First ascent,
Provide some data to refute or agree with then. There has been none on either side so far in this thread so attack the messenger strategy is out of place.
Again, you miss the point. See if you can figure it out from this example:
Let's assume that governments instead had passed a law which stated that seat belts may not be worn while driving. Mr. Stossel, then, would find such a law to be an affront to his belief about what constitutes a violation of his personal liberties. Being the libertarian that he is, he would do 'research' (note the quotes), arriving at the conclusion that seat belts increase his personal safety while driving. He does not care about the real truth of the efficacy of seat belts. He cares about having his personal liberties violated. Thus his 'research' is questionable, as his goals are politically motivated, as opposed to getting to the real truth. I'm surprised you still haven't learned your lesson after a thorough discussion about this months ago. Do you recall how you fell for the shenanigans of a 'scientist' discussing climate change who also happened to be a shill hired by the tobacco industry to say cigarette smoke does not cause cancer?
You see, Mr. Stossel, and essentially all libertarian 'think tanks', and essentially all creators of articles linked to by the individuals here are not to be taken as seriously as you believe they should. But we already have proof that you have fallen victim to such charlatans yourself, so if anyone can benefit from my analysis, it should be you. If you wish to revisit the discussion about your own gullibility and a thorough analysis of it, please reread this thread, starting right about here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=62099.140The only thing I fell for was the media portrayal of global warming risk. What's his name (the contrarian) raised good points and the studies are being done to refute or support them as we speak. That is just science being done as it should be done.
Studies by road safety authorities conclude that seat belt legislation has reduced the number of casualties in road accidents.
From Hawker's link:
Experiments using both crash test dummies and human cadavers also indicated that wearing seat belts should lead to reduced risk of death and injury in car crashes.
Studies of accident outcomes suggest that fatality rates among car occupants are reduced by between 30 and 50 per cent if seat belts are worn. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that death risks for a driver wearing a lap-shoulder seat belt are reducing by 48 per cent. The same study indicated that in 2007, an estimated 15 147 lives were saved by seat belts in the United States and that, if seat belt use were increased to 100 per cent an additional 5024 lives would have been saved.[www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pubs/811206.pdf]
An earlier statistical analysis by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) claimed that seat belts save over 10,000 lives every year in the US. According to Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data:[6]
"Research on the effectiveness of child safety seats has found them to reduce fatal injury by 71% for infants less than 1 year old and by 54% for toddlers 1-4 years old in cars. [...] Among passenger vehicle occupants over 4 years old, safety belts saved an estimated 11,889 lives in 2000."
In Victoria, Australia the use of seat belts became compulsory in 1970. By 1974 decreases of 37% in deaths and 41% in injuries, including a decrease of 27% in spinal injuries, were observed, compared with extrapolations based on pre-law trends.[citation needed]
By 2009, despite large increases in population and the number of vehicles, road deaths in Victoria had fallen below 300, less than a third of the 1970 level, the lowest since records were kept, and far below the per capita rate in jurisdictions such as the United States. This reduction was generally attributed to aggressive road safety campaigns beginning with the seat belt laws.[7][8]
We all know stats can be made into damn lies. I personally think seatbelts are a good idea. That is based off no data, only common sense. We know the cars are crash tested these days assuming the passengers are wearing seatbelts, so imo wear the damn seatbelt. It will be interesting to know how they estimate injuries that would have happened if variable x equaled 1 instead of 0.