So my seat belt drives me crazy. What a restrain, I feel its more government control and dictation over our lives. Why? I have been pulled over in a residential area cruising 25mph or less for not having a seat belt on....who am I going to hurt by me not wearing my seat belt? Arent they supposed to protect and serve? Thats a future blog post.
I'm inside a steel cage surrounded by air bags super safe, I dont need added police protection....And arent we supposed to be free? I guess not free to choose if we wear a seat belt or not amongst a whole slew of other dumb ass things we are not free to do. I like to say "we are free to do what they say we can do". They are dictators...again thats another post. Back to seat belts.
I recently (2016) called General Motors to complain about my out dated 1997 Chevy Astro van. The cup holders are the dumbest design ever. They are made to hold coffee cups, not thermals, an actual coffee cup. Who drives with coffee cups? GM engineers, that's who. After having my 20oz once again tumbling to the floor getting shook up, enough was enough. Who do I complain to about it? So I called GM, and upon them getting me on the phone they informed me I had a pending recall on my van...I thought wow what could it be? Do I get a new engine? Will they buy it off me? No! They wanted me to bring it in to have a government mandated seat belt alarm installed. Yeah right!
Now I have a 2012 Dodge CV and it has an alarm and it is making me crazy. If I am just moving around in a parking lot it starts beeping over and over again non stop. Same with my passengers. I ask why? Give me a motorcycle though and I dont need any restraints and now in Michigan I dont even need a helmet....
I know it has to do with insurance companies pushing for the mandates but are they really needed?
Below is from Wikipedia.,
Motorcycles had 4,927 deaths being 15 percent of all traffic deaths in 2012, even though motorcycles are three percent of vehicles. 93% of the crashes in 2012 involved a two-wheeled motorcycle over trikes. Of 4,957 killed in 2012 on motorcycles, 7% were passengers. Combined driver and passenger deaths for motorcycles were 18% of all driver and passenger deaths in 2012 for all vehicles. This is for just 0.7% out of all vehicles miles driven in the US that year.
In 2013 4,735 pedestrians and 743 bicyclists were killed compared to 4,688 on motorcycles. Compared to passenger vehicles, motorcycles had 26 times the number of fatalities as cars per mile driven in 2013.