On my way to work yesterday morning, I heard a report about one of our Senators addressing a group of bikers in our state’s capital. In particular, she was talking to them about mandatory helmet laws. As one might expect given her audience, she was speaking against them.
Now, you’d think I’d be in favor of mandatory helmet laws, what with helmets keeping bikers’ brains intact (or, at least, more intact than they would otherwise be) following motor vehicle accidents. As a physician, I’m broadly in favor of intact brains. And it seems that mandatory helmet laws really do help keep brains intact.
However, I actually don’t favor mandatory helmet laws. I think if you’re willing to risk splattering the contents of your brainpan on the asphalt because you think the wind in your hair is worth it, then you should be allowed to ride a motorcycle without one. I must admit that a decision along those lines does make me wonder how well the contents of your brainpan function, but I think grown people should be allowed to take ridiculous risks with their own health if they wish to.
But here’s the thing — I don’t think anyone else should have to pay for the consequences of a motorcyclist’s horrible decision-making. If a rider suffers a traumatic brain injury, I don’t think they should receive any kind of assistance from the state (assuming they survive) and they should be liable for their healthcare costs. In fact, I think it would be reasonable to allow insurance companies to be exempted from covering the accident-specific costs for customers who sustain injuries because they were riding a motorcycle without appropriate headgear. Whether tax-paying citizen or premium-paying customer, nobody but the biker should be stuck with those costs.
There you go. My free market solution to the problem of motorcycle helmet use.
Except… dammit.
It occurs to me that someone could mount the same argument about contracting HIV and taking care of AIDS patients. And I do think treating patients with HIV is something that should be covered by insurance. And when I examine my motivations, all I can see to differentiate my feelings about the two cases is that I have greater personal sympathy for people who contract HIV than I do for people who sustain a traumatic brain injury because they didn’t wear a helmet. Which is a lousy basis for setting public policy.
Plus, I know I would fold like a house of greased-up playing cards if I were to be confronted by the destitute family of a biker who made a bad decision. Even when I try to take a libertarian position, my stupid bleeding heart goes and gives me away. Off I trudge to take my place with the liberals.
Or obesity. Which, I suspect, is under much less control of an individual’s will than is generally believed.
Yeah, can you imagine telling a woman that she and her kids are consigned to poverty because she didn’t force her husband to wear a helmet? Fun!
can you imagine telling a woman that she and her kids are consigned to poverty because she didn’t force her husband to wear a helmet?
Nope. Which is why I may grudgingly think the state should be able to. (Force her husband, that is.)
(This calls for Libertarian Man!!! Quick! What’s the best tactic here? Why not… keep going?)
Hey! Doc! What’s your opinion on Thudguard? ( http://www.thudguard.com/ )
It’s an indoor helmet for children who are developing their motor skills and will protect their heads when they’re learning to walk and get around for the first time!
I should note: It comes in blue (tagline: “Perfect for boys!”) and lilac (tagline: “Perfect for girls!”).
I bet insurance covers head injuries sustained by children in the house, but far be it from me to take away from the glory of scoring cheap points against strawmen.
Strawmen? It’s not like I made Thudguards up.
I think the idea is idiotic. A small child falling because she is still developing motor skills (which is an unavoidable developmental stage, as opposed to the consequence of a full-grown adult’s poor decision-making) generates far less velocity than does an unhelmeted biker landing on the pavement.
So your solution to helmet laws is to let people ride without them? And if they sustain an injury…?
I think that my solution is something like “people who ride without helmets will automatically be assumed to be organ donors and treated accordingly”.
Even for traffic violations!
We all have responsibilities to each other.
So if they get wheeled into my ED, they are automatically DNR?
There are people out there who will appreciate those kidneys more. Perhaps even enough to ride in a car with a seatbelt buckled.
I’m not been snarky, I just want to clarify what your view of the correct policy would be.
So Biker X sustains a major head injury and is wheeled into my ED. Under the Jaybird Motorcycle Freedom Act of 2012, he is by law deemed DNR and an organ donor. Even if it is possible that he would survive his injuries with proper care, with an unclear outcome with regard to his cognitive or motor faculties afterward, I am to withhold care. In fact, to administer care is to violate the law. And I am shielded from all malpractice litigation?
What if the distraught family signs a waiver stating that they will absorb all of the costs of his care? Do they have to submit proof that they have the means to cover them? Do I shrug regretfully and say “sorry folks, gotta let him die”? If they are able to pay and I am allowed to administer care, does this not lead to a two-tiered system where the rich abide by a different set of laws than the poor? Does this not essentially mean that the rich are afforded privileges to ride helmetless than the poor are not, and that the poor are callously allowed to die while the rich are saved?
Again, I am sincerely not being snarky. I just want to understand the ramifications of your position, which I genuine admire for its consistency.
Without being snarky, I think that I would just say that, currently, the law says “if someone comes in and dies, we cannot assume that they are an organ donor. We must have confirmation from their ID or immediate loved ones to confirm organ donor status.”
My position would be that people who don’t wear helmets (or seatbelts (or basic safety equipment)) will have their organ donor status automatically changed to “donor”.
If a helmetless person comes in and, miraculously, survived then treat them the way you’d treat someone who wore a helmet. It’s just that, if (when) they pass on due to injuries, their organ donor status will automatically be “donor”.
I have to say I think it’s a little weird that Not Donor is the default as is under any condition. It makes more sense. Why don’t we have it so people have to specifically ask not to donate?
Is this one of he last “default to religious” activities left in government?
But JB, that side-steps who will assume the costs for the patient whose injuries could have been prevented or mitigated by wearing a helmet. If your answer is to say that we do, as galling as it may seem, then in the end we end up at the same place.
I mean, don’t we?
We can making not wearing a helmet illegal. This won’t solve the problem of people not wearing helmets. I don’t know that the problem of people not wearing helmets is solvable (if, by solvable, we mean “people stop riding without wearing helmets”).
I’m always delighted to end up on the same page as you, my friend.
someone could mount the same argument about contracting HIV and taking care of AIDS patients.
Medical costs aside, when a biker without proper headgear takes a dive and suffers a traumatic brain injury, the negative externalities are borne mostly by the biker and his/her family and friends. On the other hand, a person who contracts HIV is now a carrier who can lead others to be infected. The possibility of spreading a contagious disease to third parties makes your second case fundamentally different from bikers without helmets.
That doesn’t mean your ultimate conclusion is incorrect, just that there are other factors at work that could allow us to decide the two cases differently.
The possibility of spreading a contagious disease to third parties makes your second case fundamentally different from bikers without helmets.
Fair point.
If anything, doesn’t that weigh towards covering helmet-less bikers and not covering condom-less HIV patients? Because there’s more reason to discourage unprotected sex than helmet-less riding.
But the flipside is also true, in that by providing coverage for HIV patients you can dramatically reduce their viral loads and thus their risk of transmitting the disease to others.
Ahh, I see the point you’re making.
I have little objection to someone being asked to deposit $50,000 into a verifiable account (at any institution), and then being allowed to drive without the helmet. (am quite certain that Roger, our resident InsuranceMan, could tell me how to run this more efficiently using insurance…)
Not a terrible idea, Kimmi. Sadly, $50,000 won’t go all that far. A few days in the ICU, a CT scan or two… then who’s footing the bills that come next?
I don’t want it to go all that far. I just want them to have to pony up a decent amount of cash for being dickheads. $50,000 is a downpayment for a mortgage. Having to have that much lying around, unused, is enough of a punishment for being a bit stupid, and having to lose it is more than enough for being a real stupidhead.
You could just jack up insurance rates for people who want helmetless. The insurance company could cover anyone who had an accident with a helmet, not cover anyone who doesn’t.
But then you run into the same problem. What if some ass didn’t pay in, got in an accident, and has a spouse and kids?
Do the habits of bikers and other motor vehicle operators around them change depending on whether the biker is wearing a helmet or not? This might be worth examining as an externality. For instance, if a biker w/o a helmet is more likely to engage in an evasive manner that lessens the likelihood of him coming down of the bike but makes things must more dangerous for other vehicles, that is worth considering. I have no idea if that is the case, of course. Just something that should be investigated, if at all possible.
(I know a study was done showing that drivers tends to drive more safely around cyclists without helmets than those with. So, the possibility for it to impact behavior is obviously real.)
Interesting post. So the question amounts to this: what are the differences between riding without a helmet in sexual v. motorcycle contexts such that you think insurance ought to cover the consequences of one but not the other? In particular, the difference you’re highlighting is that *given* that you don’t believe in mandatory helmet laws in either case, you come up with different answers re: insurance covering the outcomes.
Hmmm. Personally, I disagree with the last part. I think the purpose of insurance is to cover yourself from risk, and engaging in riskier behavior ought not exclude you from either getting insurance or having insurance cover the higher risk. So on that score, I disagree with you that insurance ought not cover riding without a helmet. Helmetless motorcycle riders ought to pay a higher premium, or even – which is my preferred option – be in their own helmetless motorcycle risk pool. The consequences of doing so, it seems to me, would be to make the actual cost of riding without a helmet real to the individual rider, and would probably be so prohibitive that many riders would either a) start wearing a helmet or b) simply not get insurance. Which leads to conclusion c): that the state would then be justified in imposing mandatory helmet laws to insure that people are actually insured (no helmetless free-riding!).
But what about the free-riders? Those bikers who both fail to get insurance and don’t wear a helmet? Well, it’d be nice to think that a society-wide agreement to *let them die* would teach everyone involved a good lesson about freedom, risk and insurance, and that the problem would be self-correcting over time. But alas, free-riders are always a problem, and we live in a society which opposes letting people die of preventable injuries, etc. So part of the insurance premium for helmetless riders (or some other ‘tax’) ought to cover the costs incurred by those helmetless riders who don’t want to play by the rules.
Of course, what I wrote earlier leads right back to your initial conundrum, but from the other direction: wouldn’t my own view require mandatory helmet laws for safe sex? On a principled level, I’d say ‘sure, it would’. But there’s a pragmatic difference between the two types of activities which make *enforcement* of the law a bit problematic. But even if there was a law requiring helmets for safe sex and someone chose to not obey that law, just as in the motorcycle case, they ought to be covered by insurance whose premiums include a bump to cover the costs incurred by free-riders. Which is, I think, what we sorta the direction we’re going in with the ACA.
The trick, as I see it, is to impose a cost which *prevents* free-riding (laws and enforcement) rather than one that imposes a cost resulting *from* free-riding (shifting the financial burden onto someone who cannot pay and thereby letting them die).
How would you charge helmetless riders an extra fee? Couldn’t they claim to be helmeted and if/when they end up in an accident swear that it was the only time they rode without it and only did so because it was stolen that morning? The only mechanism I see would be that they forfeit all coverage if they claim to wear a helmet and get hurt without one. Which leaves no room for real cases where someone who normally does wear a helmet didn’t wear one for some exceptional reason.
Yeah, they could. That’s the freerider problem I was mentioning. If insurance companies put helmetless motorcycle riders were in their own risk pool to better reflect the actual risks incurred, doing so would effectively *encourage* free-riding. But since the costs of freeriding (if there’s an accident) are born by the insured or the state, then there is a clear incentive discernible to all parties to *prevent* freeriding.
This is contingent on society actually administering health care to the helmetless as well as socializing the costs incurred from doing so. In short, our society.
Do we really need that wiggle room?
If it got stolen, you file a police report.
If you forgot it at home, you don’t ride.
A few years ago, my oldest first cousin died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident that no one witnessed, except maybe someone who caused it and drove away. He probably would have survived had his head injury not knocked him into a coma, allowing the broken chain to lacerate him until the engine gave up. He was wearing a half helmet, but that didn’t help. He lasted over a week in the hospital, which costs were covered by insurance.
I’m not making a point: I tell friends this story when motorcycles come up.
I decided to side-step the issue of riding motorcycles in the first place, of which I am not a fan.
I’ve told my husband “over my dead body” on the subject of the coffinmobiles. But I have offered to meet him half way and consider a moped or a scooter. The look he gave at that suggestion will keep me warm for many a cold winter.
Indeed. Riding a motorcycle is on my short familial list of “over my dead body” issues.
My (older) brother once told me: “You’re going to probably have one major traffic accident in your life, and you don’t want that to be while riding a motorcycle.” I agree.
Personally, I like dirt bikes.
But I have been in too many spills going 30 mph to want to take one up to 60.
Keep the motorcycles on the trails where they belong.
ATGATT is the motorcyclist’s DNA sequence
All The Gear All The Time
full face helmet, boots, gauntlet style gloves, armored pants and jacket.
extra points for back protector.
when my daughter was born, i sold my bike. i miss it every day, though.
I agree with joey. I ride and have a family. I wear a super cute full-face helmet and full leathers (which is an issue only because I’m a vegetarian). Drive defensively, wear the proper gear and you and those around you are safe. Oregon is phasing in a great mandatory riding coarse (Team Oregon) to get your endorsement. I took it as a beginner and loved it.
I’ve never tried riding without a helmet because it is illegal in Oregon; however, I will admit to taking a short ride on the hottest day of the summer in shorts and a tank top. I need a little bit of risk in my life and it feels soooo good. I can’t imagine that riding without a helmet would be all that great. The wind is deafening, it is difficult to see without proper eye protection and the knots you acquire if you have long hair is way worse than helmet hair.
I was going to talk about the positive externality of organ donation, but JB already covered it.
Seeing what we do with vehicular claims, I’m always astounded that people argue passionately to be allowed to ride with out helmets (or for that matter without seat belts). I waffle back and forth on this issue, between the overly paternalistic knowledge that when most people say “I know the risks!” they really don’t, and the overly callous attitude of “well, if we have to cull the herd…”
An additional question I would ask of JB – Should we allow minors to ride motorcycles without helmets?
I know the question was not directed at me, but my answer would be an emphatic “no.”
I’m not a fan of mandatory seat belt laws or mandatory helmet laws, but it’s lower on my list of outrages. I just can’t get too worked up about them.
…except for minors. I totally support them for minors (however we want to define ‘minors’).
People with small speaking roles?
If they’re already small-speaking, the headgear would pretty much drown out their voice completely, no?
I’d let *those* folks feel the wind in their hair. Well, in their already small voices, to be precise.
So you’re saying that just because you don’t want to see people suffering as a result of their bad decisions, the government should use its power to intervene violently in other people’s lives? Are you aware that the same logic could be applied to justify mandatory wear of condoms? Ridiculous – but it follows the same logic! Can you see how dangerous this logic is? If the feelings of some group (however well-meaning!) are sufficient to enforce laws that control and punish people, then anything can be prohibited. Life is dangerous, people like to take risks. Try to convince them or set up a charity for families of braindamaged bikers, but don’t call for more government.
Without wading too far into the “should they or shouldn’t they” question, the obvious difference between your two examples is that one is easy to police based on people’s observable actions in public, and the other not so much.
You’re obviously not going to the right places.
He’s referring to “mandatory condoms in pornography”.
I like the default libertarian line of thought that holds that all laws are “violently enforced” or “at the point of a gun” or whatever your favorite phrase is. Folks, I’ve been to the DMV, and it’s not really like that.
no, there it is enforced with long lines and endless paperwork.
(Don’t look at me like that! I’m the liberal around here! Got my birth certificate in less than ten minutes, it was sweet. PennDOT. Sucks.)
It is cliche, but seriously the reason for that line is that’s what distinguishes the law from a suggestion.
Actually, although I’m not a libertarian, I agree that what makes something a law is that it can be backed with a legitimate use of force. The government is allowed to take your money and kidnap you. Occasionally kill you. The first two of which I’m on board with in principle, if not in every instance. But I think Manja is right to consider a law a form of force.
I seem to overlook where I advocated violence in the OP, Manja. Please direct me to it.
Come on, Russ. Don’t you know how many people get papercuts from traffic tickets a year?!?!?! You’re a doctor, for crying out loud!
The soft carbon copy paper isn’t that condusive for paper cuts.
You can get anally probed though.
Kolohe, this is my favorite comment of the day, and I know that before the day is over.
You want to force people to wear helmets. They don’t choose to do so. You want them to be controlled and punished if they disobey. How is that not violence? And what would happen if you didn’t pay the ticket, or never paid any tickets? You don’t believe that government will just wait and see, do you? Have you tried not to pay taxes? Try it and tell me that government is not a violent institution.
Do I think it is reasonable for there to be a disincentive for people to ride without helmets, and that the government is an interested party that may have sufficient justification to require it? Yes. To my mind that means fines. Now, if a person has accrued a sufficient number of fines without payment, might that be grounds for arrest? Perhaps. If refusing to pay traffic tickets for failure to wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle is your ditch to dig, then I commend you to your civil disobedience.
No, I have not tried to not pay taxes. Why ever would I?
And so, since you seem to be advocated a more stridently libertarian position than mine, what would your solution be? Are we going to just keep on with our willingness to cover the health costs associated without someone else’s risks, easily mitigated by wearing a helmet? That’s more liberal-adjacent than I would have expected from a libertarian. Or shall we let them die? Or render their families destitute?
Flesh out your thinking for me.
*Are we going to just keep on with our willingness to cover the health costs associated without someone else’s risks, easily mitigated by wearing a helmet?
No, why should anyone else pay for their faults? In a free insurance market, obviously they would have to pay a higher premium if they insisted on going without a helmet. Insurance companies could refuse to pay if the biker violated the contract (by not wearing a helmet).
*Or shall we let them die? Or render their families destitute?
I don’t advocate this. But..I don’t see how we can get more freedom if we’re not willing to take responsibility for our actions. I do hope that there will be voluntary help for those who didn’t act responsible, but obviously there is no guarantee for that.
Manja, I see several problems with your scenario.
1) You presume a very honest group of bikers. What stops them from simply lying on their insurance forms? Who will verify that they actually wear their helmets? If police are allowed to stop and cite motorcyclists, that can trigger a report to the insurance companies that hikes the premiums. If there is no law, there’s not stoppage, no report, no insurance hike. How would you remedy this?
2) No ethical doctor or nurse will let a patient die in the trauma bay because of how they sustained their injuries. No way. The care will get delivered if the patient shows up. Even if there weren’t ethical reasons for doing so, allowing hospitals to refuse care to a certain kind of trauma victim would require a pretty significant EMTALA revision.
3) Hospitals are not going to be able to recoup their costs. Let’s say insurance companies are allowed to refuse to cover payment for injuries sustained by an unhelmeted rider. Even if the family is driven into abjection, it is likely that there will be significant outstanding costs. Who pays for them? How would you prevent those costs from being passed on to other patients?
“No ethical doctor or nurse will let a patient die in the trauma bay because of how they sustained their injuries. ”
Just like no ethical firefighter would let a house burn down because the owner hadn’t paid his taxes, right?
I dunno, Duck. I’m not a firefighter. Go ask them.
You know that I’m referring to a real incident, right?
Yup. Just don’t particularly want to get into it with you about whether an ethical doctor would allow a patient to die for the reasons stipulated. I say they wouldn’t. Take it or leave it.
It’s not my fault that you want to base your arguments on unsupported generalities which have already been proven false.
No, but it is your fault that you’re such a thoroughly obnoxious person that I can’t be bothered to respond to your assertions.
I don’t see how his statement is an unsupported generality. If a firefighter did that, he’s not an ethical firefighter. If a doctor did not save a patient, he would not be an ethical doctor. He didn’t say no doctor would ever refuse care, he said no ethical doctor would. That’s a conceptual point, not an empirical one.
Have *you* tried not to pay taxes? Are you so certain someone with a gun would come get you? Would they shoot you to death if you didn’t want to pay your taxes? At what level does this argument start to look as absurd to you as it actually is?
“Would they shoot you to death if you didn’t want to pay your taxes?”
Only if you shoot back.
But. sure, they’ll come after you with guns if you’re contemptuous enough
(normally they’ll just garnish wages and seize bank accounts, though)
The feelings of some group of people (those who are against slavery, assault, and murder) are sufficient to enforce laws that control and punish people.
Rose, people who ride motorbikes without helmet damage only themselves. The don’t murder, assault or enslave.
They raise my insurance rates and taxes. They cause traffic tie-ups and hog emergency personnel and equipment. They may well become an unbearable burden to their families.
>They raise my insurance rates and taxes.
The idea was that they would pay for their damage themselves, e.g. by paying an extra premium
>They cause traffic tie-ups and hog emergency personnel and equipment.
Let them pay for it
> They may well become an unbearable burden to their families.
Not your problem. You don’t need to protect their families, it is none of your business.
“Let them pay for it”
And if they can’t? Who pays for it then?
I don’t know the majority of assaulters or assault victims, so I suppose that’s not my problem either? My tax money shouldn’t protect them?
If my insurance rates don’t go up, and they do have to pay for it, then innocent people who are not responsible for the decision (the relatives) will be severely harmed. Just because I don’t know them doesn’t mean I don’t have an interest in making sure that doesn’t happen to anyone.
And you presume that these motorcyclists will answer honestly that they refuse to wear helmets and incur the increased costs? You have a more optimistic view of human nature than do I.
And when the hospital goes to collect on its costs and the family’s assets have been garnished and sold at auction but costs remain, what then? Debtors prison? And then we are left with a family left in ruin. We leave them to their own devices?
Do life insurance companies take your word for it when you say whether or not your a smoker? (I don’t know in general, but in my experience, they do)
And when the hospital goes to collect on its costs and the family’s assets have been garnished and sold at auction but costs remain, what then? Debtors prison? And then we are left with a family left in ruin. We leave them to their own devices?
This is the arugment both both single payer *and* for the government to be massively instrusive into people’s personal lives.
Kolohe, when I took out a particular life insurance policy I submitted a urine test, which I believe was meant to detect if I am a smoker.
*I don’t know the majority of assaulters or assault victims, so I suppose that’s not my problem either? My tax money shouldn’t protect them?*
Feel free to give your money to whoever you think is in need of it. As I said, everybody concerned about families of brain-damaged bikers could found a charity.
I am trying to imagine a privately funded vigilante squad that will intervene in assaults that is not answerable to any public police force. I see absolutely no cause for concern.
At least with a public police force, I can vote out crappy management.
In general, I get the appeal of libertarianism. But I don’t get the hardest of hardcore libertarian refusal to even consider consequences. They are so absolutely sure what every single human right is, and that they can only be negative rights, and they are so so sure of that they are willing to let millions suffer for the principle, amazes me.
Rose, it’s understandable that you would want intervention, considering what invariably happens to morons who wreck a motorcycle without a helmet. Ok, I get it.
Question is, once the gov’t does intervene, how do you make them STOP? How do you draw an unbreakable line and tell them “NO! You will NOT hold that power, not NOW, not EVER”? The principle established by letting them intervene — that adults should be protected from their own stupidity — doesn’t come with a marker saying when to stop.
That’s right, it doesn’t.
You have to fight to keep the wheel straight. All the time.
The line I would use is common sense. People should be free to do what they like except when it may have serious consequences for others. If you disagree with a government’s interpretation of what serious consequences are, vote against them next election.
“Question is, once the gov’t does intervene, how do you make them STOP? How do you draw an unbreakable line and tell them “NO! You will NOT hold that power, not NOW, not EVER”? The principle established by letting them intervene — that adults should be protected from their own stupidity — doesn’t come with a marker saying when to stop.”
I don’t understand this argument. It’s kind of like the one that if we allow gay people to marry, how on Earth will we ever stop people from marrying their cat?
It assumes that without X there is no line, and that no line would ever exist if it weren’t for X. But that’s silly.
How do we have a law that allows for mandatory seat belts and cycle helmets, but not have a law that forces children have to wear foam around their head 24 hours a day? It’s actually pretty simple: We agree to have mandatory seatbelt and cycle helmets, and we agree not to have a law that forces our children wear foam around their heads 24 hours a day.
People have a tendency to forget that in a democratic republic that just because you don’t like a law doesn’t mean that the system broke down. It just means that people agreed on a law you don’t like.
What Tod said is what I meant by common sense.
Tod, there’s always somebody willing to suggest new restraints because of wider and wider definitions of harm. Calls to ban junk food on the grounds that some folks’ diets impose costs on the rest of us, for example (yes, I have actually heard and argued against this, multiple times). I just think it best to preempt as many of them as we can.
So it is better to let families be destitute rather than risk a slippery slope that could, just possibly, if a government was nutty enough and an electorate not attentive enough, result in the criminalization of skiing?
Why don’t they care enough about their own families to wear a helmet regardless of if there is a law?
Of course there are always people that want to go farther than other people. That’s not a reason not to go anywhere. You might as well say you HAVE to have kids wrap their heads in foam, because there’s always someone that’s going to argue that there should be no safety standards for children at all.
Everybody’s picking a point they feel comfortable with, and people who think they aren’t are fooling themselves. And then we as a group decide where that point’s going to be, and some people will always think that point is too far, and some will always think it’s not far enough.
As for me, I don’t ride a motorcycle so I don’t feel like I really have a strong opinion on helmet laws. But I do drive a car. I’m for mandatory seatbelt laws because of the shear number of lives they save compared to the minute inconvenience is an acceptable trade off. I would be against a law that only let 5 cars an hour on I-5 to make it safer, because that tradeoff isn’t so acceptable to me. Just because I am in favor of the former doesn’t mean I have to capitulate to the latter.
But if a 5-Car-Per-Hour law is passed by initiative in Oregon (the way helmets & seal belt laws were passed) then, hey, thems the breaks of not living in a dictatorship. I can either work to reverse it, or I can live with it and move on.
Anything else is tyranny, from my point of view.
OK, the “everything else is tyranny” is overstated and melodramatic. I’ve been reading NRO all morning working on a post; I think it’s rubbing off.
Fwiw, I’m perfectly ok with people marrying their cats.
The nice thing about primary enforcement laws, like mandatory seatbelts and helmet, is that they allow the cops to get around that pesky 4th amendment thing, and give them good cover when pulling people over for DWB.
There’s also of course the enormous negative externality on the person involved in the accident with unhelmeted motorcyclist. Why should I, the driver be penalized with severe psychological trauma of having killed someone (however inadvertently) because this someone likes to feel the wind in their hair?
Be a better driver.
There’s lots of space in here for disagreement, but when you get behind the wheel of a car, you’re piloting a couple of tons of steel at speeds sufficient to instantly turn people dead. Not everyone follows the rules of the road; you have to assume that every intersection (side note: why no traffic circles in the US, really?) may result in a t-bone. Every other car may suddenly swerve into your lane.
Everybody in the US drives like an idiot (this includes me, although I’m less idiotic than most). We force people to do all sorts of ridiculous things to qualify for a billion things that are substantially less dangerous than driving, and our requirements to pilot an automobile are laughably low.
I’m fascinated by the difference in driving cultures in different countries. One of the most interesting things in the US is how cautiously people drive, and how this impacts the throughput of traffic. For example, my neighbourhood has two junctions where, for reasons known to itself and no-one else, the city has decided to only have a 2-way stop. Without exception, everyone on the street does not have to stop slows down to an almost-stop and checks carefully that the person coming the other way isn’t crazy before proceeding. This would never, ever happen in the UK – the drivers on the non-stop street would keep going at full speed regardless of how insane the person coming the other way appeared to be.
I think this is one reason why there are very few roundabouts – its hard to realize the potential throughput benefits because the traffic in the circle keeps slowing down in case the driver enter is on his cellphone/trying to eat a hamburger/checking his hair in the rear view mirror.
That reminds me of a video Yggles put up of a very congested intersection in Singapore (I think) where there were no lights, signs or cops, yet the cars kept moving thru in a very efficient manner. The way it worked is cars and bicycles obstructed from crossing would just keep moving forward very slowly until a cross traffic car would stop, allowing them and a couple others thru. And the process kept repeating.
I don’t think that would work here.
There are times when even Michael Schumacher would get into an accident.
Yeah. Been there, done that. The other guy got dragged to a hospital.
People think Americans drive badly — it’s far from what people think.
I haven’t seen AMERICANS driving on the sidewalk, with pedestrians jumping into bushes to avoid them.
I haven’t seen AMERICANS making five lanes where three are signed.
I haven’t seen AMERICANS parking over the ENTIRE sidewalk (what’s a wheelchair to do??)
This is not to say Las Vegas traffic is not on enough drugs to be taking your life into your hands at 75 mph…
* But I don’t get the hardest of hardcore libertarian refusal to even consider consequences. They are so absolutely sure what every single human right is, and that they can only be negative rights, and they are so so sure of that they are willing to let millions suffer for the principle, amazes me.*
If you think of how dangerous skiing is, or riding horses, or other sports. Or driving, yes, someone mentioned that here. Or binge drinking! There is a lot of potential for human disasters here. We can do our best do warn people of the risks, but I wouldn’t want to live in a world where all these things were forbidden.
And as someone said here: Where do we draw the line? How do we know when government intervention must stop? That’s why I don’t believe in a minimal state either, it never stays minimal.
So are you advocating for no state at all?
One place to draw the line is when one person’s risky behavior entails financial costs born exclusively (free riders) or disproportionately (diluted risk pools) by others. That’s just the way of it, and not necessarily because of government. Rafting companies have increasingly imposed helmet ‘laws’ voluntarily because they get better insurance rates than otherwise.
Is that an infringement of liberty? The free market in action?
I’m kind of assuming that in Maja’s scenario insurance is something that is also voluntary, and so would be far cheaper by not having it at all.
Exactly. But unfortunately, we live in a world where insurance ID isn’t a precondition for first-responding, or ER care, or sustained life support, etc.
It’d certainly be a lot simpler if we lived in a world where we just let the f*****s die. One benefit is we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.
Btw, Tod, I think you’re onto something there. The “libertarian” argument (scare quotes!) is pretty much a reductio on itsownself. The premise of in this strain of libertarianism is that individual choice trumps all. No forced takings! Another strain focuses on government coercion as the source of all social problems. No government in my Medicare!
The problem is that insofar as free-riders in the medical world are people who refuse to pay upfront for insurance, but will still – or want to – receive life-sustaining benefits, those people are depriving others of the justified compensation of their efforts – doctors and nurses and privately owned hospitals and such. Contradiction!
On the other hand, they think we should just let the fuckers die. I don’t even know where to begin in dismantling all the falsities expressed by *this* attitude. Psychological, moral, social/individual nexus, obligations of medical providers, and so on. For starters, tho, it strikes me as self-serving since it’s necessarily *someone other than the speaker* who’s supposed to be allowed to die. To teach others a lesson. One which libertarians of this stripe are strenuously arguing against *in any event* as a matter of principle!
Quick search for “free rider problem health care” produced a couple of interesting-looking articles on the subject. If anyone is interested:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v29n5/cpr29n5-1.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/02/02/myths-of-the-free-rider-health-care-problem/
http://www.healthreformwatch.com/2012/04/05/emtala-and-the-free-rider-problem
That’s a bit of a dodge, no? All that stuff about bending the cost curve and not entirely closing the free-rider problem. All that’s a distraction. A dodge. On your view, principles come first. And in the case at hand, the principles are that you don’t get something for nothin, and that the government has no role to play in requiring people do get something for nothing. If so, free-riders are a problem for you. A problem that cuts right to the core of the argument you’re making. Either we try to eliminate them via government coercion, or we let the fuckers die.
Is there any other solution?
Actually, it’s pretty interesting how freedoms for some can come at someone else’s restrictions. If Obamacare gets overturned, I will not be able to work for a small business or be self-employed. The individual mandate, which impedes on others’ freedom, gives me more freedom. I understand that on a libertarian view I don’t have a right to demand any equality of opportunity, because the only demand I can make on other people is non-interference. But it’s kind of an interesting consequence that the free market would prevent me from participating in the market.
Rawls must have made this point. I really need to brush up
Do you think the US has a free-market health-care system now? I recently read a book by the CATO institute on that subject, which was pretty interesting. They health-care system is actually quite regulated. http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Competition-Whats-Holding-Health/dp/1933995106/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336164408&sr=8-1
They health-care system is actually quite regulated.
I’m done reading thru your links, but I have a question. Is the type of regulation your talking about rent-seeking oriented, or is it corporate malfeasance oriented? Cuz there’s a world of difference between the two, and folks like you often like to collapse them as if they’re indistinguishable. And both equally bad.
The only thing a small business wants more than “fewer stupid regs” is a fair, flat market. Obamacare is working on giving them that. (The big 3 automakers also want to be competitive in the world’s marketplace. nobody ELSE needs to pay for outrageously priced healthcare.)
“Plus, I know I would fold like a house of greased-up playing cards if I were to be confronted by the destitute family of a biker who made a bad decision.” Sure. So would a whole bunch of us libertarians. The free-market, which we support, has both the McDonalds pay-as-you-go happy meal component, where each consumer must pay the full cost of what they receive, and also the Ronald McDonald House component, where people freely organize to pay the expenses of others, who by choice or accident have problems that need to be solved. These are both equally “libertarian” solutions to human needs.
So you would favor the creation of a “Help Wounded Bikers” fund, so the needs of brain damaged motorcyclists who eschewed helmets would be covered by benevolent others?
In a perfect world, that’s a great solution. But I am skeptical that it presents a plausible real-world answer. The lifetime costs for even one injured rider could easily total in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. What if there is insufficient private charity to cover the expenses?
It also requires that doctors and medical providers incur costs prior to the expectation of payment. So it really doesn’t solve anything from that pov. That is, doctors, hospitals, etc are still on the hook for their time and money without a guarantee of payment, which only comes in after the services are rendered. And there is no guarantee of payment. (Free riders again.)
Now, if a helmetless rider had a card which guaranteed available funds to cover his injuries *if* he had a serious bike-related injury, then that’s another thing. But it’s also indistinguishable from insurance, and enforcement of *that* requirement is no less distasteful (to the libertarian) than other solutions we’re currently talking about.