2 of 33

No

Write now Article Tools

There is no way to constitutionally justify mandatory seat belt laws. However, these same mandatory seat belt laws do not violate the personal rights of individuals.

Those who lobby for mandatory seat belt laws justify their position because seat belts save lives.

However, I personally justify mandatory seat belt laws because it lowers insurance rates while saving lives and reducing catastrophic health injuries.

Each time an automobile accident occurs and a personal injury results, the medical bills can range from hundreds of dollars up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Who actually pays these medical bills? Is it the person who was injured? Rarely (though they do pay in pain and suffering). Is it the insurance companies who pay? Well, they act as the brokers. Is it the hospitals? Definitely not. Any money they cannot recover will be kicked back in the form of higher fees or tax dollars. The truth of the matter is that every personal injury that occurs in a car accident is paid for by every single person who drives a car or pays for medical insurance.

Like all businesses, insurance companies exist to provide a service and from that service, make a profit. When insurance companies pay a medical bill, it counts against their bottom line, and they must then recoup that financial expenditure with a matching income. As their source of income is client premiums, every time a bill is paid, the clients premium must go up.

For a minor injury, that may result in a rise in the price of the premium by a fraction of a cent; however, in the case of a major injury, the increase could be considerably more. The statistics regarding seat belt usage provide empirical evidence that those drivers who are involved in an accident are less likely to be injured or killed, and in those cases where an injury occurs, the injuries to those wearing seat belts are significantly less severe than for those who do not use the safety belts. Thus, those individuals who 'choose' to drive without a seat belt ignore the statistics that show that in the case of an accident, they are more likely to sustain a major injury, resulting in significantly higher expenses to the insurance company, thus, causing a related rise in the premium of every other driver who is insured through that same company.

In the United States, we have chosen to implement mandatory safety belt laws in an effort to protect human lives and to reduce the price for standard vehicle insurance. In Japan, the insurance companies themselves came up with a solution. When I lived in Japan, each vehicle insurance contract included a clause that excluded medical coverage for all persons not wearing a safety belt. Though I cannot prove that my very low vehicle insurance premium was due to this particular clause, I would be willing to bet that it had a major impact on my payment.

In short, though mandatory seat belt laws by individual states are not unconstitutional, nor do they violate any individual's rights; we should attempt to look for a private party solution before allowing our government to insert itself into our private lives.

Learn more about this author, Alan Fernald.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Do mandatory seat belt laws violate individual rights??
We want to hear your view. Write now!