Quote:
Originally Posted by n4mwd
Florida doesn't require helmets for motorcycle riders, but I wear one anyway.
However, I am TOTALLY AGAINST mandated personal safety laws. They are just plain wrong. Seat belt laws are wrong too. I know that seat belts and helmets save lives, but its a personal choice! Heck, they even have a helmet law down here for pedal bicycles and believe it or not, horses.
They have child safety seat laws down here that require kids to be tied down in the back seat. It didn't decrease child fatalities, but it did increase the number of people forgetting their kid was in the back seat and leaving him to roast to death in a hot car.
Where do these stupid mandated safety laws end?
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I agree with you, right up until the child safety seat laws. How many kids get "roasted" compared to how many would die in a traffic collision without restraint? Not to mention, how many wrecks could be caused by some damn kid jumping around the car, distracting the driver from their texting or phone call? Personally, I think any adult stupid enough to not wear a helmet or seat belt shouldn't have to. But kids? They don't really have a choice.
Anyone stupid enough to forget their kid is in the car is going to get them killed one way or another...
In any case, I'm not sure where you got the idea that child safety seats don't save lives. I got the following information from the NHTSA, here:
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/809762.PDF
Quote:
Research on the effectiveness of child safety seats has found them to reduce
fatal injury by 71 percent for infants (less than 1 year old) and by 54 percent for
toddlers (1-4 years old) in passenger cars. For infants and toddlers in light trucks,
the corresponding reductions are 58 percent and 59 percent, respectively.
In 2003, there were 471 passenger vehicle occupant fatalities among children
under 5 years of age. Of those 471 fatalities, an estimated 167 (35 percent) were
totally unrestrained.
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Quote:
In 2003, an estimated 446 children
under age 5 were saved as a result of child restraint use.
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Regarding heat stroke deaths in cars, facts were a little harder to find. I did find
this article that states:
Quote:
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This horrific, yet extremely preventable tragedy happens far too often - an average of 38 deaths per year. In over half of the cases, these children are simply “forgotten” by a distracted driver when they arrive at their destination.
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I'm not attacking you personally. But the facts I found indicate that you are mistaken. I'm not downplaying heat exhaustion, I'm just saying you're far more likely to lose a child in a car wreck with no safety seat than you are by forgetting about them in your car.