Seat Belt Laws

I've complained about it before, but what exactly is the justification for seat belt laws? Most of the rules and norms for which the goverment assumes responsability for enforcing are required to protect people from each other. This only makes sense. The goverment isn't supposed to protect you from yourself. If you want to eat fast food, smoke, participate in extreme sports and so forth, then you have everyright as an individual in charge of yourself. The only exception is people with mental disorders or defficiencies which are deemed incapable of making decisions for themselves. Hence the distinction between minors and adults; at a certain age you assume full responsability for your decisions and actions.

However, seat belt laws exemplify the kinds of rules which are obvious exceptions. Supposing the only way you might happen to injure someone else because you stupidly decided not to wear one is by flying through your window and colliding with a pedestrian in the event of a crash, then what is the justification behind forcing people to wear them? You stand a much greater chance of accidentally running someone over, and yet we don't stop people from driving.

Of course, people are going to object that choosing not to buckle in is just retared. So, since it's stupid, we should just make them. But this really isn't how the goverment is supposed to work. Forcing people to do things just because we judge it to be in their best interest -assuming they would rather not-- is known as paternalism. Just like how kids can't go to jail for stealing (because they are not fully responsible for their actions) forcing people to do things in their best interest absolves a certain amount of responsibility. It really doesn't matter whether they SHOULD do it. They must decide for themselves if they are to be held responsible for their actions.