"Safety" vs. Freedom?

[kingjoshi]

I hate how much money the government spends advertising that it's illegal to drive without a seatbelt! Why do they waste so much money?

 

[East St Trader]

Well, I specialised in personal injury claims in England for four years after I qualified (in Canterbury). It was towards the end of that period that Barbara Castle piloted the compulsory seat belt law through in the face of a very lively civil liberties debate.

Two things then happened. Firstly everyone - certainly including me - started obeying the law (it had been thought unenforceable). And my practice took a substantial knock.

That is because the previously steady stream of claims which I had pursued for women clients who had suffered facial scarring when they went through the windscreen of cars came immediately to a complete end.

Women are upset when they suffer facial scarring so the damages had been substantial.

But I must say it was hard to be regretful.

This does not mean that I would expect to take the side of the regulator in the debate you initiate. Just that I would, in the case of seat belts, moderate my libertarian views with some pragmatism. Barbara Castle says that getting the seat belt law through was the most significant of her achievements in politics and I agree with her.

For whatever reason very few of us indeed, certainly not me, had got around to doing the simple and sensible thing of wearing seat belts under our own steam. Once it had the force of law it became universal and I suspect the moment when only the outright cranky would have argued against it came within weeks and months of its passage into law rather than years.

Incidentally one change I would myself advocate is for the concept of a duty of care in negligence to die the death. Negligence has been a wrong turning in the common law and we would be better off without it.

But as I am, I suspect, in a (cranky) minority of one on that I don't suppose I shall live to see it happen.

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

Well admittedly I was joking just a liiiiiittle bit. But my point still stands - it's a hell of a lot easier, cheaper, and more effective to just ban driving without a seatbelt outright than spend millions of pounds in advertisement warning against the dangers of driving without a seatbelt, millions of pounds worth of hospital fees as a result of injuries sustained by driving without a seatbelt, and millions of pounds worth of lost working hours of injured drivers who just couldn't be bothered to spend two seconds putting on a seatbelt. The whole thing is just so absurd.

I agree. But then it's a hell of a lot easier, cheaper, and more effective to just ban drinking alcohol outright than spend millions of pounds in advertisement warning against the dangers of drinking, millions of pounds worth of hospital fees as a result of drinking, and millions of pounds worth of lost working hours of drinkers who just wanted to get drunk.

I'd say that your point could be applied to many things, and unless you advocate banning all those things my point stands. I should have the freedom to choose whether or not I use a seatbelt in the same way a drinker chooses to get smashed.

Incidentally one change I would myself advocate is for the concept of a duty of care in negligence to die the death. Negligence has been a wrong turning in the common law and we would be better off without it.

I don't think it needs to come to that. All that needs to be done is a raising of the arbitration limit. That way only severe claims can be brought and there will be no more of this slip & trip, cracked eyelash Personal Injury nonsense. Given that PI claims are currently my lifeblood I don't want to see it happen. But I can understand why so many do. (Until it happens to them of course )

 

[King Alexander]

I climbed trees as a kid I climbed cliff faces I did all sorts of dangerous s**t, if I fell and brained myself I also didn't go crying to the council for a law suit pay out.

Same here: I did all sort of dangerous things and if I bleed I didn't run to my mommy to ask her to fill a lawsuit against my city mayor or anyone responsible for something. In fact, if I even wanted to say that to my parents, they'd reply "the others are not responsible if you do stupid things, plain and simple: if you don't want to hurt yourself, don't do ultra-dangerous things".

12 years as a student(even more if we also count the kindergarden), I CANNOT REMEMBER of a single child at my schools that was serious injured by anything or that if it fall and bled during gymnastics was about to sue other kids, it's teacher or the school. All children KNEW that they were RESPONSIBLE for their actions at any time, and they had the attitude and guts to admit they were wrong when they did stupid things/hurt themselves.

I can't say the same for modern parents who raise their kids to be very cowardly and sensible(wow, it's raining, I'm gonna die or catch serious pneumonia if the rain drops fall to me! ).

Most modern kids get ILL very easy because their parents don't allow them to reach the ground on a park or play on the ground, for christ's sake, and therefore, their body's resistance to microbes and bacteria is limited near to zero.

I even have READ and article where a school was to ban gymnastics because fat children felt bad because they couldn't follow the "normal" children: instead of press them not to give up and fight to the end(no matter if they lose in the end, the will matters), force the majority to quit that because the minority feels uncomfortable.... GREAT LOGIC AND THINKING...

I have no sympathy for idiots and no sympathy for a system that encourages idiots to sue people.

Me neither.

Oh yes, I forgot: I'm in favor of freedom and not safety.

Edited

 

[Mise]

I'd say that your point could be applied to many things, and unless you advocate banning all those things my point stands. I should have the freedom to choose whether or not I use a seatbelt in the same way a drinker chooses to get smashed.

Maybe I just don't get why driving without a seatbelt is that important, but I hardly think it's worth using the F word for.

 

[IglooDame]

That is because the previously steady stream of claims which I had pursued for women clients who had suffered facial scarring when they went through the windscreen of cars came immediately to a complete end.

Quick question - claims pursued against who? And could it have been that because the people going through the windscreen of cars were automatically guilty of violating the newly relevant law, and thus not entitled to damages that were a result of their own suddenly-illegal negligence?

But, that aside, I'm greatly depressed. When did "Do something because it is the safe way to do it" stop mattering, and "do something because the law requires you to" become the only way to influence people's actions? "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, unless the state has a police officer standing there waiting to give the horse a citation for failing to consume its one liter per day daily minimum as otherwise the universal horsecare system will be unduly burdened and the horse insurance industry will raise premiums?"

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

Maybe I just don't get why driving without a seatbelt is that important, but I hardly think it's worth using the F word for.

Taken in isolation I would agree with you, what I was arguing against was the whole of the "safety first" culture.

Title: Nuts
Instructions: Open packet, eat Nuts
Warning: Product may contain Nuts

 

[IglooDame]

Taken in isolation I would agree with you, what I was arguing against was the whole of the "safety first" culture.

Title: Nuts
Instructions: Open packet, eat Nuts
Warning: Product may contain Nuts

Or what I just got the other day:

Instructions: put in microwave, set on high for three minutes.
Warning: Product may be very hot when removed from microwave!

Well, I would certainly hope so.

 

[East St Trader]

I do not base my distaste for negligence as a tort upon dislike for trivial claims.

Although I probably did start wondering about it when I discovered that three or four times as much money is expended each year (in England) on the litigating of the claims as is paid in damages. Which is pretty silly.

And I think the sense that it might be fundamentally daft may have grown a bit when dealing with medical negligence claims. Which are daft enough because of the causation problems they give rise to but dafter in a country with both a national health service paid for by the taxpayer and private medicine (into whose coffers a biggish chunk of the damages goes).

However the two things which have actually led me to my conclusion are the way that negligence, like a weed, proliferates to choke most other established branches of common law. And the hopelessly inadequacy of the "neighbour" principle or its various elaborations to sort out exactly when the duty should arise and when it should not.

Thus there was a time when carefully working out detailed contractual terms for a building project which drew upon several centuries worth of work in establishing robust contractual principles of law was actually something of a waste of time. Because you always had an alternative remedy in negligence - and relying on its one crude notion was a damn sight easier, so everyone did.

And to illustrate the crudity, no one knows how on earth to resolve the question of when the state is liable to its citizens in negligence in the myriad circumstances in which the two have dealings together. In England I can show you thirty cases decided pretty well randomly one way or the other and the sole principle you can extract is that if the damage suffered is personal injury or damage to property you have a better chance, if it is economic loss you will probably fail. And when I checked in other jurisdictions to see how the issue was dealt with there I found it was equally, or more, chaotic.

So eventually I found myself asking, well is this a good principle at all? To which the answer turns out to be no, it is not.

Which involves believing that if a car driver, driving badly, knocks someone down they should not come under an obligation of law to compensate the injured person.

And I turn out to be up for that.

I would far rather that car drivers as a class contribute to a fund (which, through insurance is what in fact they do) and that the fund is applied, under rules which we devise, to provide a measure of compensation to anyone injured by motor vehicles than adopt the expensive lottery we currently have.

Sorry that you would be out of a job.

 

[Mise]

Taken in isolation I would agree with you, what I was arguing against was the whole of the "safety first" culture.

Title: Nuts
Instructions: Open packet, eat Nuts
Warning: Product may contain Nuts

Hmm, I take your point, though I wouldn't cite Freedom as a reason for change, personally. I'd rather just look at the practical implications, like stupid law suits and wasted ink.

 

[Red Stranger]

I like the Civ4 quote: Something to this extent
Anybody who would give up freedom for safety would deserve neither and lose both.

 

[kingjoshi]

I like the Civ4 quote: Something to this extent
Anybody who would give up freedom for safety would deserve neither and lose both.

The quote's been posted several times. In this thread even...

 

[Aphex_Twin]

It's always easy to trade the freedom of others. Only it's not a trade.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

My answer is in my signature.

 

[kingjoshi]

My answer is in my signature.

too bad your sig is quoted incorrectly, afaik. essential liberty. not little liberty.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

too bad your sig is quoted incorrectly, afaik. essential liberty. not little liberty.

Noted and changed, there are slight variations out all over the internet.

 

[kingjoshi]

Noted and changed, they're are slight variations out all over the internet.

You're right, and some places cite that Franklin denied even saying this. It's attributed to another person.

Regardless, it's amazing (scary?) how the nuances of the two sentences can have such radical differences in perspective. Especially in regarding to how we should legislate.

How much government regulations are warranted? Most agree on driver's licenses. How about various regulations on gun control? How 'qualified' should a buyer be?

Some believe the government should only have powers up to the point to create stability. Even if a speed limit protects others, does it increase stability or just more encroachment on liberty? How about if it doesn't? Are you willing to sacrifice freedom to find out? The act must be tested where people in an area drive at limited speeds.

My problem is, I have a problem with people engaging in risky behavior and having the state foot the bill for their recovery. And I have a moral problem with the state seeming heartless by not caring for the people. Theoretically, Congress has the authority to enact such laws to promote general welfare. Again, I prefer to err on the side of freedom. But I'll make exceptions.