Seat Belt Tyranny
by Bill Holdorf

Seat belt laws represent unabated tyranny on the march. Each year the laws are expanded to infringe more on a person’s rights as guaranteed in the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Seat belt laws are an unwarranted intrusion by government into the personal lives of citizens. They deny through prior restraint the right to determine a person’s own safety and health care standards for his/her own body. Not using a seat belt is a victimless, state-created crime that does not hurt or threaten anyone else than the person involved.

While seat belt use might save some people, there is ample evidence that others have been more seriously injured and even killed because of forced seat belt use. This is confirmed in the hundreds of successful lawsuits against the auto-makers since the advent of seat belt laws in 1985, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements and punitive damage awards. Further, some people have actually been saved because a seat belt was not used in an accident. In the latter case, many seat belt laws actually require that the survivor be liable to a fine and possible arrest and jail for not dying in the accident—for not using a so-called safety device chosen and required by politicians.

The fact is, the government has no constitutional right to take chances with a person’s body: play Russian roulette with a person’s life on the basis of political will.

The millions of tax dollars spent annually in support of seat belt laws has never been proved to have prevented even one traffic accident, the real cause of traffic fatalities — not non-seat belt use. Further, studies have shown that some people feel safer wearing a seat belt and tend to take more driving risks. This is known as "risk compensation" (which is covered in more detail in the 1995 book, "Risk," by Dr. John Adams, University College London, England). The book also covers other reasons against seat belt laws and is available on the Amazon website. There also are other professionals who have published in trade journals well-documented research which clearly discredits the so-called benefit of seat belt laws. But the national news media refuse to inform the public of such facts.

We do not need to spend millions of dollars for more seat belt law enforcement, for more forced seat belt use. Dollars spent for road safety should focus on achieving more responsibly educated drivers, and more safer-built roads and vehicles in order to prevent accidents. Preventing accidents will not only save lives but will save the cost of property damage and, most importantly, save our freedom.

There certainly is nothing wrong with voluntary seat belt use, as it is with all other personal safety and health care recommendations in life. However, there is a great deal wrong with all mandatory seat belt laws. All seat belt laws should be repealed in order to restore true liberty in the U.S.

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