Bullshit detector
I try to keep mine fine tuned. It requires a lot of research and reading. I think it works pretty well.
Today Redbone emailed me something about scientists being liberal. Which technically is impossible, since a true scientist doesn’t let his politics flavor his research. Still, a lot of people calling themselves scientists are demonstrably liberal.
Grokked that when I was eleven, flyboy, glad to see you caught up.
One of the biggest pieces of crap science I ever saw is the bullshit about “seat belts save lives”. This is a piece of crap that was foisted onto us and we bought it hook line and sinker. How many people do you know that have been “saved” by seat belts? I don’t know anyone. I do know people that have been harmed severely by seat belts, including me, and people who died because they were wearing that crap they put in passenger cars.
Five point belts are good, and do what they’re supposed to do; I had them in my Rover, because without them, a little bit of offroading could be fatal. The threepoint crap in my truck? I never wear it, and I pay the tickets I get because I never wear them. Because I have not yet heard any compelling evidence that seatbelts save lives, only that stupidass slogan. I WOULD put a five point in the truck, but it’s against the law to modify the original belt system in a passenger vehicle (at least as far as I can determine in Indiana) from something potentially fatal, to something that could potentially function as designed.
In twenty years people will buy the AGW bullshit and Green bullshit the same way people buy the seatbelt bullshit now.
Not only do I have no interest in being forced to do something someone else claims is good for me, I don’t want anyone else deciding what’s good for me, period. Piss up a rope, lawmakers. Piss up a rope, Nobama. And if you think I ought to be wearing a seatbelt? You can piss up a rope too.
11 comments Og | Uncategorized
I had a friend die at the age of 21 because he was not wearing a seatbelt.
It was foggy as hell, he ended up missing a curve at low speed (estimated at less than 30pm by the cops) and rolled his car.
He fell OUT of the window, and the car rolled on top of him, crushing his spine. He died on the medevac chopper.
Had he been wearing his seat belt, he would have remained in the car, and would be alive.
Granted, this case is highly atypical, but I still click my belt….
I’m with Graumagus on this one. You can do what you want, but I’m not going to go hurtling down the road at 70 miles an hour — or 30 miles an hour, even — without being strapped in place somehow. If I want to rattle around like a rock in a tin can, I’ll go find a plummeting elevator.
So believe what you want to believe. Just, whatevewr you do, if you want to keep on believing you’re safe, don’t do any research about seat belt fatalities. So far as I can see, more people are harmed by them than saved by them. In my personal experience, that’s definitely true. But the bottomline is not the wearing of seatbelts at all, but the immediate acceptance that it’s a good thing, without any personal research, and allowing the State to mandate what we do or don’t do.
If I am reading your post correctly, wearing seatbelts in and of themselves isn’t wrong; however wearing the 3 point POS we are being forced to wear is.
In other words, would you have a problem with wearing them if the 5 point design was implemented across the board?
What I have a problem with (and I think you were addressing this as well), is the state mandating this choice for me (and everyone else) regardless if the gear being imposed on us for use is flawed or not. Same thing goes with the helmet laws.
Go look around at accident statistics. A three point belt is damned near more dangerous than no belt.
Managed to drive all over the ME for five years without wearing them.
I’ve been a LOT of wrecks over the years. From the fender benders to major collisions plus a lot of little wrecks around the farm. Almost none of them were my fault (except for the farm wrecks).
I was in the backseat of a Grand Prix which had a two seatbelt system…one for the shoulder/chest, a separate one for the lap. I only had the one going across the chest fastened. Head-on wreck. I went under the diagonal seatbelt and ended up on the floor. Broke my collar bone, broke ribs, and lost my spleen; lucky I didn’t snap my neck. The injuries were all in line with where the seatbelt was. I think Pontiac has now eliminated that design.
I usually don’t wear a seatbelt in the backseat. But I always do in the front seat. Only because I fear going through the windshield.
Do what ya want ta do, Og; I’ll say I usually wear a seatbelt, and I’m teaching littlest Alex to do so also (although his IS a 5-point belt, in his little-guy carseat, and he’s surrounded by ABS plastic). We even have a silly song I made up for getting all buckled up (for him, not me).
I DO like 3-point belts, at least the old-style ones that wouldn’t budge a fraction of an inch… when I got my ’70 Beetle to corner the way I wanted it to (hard enough to scare the crap out of an Army Ranger), I found it very beneficial to tighten that belt down to the point where it completely compressed my ass into the seat, so I could stay still while I handled the wheel, shifter, clutch, brake, and throttle all at once without having to worry about my ass sliding all over the place.
Granted, that’s probably not the kind of situation you’re talking about… but hey, if you were, it would be a lot more fun :) DOOO EEET!!!!!
I couldn’t agree more, Og. I did this post back in January. My point being the same as yours. If saying that someone who dies while NOT wearing a seatbelt, would have lived if they had been, is impossible to prove. You have no idea what forces would have been exerted on them if they remained strapped in place. Especially with the 3 point belt as Og points out.
I’m NOT telling anyone NOT to wear their belt. I’m telling you DON’T tell me I HAVE to wear MINE.
Prezactly, Dan. And welcome to Neanderpundit!
First, I realize that anecdotes do not equal data.
Second, I would not presume to tell anyone, except my children, what they have to do to protect themselves.
I was in an auto accident in which I was saved by my seatbelt. The brain-dead-waste-of-space that pulled out in front of me was NOT saved by his seatbelt and his passenger was severely damaged as a result of wearing her seatbelt incorrectly (passive shoulder harness without the manual lap belt).
The forces acting on me were mostly in line with my vehicle – I hit the other car while I was traveling in a straight line. The forces acting on Dumbass were mostly perpindicular to his vehicle – I T-boned him right in the driver’s door. I literally walked away with just a scratch. His skull detached from his spine and he never recovered (I had a friend in the trauma center).
As far as I can tell, today’s seatbelts will restrain a passenger/driver in low-to-moderate velocity impacts that are in line with the long axis of the vehicle most of the time. Deviations from this scenario seem to result in diminished protection from injury in direct proportion to the magnitude of the deviation.