Some Big Brother regulations make a lot of sense

We have all done something stupid – or imprudent, to use a kinder adjective. Bicycling without a helmet, driving after too much wine, swimming beyond the lifeguard’s vision, hiking off the mountain path. The list goes on. Part of being human is being rash. While computers always act rationally, we humans are innately unpredictable; indeed, sometimes we find joy in those irrational moments of stupidity.
Yet the freedom to be stupid is not an inalienable right. We may accept the consequences to ourselves of our inanity, but the calculus shifts when we harm others. And when people get behind the wheel of a car, the cost of stupidity soars.
So most states have tried to restrict drivers’ freedom to be stupid.
The easiest, and least effective, recourse is nagging. Most states, via health departments and highway councils, have urged “safe driving.” But as nagging parents recognize, many drivers ignore all those admonitions with impunity.
Not surprisingly, states that back up their admonitions with penalties have fared best at squelching stupidity – and, in turn, cutting the incidence of highway injuries and deaths.
Here are some legislative actions that work.
&#8226 Primary seat belt laws. We know that seat belts save lives. We also know that not everybody buckles up. In 32 states, the police can stop, and charge, a driver for not buckling up; those are “primary laws.” Eighteen states have “secondary” laws: police can charge a driver with “not buckling up” only if the police have stopped the driver for another reason, like speeding, or driving erratically. No surprise: in states that have switched from “secondary” to “primary” laws, fatalities fell.
&#8226 Children benefit from seat belts. Indeed, booster seats can anchor a child who, in an accident, becomes a projectile, with terrible consequences. Thirty-three states require them.
&#8226 Drunk drivers are generally a repeat menace. Ignition controls, attached to the car, can keep drunk drivers off the roads, because taking away a driver’s license often does not. A driver breathes into a tube. If the driver has been drinking, the car won’t start. Only 16 states make ignition controls mandatory for repeat offenders.
&#8226 Motorcycle helmets take some of the thrill out of riding, but they also remove some of the danger. Nineteen states require them. &#8226 Ditto for bicycle helmets. No wind ruffling through your hair. But they offer some protection in case of accidents. Twenty-one states require them.
&#8226 States are just now regulating texters. “Distracted drivers” who stare at their social messages can careen into cars, buses and pedestrians.
The result of this Big Brother intrusiveness: fewer injuries, fewer deaths, fewer hospital, rehab and long-term care bills.
The Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have assessed states by injury- and violence-related deaths (www.healthyamericans.org). The national average is 57.9 of these kinds of deaths per 100,000.
New Mexico has the highest rate, at 97.8; New Jersey, the lowest, at 36.1. Rhode Island stood at No. 43, with a rate of 50.4, while Connecticut was No. 47, with a rate of 47.9 and Massachusetts No. 49, with a rate of 41.1. The South, the most conservative part of the country, emerges as especially road-lethal. There Big Brother leaves drivers alone, free to drive unfettered by rules.
I wonder how many people who have driven unfettered, and suffered, will argue for that freedom. Often when the government-haters rail against a restriction, they produce a few citizens to argue against the intrusion, even though they are arguing against their own self-interest. A few people with no health insurance, and huge medical debt, will argue against Obamacare. A few people with chronic illnesses will argue against stem-cell experimentation.
Yet I haven’t seen a mother whose son died in a motorcycle accident argue against helmet laws. Or a parent whose unstrapped child ended up in a long-term care hospital argue against primary seat belt laws. And consider people who drove after too many drinks. Wouldn’t the ones who ended up killing a family have welcomed a gizmo that stopped them from turning the ignition?
States that don’t enact these smart measures to save lives are stupid. &#8226


Joan Retsinas is the former managing editor of Medicine & Health/Rhode Island and is now a columnist for The Progressive Populist and contributing writer for Aging Today.

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