Remember when we lost all our freedom when they made us wear seatbelts?

[BSdetect]

Just to save a few million lives?

[HubertHeaver]

1. We lost our freedom to fly out of a rolling car

or through the windshield.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

3. Still free to do so in New Hampshire

They don't require adults to wear seat belts.

[Texaswitchy]

2. No smoking in public places.

Lots of freedom lost then.

[FuzzyRabbit]

4. Worse than that, now we can't even light up a cigarette in a restaurant.

This is actual tyranny!

[Journeyman]

5. In California we've have some odd ideas about freedom and its loss . . .

People riding motorcycles, be they young or old, are required to wear a helmet.

Children are required to wear a helmet while riding a bicycle. Adults have no such requirement.

So the only conclusion you can draw is, when you're old, slow, and dumb in California, you get to keep the right to splatter your brains all over the streets and curbs of our roads.

[Cicada]

6. My uncle refused: he feared he might crash and be unable to get out of his car

[Hekate]

11. I have a friend who drove off a cliff. She hung upside down in her seatbelt, & being alive ...

… and relatively uninjured, was able to extract herself, crawl out the window, and haul herself up the incline to the highway. In the dark. She was well into her 60s then and is still alive to tell the tale at 79. Car was totaled — she wasn’t totaled.

Back when I was a young mother, my BFF wouldn’t confine her child to a carseat in the belief that (a) she’d never have an accident, and (b) her toddler would be thrown to safety if she did.

[Cicada]

15. The son of a friend, no seatbelt, broke his leg, dog too in same place on his leg

The dog recovered in about two months, the son 6 months.

[Hekate]

17. Back in college, another friend became an occupational therapist. Gods, the stuff she'd say...

… about the low prospects of recovering a normal life after being thrown through a windshield at speed were hair-raising. Once dated a young doctor who referred to motorcycles as “donor bikes.”

My trouble is, I actually believe both statistics and first-hand accounts, and so try to avoid becoming either one.

[brewens]

7. I converted an anti-seatbelt guy once. I'm not making this up. Redneck from hell too,

but a huge Nascar fan, and that's how I got him.

I told him we see a crash every Sunday that would have killed the driver if he didn't have all the safety gear. Not only does he survive though, most times, he's got enough control to get the car off the track and not crash any more guys. Same thing with our belts and airbags. Even if all you can do is stand on the brake after a crash, it might save someone's life.

[Shermann]

8. Odd that you had to lead him there

Analogies never work on most MAGA types. The reason is simple. If they were capable of the abstract thinking required to apply analogies correctly to their own experience, they probably wouldn't be MAGA types in the first place.

Your lesson just makes a strong correlation between two similar things without requiring much higher-order thinking. Well done.

[JohnnyRingo]

9. Here's a way to get people to buckle up.

Tell them you'll have a hard time collecting for injuries if someone hits you.

In most states, their insurance company lawyers will point out you wouldn't have been hurt by their drunk driving client if you had your seat belt on. Suddenly half of it is your own fault, and that would make sense to any jury.

[Irish_Dem]

10. When we couldn't smoke in schools and hospitals, we turned into a communist country.

It was terrible.

[WHITT]

12. According To Bonzo Ronnie

we lost our freedom when Medicare was enacted.

[Patton French]

13. Yes, indeed

The laundry list of laws meant to improve public safety is very long. But, or course, that doesn't stop the hypocrisy.

[madville]

14. No one forces an adult to wear a seatbelt in a personal vehicle

It’s a decision the driver and passengers make every time they get in. Is it riskier to not do so, absolutely. Is there a fine if caught, sure.

It’s a law that millions of people break daily, and they have the freedom to do so at their own risk.

Can a business have a seatbelt policy and discipline or fire an employee for not following it, yes to that too. The employee has to decide if they want to follow the policy or not and risk the consequences.

But no one is forced or made to do it against their will.

[kskiska]

16. Why do we have to stop for traffic lights

or drive on the right side of the road?

[ExciteBike66]

18. My kid has to wear a shirt to school, even though it saves zero lives...

But a mask? Nope, optional!