (say) it is 4 times more likely that something bad will happen...that doesn't make standing outside my house "dangerous."

The relative risk trick is used a lot in public safety propaganda. And the reason it is is because if someone talks about things in terms of actual risk the risks they're talking about wouldn't seem that large. Using relative risk (like 4 times more likely) exaggerates the "danger."

Like I can say that if I buy 100 powerball tickets my "relative risk" of winning the power ball is 100 vs. buying one ticket. Makes it sound like the increase in "risk" is REALLY important. But it's not. The fact is that I would be wise to continue to live my life as though I'm not going to win the powerball. The "risk" is still extremely small. I'm not in a whole lot of "danger" of winning the powerball.

[JohnStOnge]

So you admit that you're changing the goal posts here......we're talking about making the road safer so you're hyperbolically saying if we want to make them so safe we should just not get on the road.....makes perfect sense. Except not really.

You just don't want to deal with the argument. There is no hyperbole. It's an example of a choice that is made that increases risk. The type people don't give a second thought to. You cannot rebut it. So you attempt to dismiss it.

I was always talking about a broader concept than "making the road safer." I'm talking about the fact that we have accepted the premise that government should restrict our choices in order to prevent us from choosing to take a very small risk as opposed to taking another very small risk that is somewhat smaller.

And if someone decides to drive their vehicle to see a movie instead of watching a movie on their TV at home they choose a very small risk that is somewhat higher than another very small risk. You lose on the point. The position you took is pretty self-evidently incorrect. Period. But, like the Black Knight, you won't accept it.

[JohnStOnge]

Tell the people who've died thanks to other people who were distracted while driving how "small" of a risk driving while distracted is.

A common tactic. But people have died because people decided to drive to the beach. So should we outlaw driving to the beach?

People seem to forget that driving in and of itself creates risk whether you drink, use a cell phone, or do a number of other things or not. So you decide you're going to drive somewhere in order to enjoy yourself.

Why, you irresponsible villian! Do you not realize that people have died because other people decided to drive somewhere just for the purpose of enjoying themselves!

So you think you should be able to drive somewhere for fun? Tell that to the people who have died because somebody else decided to drive somewhere for fun!

And I have no doubt that there are many thousands of such instances per year.

So, Mr. Responsible Black Knight, you just stay where you live and only drive if it is absolutely essential for you to do so. Because if you do otherwise...if you drive somewhere for some non-essential purpose...YOU are putting other people's lives at risk just so YOU can have fun.

[BlueHen86]

So you admit that you're changing the goal posts here......we're talking about making the road safer so you're hyperbolically saying if we want to make them so safe we should just not get on the road.....makes perfect sense. Except not really.

You just don't want to deal with the argument. There is no hyperbole. It's an example of a choice that is made that increases risk. The type people don't give a second thought to. You cannot rebut it. So you attempt to dismiss it.

I was always talking about a broader concept than "making the road safer." I'm talking about the fact that we have accepted the premise that government should restrict our choices in order to prevent us from choosing to take a very small risk as opposed to taking another very small risk that is somewhat smaller.

And if someone decides to drive their vehicle to see a movie instead of watching a movie on their TV at home they choose a very small risk that is somewhat higher than another very small risk. You lose on the point. The position you took is pretty self-evidently incorrect. Period. But, like the Black Knight, you won't accept it.

In this case I accept the premise that the government maintains and operates the roads that I drive on, therefore the government gets to make the rules regarding how I drive on the road.

[JohnStOnge]

So in summary what you're saying is that if the government can mandate seatbelt use for safety reasons (because while the chance of death or serious injury from not wearing your seatbelt during a drive is infinitesimally small that number is magnified by the number of number of people spending x amount of time in a car to the point where the mandate will statistically save numbers of lives) why can't it close down all theaters and mandate that people watch movies at home because comparatively you will also save a lot of lives by keeping people who otherwise would have driven to and from the theater off of the road and in the relative safety of their home?

Yes. The same premise justifies both. But I wouldn't put it in terms of closing theaters. I put it in terms of trying to prohibit or discourage "non essential" driving. And there are already people thinking in those terms. Not outlawing it. But discouraging it. There are people who have realized that driving in and of itself entails risk and if that if we could cut down on driving we would "save lives."

It makes perfect sense if you think about it. If the whole point of existence is to cut risk regardless of how small the risk already is, why NOT go down that road? It is absolutely true that if I decide I want to drive to the beach to watch the sun go down over the ocean I introduce risk. And if someone could succeed in preventing hundreds of millions of decisions such as that from being made thousands of lives per year would be "saved."

Absolutely no doubt about it.

[youngterrier]

You just don't want to deal with the argument. There is no hyperbole. It's an example of a choice that is made that increases risk. The type people don't give a second thought to. You cannot rebut it. So you attempt to dismiss it.

I was always talking about a broader concept than "making the road safer." I'm talking about the fact that we have accepted the premise that government should restrict our choices in order to prevent us from choosing to take a very small risk as opposed to taking another very small risk that is somewhat smaller.

And if someone decides to drive their vehicle to see a movie instead of watching a movie on their TV at home they choose a very small risk that is somewhat higher than another very small risk. You lose on the point. The position you took is pretty self-evidently incorrect. Period. But, like the Black Knight, you won't accept it.

In this case I accept the premise that the government maintains and operates the roads that I drive on, therefore the government gets to make the rules regarding how I drive on the road.

What he said. I'm done here Jon, you miss the point over and over again.

See a doctor

[youngterrier]

Tell the people who've died thanks to other people who were distracted while driving how "small" of a risk driving while distracted is.

A common tactic. But people have died because people decided to drive to the beach. So should we outlaw driving to the beach?

People seem to forget that driving in and of itself creates risk whether you drink, use a cell phone, or do a number of other things or not. So you decide you're going to drive somewhere in order to enjoy yourself.

Why, you irresponsible villian! Do you not realize that people have died because other people decided to drive somewhere just for the purpose of enjoying themselves!

So you think you should be able to drive somewhere for fun? Tell that to the people who have died because somebody else decided to drive somewhere for fun!

And I have no doubt that there are many thousands of such instances per year.

So, Mr. Responsible Black Knight, you just stay where you live and only drive if it is absolutely essential for you to do so. Because if you do otherwise...if you drive somewhere for some non-essential purpose...YOU are putting other people's lives at risk just so YOU can have fun.

you are terrible at metaphors and completely undermine the significant risk factors of driving while distracted. There is an accident in the U.S once every 5 seconds on average, and the leading cause of accidents is distracted driving. Do the math.

your inability to grapple with a simple point is embarrassing on your part.

[CID1990]

Tell the people who've died thanks to other people who were distracted while driving how "small" of a risk driving while distracted is.

A common tactic. But people have died because people decided to drive to the beach. So should we outlaw driving to the beach?

People seem to forget that driving in and of itself creates risk whether you drink, use a cell phone, or do a number of other things or not. So you decide you're going to drive somewhere in order to enjoy yourself.

Why, you irresponsible villian! Do you not realize that people have died because other people decided to drive somewhere just for the purpose of enjoying themselves!

So you think you should be able to drive somewhere for fun? Tell that to the people who have died because somebody else decided to drive somewhere for fun!

And I have no doubt that there are many thousands of such instances per year.

So, Mr. Responsible Black Knight, you just stay where you live and only drive if it is absolutely essential for you to do so. Because if you do otherwise...if you drive somewhere for some non-essential purpose...YOU are putting other people's lives at risk just so YOU can have fun.

I seriously think YT is on to something. You have sone kind of cognitive disconnect that medication might help.

If you cannot see the problem with arguing that the decision to drive to the beach is somehow no different from the decision to engage in an activity that jeopardizes those beachgoers, then you have a serious problem. I am not going to bother pointing out the four different logical fallacies in your argument, because I'm done debating this. We'll just agree to disagree.

In the spirit of your version of libertarianism, if you ever cause injury to someone else as a result of your own willful negligence, I hope that rather than calling the cops they just drag you out of your car and give you the near fatal beating that you will surely deserve. After all if you hadn't chosen to go out driving and yapping, you wouldn't have gotten your a$$ kicked, right?

[BlueHen86]

A common tactic. But people have died because people decided to drive to the beach. So should we outlaw driving to the beach?

People seem to forget that driving in and of itself creates risk whether you drink, use a cell phone, or do a number of other things or not. So you decide you're going to drive somewhere in order to enjoy yourself.

Why, you irresponsible villian! Do you not realize that people have died because other people decided to drive somewhere just for the purpose of enjoying themselves!

So you think you should be able to drive somewhere for fun? Tell that to the people who have died because somebody else decided to drive somewhere for fun!

And I have no doubt that there are many thousands of such instances per year.

So, Mr. Responsible Black Knight, you just stay where you live and only drive if it is absolutely essential for you to do so. Because if you do otherwise...if you drive somewhere for some non-essential purpose...YOU are putting other people's lives at risk just so YOU can have fun.

you are terrible at metaphors and completely undermine the significant risk factors of driving while distracted. There is an accident in the U.S once every 5 seconds on average, and the leading cause of accidents is distracted driving. Do the math.

your inability to grapple with a simple point is embarrassing on your part.

He also misses the point that when someone dies in an auto accident, they have to close the road and conduct an investigation. This costs the government money and costs time for the motorists forced to detour or wait. It's in the governments and publics interest to reduce fatal accidents. There is more to seatbelt laws than just inconveniencing JSO, although that's an added bonus.

[ODUsmitty]

Then lower the speed limit to 25 mph.

That will dramatically reduce fatalities on our roads.

Sucks for business, and timing of trips, etc. but who gives a damn. A life saved and the dollars saved by the government make that a risk too harsh to accept, right?

[BlueHen86]

Then lower the speed limit to 25 mph.

That will dramatically reduce fatalities on our roads.

Sucks for business, and timing of trips, etc. but who gives a damn. A life saved and the dollars saved by the government make that a risk too harsh to accept, right?

Not necessarily, studies have shown that more accidents are caused by speed differentials than high speeds. Everyone driving 55 is likely safer than some people driving 35 and others 45.


And, you still need to evaluate cost/benefit. There is a cost to lowering the speed limit. There is no cost to wearing a seatbelt.

[Chizzang]

Regulations in the name of "safety" are not much different than those in the name of "environmental sustainability".

In either case, we mortage our personal liberty on the whims of some very-remote chance of adverse consequences.

So the thousands of lives saved from car crashes, the thousands of lives saved with work safety regulations, the hundreds of thousands of lives saved by a cleaner environment?


You are a fucking moron. You really just need to pack up and move to Somalia, because you have no fucking clue in that little right-wing pea brain of yours what life would be like in the United States without strong safety and environmental regulation.

Jon, Jon, Jon...
One can not communicate reasonably and logically on topics of federal regulation, the opinions are too polar

[CID1990]

So the thousands of lives saved from car crashes, the thousands of lives saved with work safety regulations, the hundreds of thousands of lives saved by a cleaner environment?


You are a **** moron. You really just need to pack up and move to Somalia, because you have no **** clue in that little right-wing pea brain of yours what life would be like in the United States without strong safety and environmental regulation.

Jon, Jon, Jon...
One can not communicate reasonably and logically on topics of federal regulation, the opinions are too polar

JSO's argument on cellphones is a fvcked up as a football bat, but to be clear, I agree with him on seatbelts 100%. Government shouldn't be in the business of protecting us from ourselves. Cellphone use is an entirely different animal.