Mandating To Wear Seatbelts Essay Research Paper

Legislative Mandate to Wear Seat Belts

The case study entitled Legislative Mandate to Wear Seat Belts, in which we are to respond stirred up some feelings about this issue. The issue is whether or not I believe that the government has the right to tell people that they have to wear seat belts in their own car. I have mixed emotions about this law, and not a definite opinion. I fell that we should wear seat belts because statistics show that it does help prevent injuries in accidents, on the other hand I feel that the government should not tell you what to do in your own car, and thirdly by answering the question in the last sentence of the case study I believe that children should be fastened into a car seat because they are not yet old enough to make a decision on their own.

I have read in many magazines and journals that stated wearing a seat belt in accidents has saved people lives. For this I am grateful. This I is what seat belts were designed for, and why the government feels that they should be worn at all times while you are driving. I feel that the government is trying to look out for the good of the people by making a law of wearing your seat belts. The government is trying to lower the fatality rate in car accidents by making a law of wearing your seat belt.

In contrast, I feel that the government should not have the power to tell people what to do in their own cars that they have bough themselves. I feel that the government has the right to educate people on the issue, but not make a law telling people that they have to wear their seat belts. In a way this is the government trying to take away what little rights people have left today. If people should choose not to wear their sea belt in their own car and have an accident, then the consequences of the accident would be their own fault. The right to choose whether or not to wear a seat belt should b up to the individual driving the car.

Thirdly, relating to the last question in the case study about children wearing seat belts, I feel that they should wear them in their car seats because they are not old enough to make an educated uses by themselves. Children are in the care of their parents, and should be protected against everything possible until they are old enough to make an educated decision about their wants and needs. Infants and children do not know the effects of wearing or not wearing their seat belts until they are able to read and understand about the statistics of this law. I feel that children should be in their parents care until they are old enough to make a decision on their own when they are driving their own car.

These three reasons of agreeing that the government means well, on the other hand we need our own rights and want to make our own decisions, and my opinion of why children should be wearing seat belts and should be strapped into car seats, are my reasons of mixed feelings. I feel that in some way people should have to wear seat belts but in other that we should have the right to choose whether to wear one or not. I feel that both points are well developed and have good reasoning. That is why I have a hard time trying to pick which side I would like to be a part of. Both sides of this issue are appealing and make sense to me.