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November 26, 2008 8:45am by David Farrar

Seatbelts for Tractors

There’s a call for all tractors to be fitted with seatbelts.

Why stop there? How about motorcycles also?

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Comment66

New Zealand
Nanny State

Comments (66)

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OECD rank 22 kiwi

Don’t people get it, the Nanny State finished on 8 November. Game over. Time for these people to get a life.

I’d back the farming industry over the coroner to win this argument. In case they didn’t know, National won the last election, not Labour.
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November 26, 2008 8:52am
dimmocrazy

While they’re at it, seat belts would be good for horses and bicycles too, many accidents with those, and I never see any of these road workers wearing seat belts on their rollers and diggers and such.
By the way, office workers are known to fall off their chairs on occasion, maybe that’s another area to look into, together with public transport, and come to think of it, one never sees people properly restrained from falling in restaurants either….
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November 26, 2008 9:01am
adc

Last time I checked coroners were still humans right?

So what makes a coroner’s opinion any more valuable than anyone else’s?

I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be strapped to some open topped tractor that was deciding to roll over. You need to be able to leap off or get crushed.
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November 26, 2008 9:03am
Turpin

I see a T Shirt with a seat belt printed on it for muftie days at school or work.
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November 26, 2008 9:09am
Banana Llama

Yes i would really want to be strapped into tons of machinery rolling down a hill because i drove it over unsafe operating surfaces.
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November 26, 2008 9:13am
getstaffed

Can’t work out what’s more stuipd: Foolish use of the tractor combined with cannabis use (the deceased) .. or seatbelt recommendation (coroner).
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November 26, 2008 9:15am
Buggerlugs

slightly OT, but can’t resist:
A young lad is totally into tractors. He subscribes to the latest magazines, he know the latest models etc. One day however, he sees a tractor run over a dog and he becomes less and less interested in tractors because every time he thinks of them he is reminded of the poor dog.
10 years pass and the lad (now a young man) walks into a bar with his girlfriend.
Girlfriend : God I hate it when its so smoky in these places?
The lad takes a deep breath and much to his girlfriends amazement he then proceeds to breathe in all the smoke in the bar.
Girlfriend : Wow, how did you do that??
Young Man : Didn’t you know that I’m an ex-tractor fan!!
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November 26, 2008 9:23am
llew

Why stop there? How about motorcycles also?

What? Fit motorcycles to a tractor too? Quick getaway in the event of a mishap?
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November 26, 2008 9:27am
Zippy Gonzales

Don’t forget there has also been calls for skateboarders to wear helmets too.
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November 26, 2008 9:33am
Shunda barunda

Thats the problem with a change of govt, we still have all those useless stupid law making twerps in the public sector to get rid of. I guess we will just have to be patient.
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November 26, 2008 9:35am
Brian Smaller

Personally I think that seatbelts should be fitted as standard on all Federation Starship chairs. Would eliminate about half of all battle injuries amongst bridge crew.
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November 26, 2008 9:38am
llew

we still have all those useless stupid law making twerps in the public sector to get rid of. I guess we will just have to be patient.

It’s just one coroner isn’t it? He’s probably worth keeping & just being advised to keep his out there ideas to himself.
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November 26, 2008 9:41am
goodgod

Hmm. Coroner ignores alleged elephant in room: Cannabis.

Diesel exhaust from tractor in farm environment doesn’t inhibit reasoning skills.

(But then i thought, hold on there old chap, this the the fuckin’ Herald you’re reading again! You know not to beleive anything they say! Damn their eyes!)

As a young chap I drove a crawler around a vineyard that was mainly 35-40 degree hills. It’s doable, but it’s by the numbers stuff and you know when you’re pushing it because one track comes off the ground. Unless you’re insane, you only do that once before you learn. Other hair-raising one offs are verticle climbs that risk sideways slides/backward flips as you come out of gullies.

One thing you do not want on an open tractor/crawler, will the roll bar down, once it gets to it’s tipping point, is to be strapped into the seat by a seatbelt.
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November 26, 2008 9:45am
Shunda barunda

You fella’s have got it all wrong, seat belts are not the answer for tractors.
Clearly what is required are ejector seats.
This will serve a dual purpose of safety and prevention. Prevention will be a welcome by product, as when farmer Jim is seen rocketing skyward and then slowly parachuting down to earth it will give plenty of his fellow farmers time to observe his error and think twice about tractor safety. Farmer Jim will have time to reflect on his stupidity and experience humiliation as his fellow farmers watch his dramatic acent and gentle decent.
It will also be impossible to hide tractor related misshaps as each tractor incedent will be visible from the nearest satelite and health and safetey will be imediateley informed.
Tractor seatbelts are clearly not going far enough.
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November 26, 2008 9:49am
side show bob

Hahahahahahahaha…lol. Whats the bet the closest the coroner has ever come to a tractor is at the golf course, for fucks sake!!. Some new tractors come fitted with seat belts but these can be nothing but a curse as you tend to spend a fair bit of time getting in and out of the bloody things. If we were to follow every bloody stupid decree made from government officials why the fuck would you get out of bed in the morning, it is obviously to risky.
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November 26, 2008 9:59am
Graeme Edgeler

Why stop there? How about motorcycles also?

Because this coroner has not found evidence that lives could be saved by seatbelts on motorcycles, but has found evidence that lives could be saved by seatbelts on tractors?

Hmm. Coroner ignores alleged elephant in room: Cannabis.

Ignores? Or takes into account that a life still could have been saved despite cannabis? Why does there have to be a single reason why someone’s life was lost?

E.g. Person driving car, hit by speeding drunk driver. Victim shunted through windshield because shoddy production meant car’s seatbelts failed. Dies from trauma this induces.

Who is to blame for the accident? The speeding drunk driver.
Who is to blame for the death? The speeding drunk driver and the manufacturer.

[DPF: If we banned cars, that would save lives also. And if we banned tractors. ]
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November 26, 2008 10:02am
side show bob

Shunda bacrunda, nice idea but pulling the ejection seat lever while the tractor is flipping over is probably not the best of ideas. At least they wouldn’t have to dig a hole to bury you.
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November 26, 2008 10:04am
Banana Llama

# side show bob (1035) Vote: Add rating 0 Subtract rating 0 Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 10:04 am

Shunda bacrunda, nice idea but pulling the ejection seat lever while the tractor is flipping over is probably not the best of ideas. At least they wouldn’t have to dig a hole to bury you.

You could fit the rocket propellant with a guidance nozzle, 20 G turn will make you think twice about rolling the tractor again.
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November 26, 2008 10:10am
Redbaiter

These idiots who attempt to create a risk free society are their own worst enemies. Any society that creates a mindset in its youth that is completely risk averse is not only diminshing the ability to deal with risk, it is planting the seeds of its own eventual extinction.
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November 26, 2008 10:16am
goodgod

“Why does there have to be a single reason why someone’s life was lost?”

Because usually there is one single element that is a catalyst for a collection of normally neutral events to turn deadly.

a seatbelt in a tractor would be that single element that prevents escape and turns a jump from the seat into a death roll.
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November 26, 2008 10:18am
goodgod

“Who is to blame for the accident? The speeding drunk driver.
Who is to blame for the death? The speeding drunk driver and the manufacturer.”

Should also point out that the coroner ignores the elephant becasue he is not asking for stronger restrictions on cannabis use.
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November 26, 2008 10:23am
PaulL

One phrase. Cost-benefit. How many people saved, how many people killed. Some people would be saved by seat belts, others would be killed by them. This particular case would perhaps be a saving (a saving that could also have been achieved by not using cannabis before driving the tractor – and a saving that relies on this stoner actually putting on that seat belt). Other cases, I posit many of them, the seat belt would kill someone.
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November 26, 2008 10:25am
llew

people would be saved by seat belts, others would be killed by them.

I just asked the opinion of a small farming forum, surprisingly, they’re not at all outraged by the suggestion (except for putting them on open topped tractors), it seems many now come with roll protection cages & seatbelts anyway.
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November 26, 2008 10:29am
Mr Dennis

Most new tractors are already fitted with seatbelts (the market in action…). No-one uses them. You don’t often see a cop on your paddocks.

Complete waste of time and money.

My grandfather rolled a tractor down a steep bank once. When it was upside down he let go and landed safely on the ground. The tractor rolled down the rest of the bank. If he had been strapped in he would have been crushed to death. On the other hand, some deaths could have been prevented by using a seatbelt. You never know which type of accident you’ll have, and whether to wear a belt or not. So most people just won’t bother wearing them anyway, because it is easier.
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November 26, 2008 12:02pm
Mr Dennis

Ilew:
“small farming forum” – maybe most of the commenters were lifestylers, townies used to nanny-state rubbish like this? Maybe you should ask at a “large farming forum” and see what response you get there, it would probably be quite different.
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November 26, 2008 12:04pm
Ben Wilson

Tractors being driven mainly on private property makes the wearing of belts impossible to enforce. Except on roads, for which there is actually a good argument, tractors can crash on roads. But I doubt it’s a significant number of the total tractor accidents.

But it is possible to enforce that tractors must have belts available. Then the farmer can choose to wear it or not. I imagine most would choose not, but in some circumstances wearing it might make sense. Like when they drive along SH1 at 20kmh, with other vehicles whizzing past them. Also, tractors with cages may be greatly improved, safety-wise, by seat belts.

Practically, it sounds mostly pointless, I must admit, but coroners do get to see a lot more details about these kinds of deaths, maybe they can shed some light.

The same comment goes for motorbikes too. It seems counter intuitive to me that a seat belt could make a bike safer, but the same actually went for cars in the old days, resistance to seat belts was driven by the mostly false assumption that it was better to be thrown clear of the car. I don’t know what testing has actually been done to see if seat belts would make motorbikes less prone to fatal accidents. I’m not putting my hand up to try :-). I’m still the only motorbike rider I know who has never fallen off (on a road), and I aim to keep a clean record.

Definitely being crushed under a vehicle would be worse than being thrown clear. But being thrown clear is not particularly likely, and being thrown at all is always a bad scenario. Usually if you can avoid being thrown, and remain in some control of the vehicle, and tightly bound to the much greater mass of the vehicle, then maybe in the majority of cases it would actually be safer. I’ve heard of quite a few motorbike crashes caused by the driver losing control because they could not remain connected to the bike. Unexpected bumps can bounce you off.

Still I’d be surprised if it was safer for bikes, it’s hard to imagine how being connected in an upright seated position wouldn’t lead to you being ragdolled around, or even torn in half. With tractors, not so sure. More evidence would be good.

Of course, as with all vehicles, 99.999% of the safety comes down to the driver and the conditions. I think one of the main things that is dangerous about motorbikes is the kind of people who ride them. With tractors the danger is where they are used. I’d think a lot more safety could be had on both kinds of vehicles if better training were mandatory. In Australia, the licensing testing for motorbikes was much more extensive, and I’m sure my continued good health has derived from being forced to learn emergency stopping and emergency turning in order to get my full Australian Motorbike license. In NZ all I had to pass was 5 mins of a bored cop riding behind me in the traffic-less hills of West Auckland. In Oz, they actually measured your ability to turn sharply or stop at speed. The course made my riding about 10 times better in about 2 hours, previously I had not fully understood counter-steering, and had a lot of trouble on sharp corners.
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November 26, 2008 12:05pm
WraithX

There needs to be a very loud and public effort to ridicule the minorities who make these silly demands – that is the only way to teach people that their voices are in the MINORITY and have no place in our legislation. Not only do we have this today – we have the earlier post on cellphone towers, and a few days ago a woman was calling for a ban on liquid lollies sold in a spray can, and more calls to further erode the rights of smokers by banning smoking in cars. These are things wanted by a very small minority of people and the press is giving them far too loud a voice here.
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November 26, 2008 12:41pm
Ben Wilson

Coroners may be a minority, but they are also specialists. On some subjects their opinion matters a lot more than most people’s opinion.

On the subject of how important their freedom from safety is, everyone’s opinion is equally valid. On the subject of what is actually safe, people who study it have much more valuable opinions.
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November 26, 2008 12:46pm
Ben Wilson

Looking in further, it seem apparent that the coroner would be specifically referring to tractors which have ROPS frames. These frames are mostly useless as protection if you don’t wear a seatbelt.

I’m curious to hear amongst those most vociferously opposed to seatbelts in tractors, if that is because of the ones without ROPS frames?

Also, does anyone know if the tractor in this case had one? If so, then stoned or not, a seatbelt could have saved the guy’s life.
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November 26, 2008 12:52pm
Ben Wilson

Personally, I’d be against any attempt to make the wearing compulsory on private property. But improved education could have saved maybe 10 farmers last year. *Could* have, it would still be on the individuals to actually follow safer practices. Despite knowing that helmets make you safer on a bike, in Rarotonga last week I did not wear one because I was not required to, and it’s damned hot there. I imagine similar thinking goes on with farmers, to whom the inconvenience of safety gear like belts and helmets outweigh the really tiny chance of a really severe accident. I favor the idea that they get the choice. I guess the only counter argument is that a farm is also a workplace, so the cost of their accidents does fall on the public. That does lend some weight to the idea that the public could insist on measures to reduce that cost (if they also accept that similar strictures apply to themselves).
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November 26, 2008 1:01pm
Ratbiter

Surely a decision on requiring seatbelts is for the experts to make?

If we asked the users to decide then no-one would ever wear seatbelts in cars, or have guards on circular saws, or use their headlights at dusk either, and then we would all be paying the price of additional balls of cotton wool to sponge people up off the pavement with.

Ask anyone who’s cut their finger off with a circular saw, whether they think safety guards are a good idea or “Political Correctness Gone Mad”…
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November 26, 2008 1:04pm
llew

“small farming forum” – maybe most of the commenters were lifestylers, townies used to nanny-state rubbish like this? Maybe you should ask at a “large farming forum” and see what response you get there, it would probably be quite different.

Maybe, but many of them make Redbaiter look like a wussy lefty, and there are “big” farmers there too. I’d guess opinion will be split, and that many won’t care because they’ll do what they want on their private land (some have also had accidents with tractors & like I say, some have seatbelts & cages already & don’t mind).

No-one so far has thought seatbelts on an open top tractor is a good idea.

Surely a decision on requiring seatbelts is for the experts to make?

Well yes, and remember this is only one coroner making his opinion public.
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November 26, 2008 1:09pm
Ben Wilson

Ratbiter, actually a lot of people wore seat belts before they were mandatory. That was the main way that evidence was collected that they were a good idea.

The guard on the saw is a restriction on the manufacturer, not the user. You could take the guard off, and it would not be against the law. Just stupid.

Headlights at dusk is for the safety of others too, and thus not something that can be, or ever has been, non-mandatory. But seatbelts are 99% for the protection of the wearer, as are helmets. They do therefore present a different moral case, where a rational and informed adult could choose (for whatever reason they like) to dispense with the safety.

The main problem with the philosophy of freedom to harm yourself in our society, and most societies for that matter, are around ‘who pays for the damage’. Because our health system pays for a lot of the medical costs, and our social welfare system pays for the lost income of the injured, that greatly complicates the issue of the freedom to harm yourself. But even if it was 100% on insurers, it would still not necessarily be that simple. Should an insurer pay out more because you crashed into a motorbike, but instead of minor injuries, the person died because they were not wearing a helmet? Who was really responsible for the death? It’s not so clear. On the flipside, the same could be said of crashing into a pedestrian.
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November 26, 2008 1:18pm
Redbaiter

“Ask anyone who’s cut their finger off with a circular saw, whether they think safety guards are a good idea or “Political Correctness Gone Mad”…”

If the safety guards are so effective, what are they doing cutting their damn fingers off??? Look, there may be a perceived need for regulations to cover these kind of things, but that need has to be ignored, because otherwise the genie is out of the bottle.

Government is not responsible for monitoring the safety of its citizens in situations like this, and once you endow that responsibility upon it, you open the flood gates to a torrent of legislation that as well as threatening personal freedoms, is in the end self defeating because it gradually erodes the first defense we have, personal choice and responsibility.

“Surely a decision on requiring seatbelts is for the experts to make?”

You commies are wrong. Fuck off and get out of my life. I need you bastards telling me what to do like I need a hole in my head.
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November 26, 2008 1:22pm
Ratbiter

Oh dear!

maybe some day Red will learn to argue a point without calling me names and telling me to fuck off, but looks like that day’s still some way off…
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November 26, 2008 1:31pm
llew

is in the end self defeating because it gradually erodes the first defense we have, personal choice and responsibility.

Also self defeating because while seatbelts on tractors might offer protection in some cases, they’ll pose a threat in others. (I feel the same about quad bikes, which seem to feature in many accidents each year, rolling a quad bike on top of yhou is going to be dangerous with or without a belt.

And how do you enforce it anyway?
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November 26, 2008 1:32pm
PhilBest

There is a hilarious video of Victor Borge accompanying a soprano singer, and when they get to the “climax” of the song, Victor goes “excuse me” for a moment, stands up and opens the piano stool and gets out a seat belt and straps himself to the piano stool with it………..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WvfoFTSk3c

(At 6 min, 10 secs………)
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November 26, 2008 1:43pm
Redbaiter

“maybe some day Red will learn to argue a point without calling me names and telling me to fuck off, but looks like that day’s still some way off…”

Maybe one day you will write something here that is different to the grossly insulting presumptuous shit that earns you my contempt. Book yourself in for a brain transplant, and things will improve for both of us.
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November 26, 2008 1:45pm
Ben Wilson

And how do you enforce it anyway?

That seems to be the most difficult part. Probably it can only be done retrospectively, after an accident. Which is actually better in many ways, since it doesn’t punish anyone who ignores the law, but also drives safely and never has an accident.

The enforcement of new vehicles actually being fitted with a good roll cage and seatbelts can be done easily, though. Open top tractors would gradually disappear.

Can anyone see any practical advantages to open-tops, except for cost?
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November 26, 2008 1:48pm
Gulag Archipelago

What is the bet the coroner has never ridden a tractor. Police cars have not got seat belts and for good reason.
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November 26, 2008 1:50pm
LG

42% of all farm deaths are tractor accidents
=> 63% of these are rolling sideways.
=> 13% are falling or jumping off, only to be run over
Seatbelt wearing would clearly help in the latter, and the combination of ROPS and seatbelt in the former.
http://oem.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/58/8/489
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November 26, 2008 1:59pm
llew

42% of all farm deaths are tractor accidents

Wow, I’d have thought quad bikes would top the list. What makes up the other 58% (chainsaws?) 🙂
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November 26, 2008 2:03pm
Ross Miller

and why not …

rollerskates
surfboards
bicycles
horses
golf buggies
skateboards

How about compulsory life jackets when we go to the beach?

look folks, you’ve just gotta understand that there is a whole industry out there dedicated to helping us save overselves from ourselves. We just don’t have the ability, nous or innate common sense to take responsibility for our own actions … it’s been breed out of us by decades of bureaucrats trying to jusify their existence.

This is nothing about evolving society. Its all about strangling society and it will take a seismic shift in attitude to correct the imbalance. Just hope the National/ACT Government has the balls to call a halt to this sort of rubbish.
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November 26, 2008 2:16pm
llew

Just hope the National/ACT Government has the balls to call a halt to this sort of rubbish.

I don’t think there’s anything to halt in this case, it’s just one guy’s “bright” idea.
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November 26, 2008 2:38pm
Ben Wilson

Ross, the industry dedicated to helping us save ourselves definitely cuts our choices. But it has also saved a lot of people. It’s not solely the work of self-justifying bureaucrats. Quite a lot of good has come of it. The only question is whether the good outweighs the harm, and it’s not a simple question every time.

Bicycles already do require helmets on roads. You could put a case for all the other things you mention. I’d resist, but I wouldn’t lament the people whose lives would be saved if my resistance was futile. Most of them would be children, who we do actually have a duty to protect from themselves.
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November 26, 2008 2:42pm
Redbaiter

“Most of them would be children, who we do actually have a duty to protect from themselves.”

Oh yeah, protection of the children. The cause of so much totalitarian nonsense the world over. When you’ve lost every other argument, you’ve always got this as a fallback.

(..and it is totalitarian because it strives to convince people of the necessity and importance of the state and its endless organs.)
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November 26, 2008 2:44pm
Brian Smaller

“Bicycles already do require helmets on roads” Not for me. I have an exemption.
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November 26, 2008 2:53pm
llew

I have an exemption.

Yeah? Do you get pulled over & have to show your exemption?
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November 26, 2008 2:56pm
Ben Wilson

Redbaiter, I don’t think it would be totalitarian to require some basic protections of children, particularly things like helmets on bicycles, lifejackets at sea, car seats etc. I’m not so convinced of the merits for adults, though. Would make for some strange looking laws. You’d have to prove to a cop that you were old enough to NOT wear a helmet. Could work, and I’d vote that way if I ever got the chance.
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November 26, 2008 3:00pm
Ben Wilson

“Bicycles already do require helmets on roads” Not for me. I have an exemption.

LOL, do tell. Big hair? Religious requirement to wear a turban? Or a crash resistant skull?
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November 26, 2008 3:02pm
LG

“Wow, I’d have thought quad bikes would top the list.”

That data was the decade to ’94. I think they’ve only got more popular than them. My friend’s dad died in a quad-biking accident on their farm. Curiously, the thing with quadbikes is that when they roll, the person tends to get thrown off, but the bike rolls several times (usually hitting the person in the process)
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November 26, 2008 3:06pm
Redbaiter

“Redbaiter, I don’t think it would be totalitarian to require some basic protections of children, particularly things like helmets on bicycles, lifejackets at sea, car seats etc.”

Wrong. This responsibility has to be left with the parents. Otherwise, as I have already stated above, there will be two outcomes-

1) The state grows exponentially and becomes far too big and powerful and,

2) It leads to a breakdown of society, in that parents become immune to the idea that they are responsible for their children and gradually come to believe that everything is the state’s responsibility. Result. Parents with a completely diminished sense of responsibility for their children. Secondary result. Nia Glassie.

You can see it happening. Its one of the things that mystifies and infuriates me about the left. The negative outcomes are always so evident yet they still pursue the same old destructive policies with the same intensity and vigour. Ideologues. Why the fuck can’t they see what they’re doing???
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November 26, 2008 3:16pm
Redbaiter

“LOL, do tell. Big hair? Religious requirement to wear a turban? Or a crash resistant skull?”

Real pointy head. No helmet will fit.
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November 26, 2008 3:31pm
Lou

Seat belts certainly save lives in forklift accidents — would suspect that tractors would be the same.
Some of the forklift fatalities on the web are pretty gruesome, and it’s clear that if the person had stayed in the cage (which is what a seat belt does, keeps you from jumping) then the person would have survived.
Just a thought.
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November 26, 2008 3:52pm
LG

Mmm. I’m with Lou. Despite having neither a seatbelt or a ROPS on the tractor, the one time I slid down a steep bank sideways on a tractor, staying put seemed a lot safer than jumping.
I could tell a whole bunch of dangerous/stupid tractor stories, but when ever we were doing something I considering fucking stupid (which was a bit often for my liking), I’d put the seatbelt on (when I was on the other tractor with ROPS & seatbelt).
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November 26, 2008 4:02pm
llew

I could tell a whole bunch of dangerous/stupid tractor stories, but when ever we were doing something I considering fucking stupid (which was a bit often for my liking), I’d put the seatbelt on (when I was on the other tractor with ROPS & seatbelt).

Cheers LG, that seems to be the feeling among the more rural types I know. Surprises me, but they’d know better then me.

Gulag Archipelago (44) Vote: 0 0 Says:

November 26th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
What is the bet the coroner has never ridden a tractor. Police cars have not got seat belts and for good reason.

In view of LG’s post, what’s the bet that Gulag Archipelago has never ridden a tractor?
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November 26, 2008 4:07pm
getstaffed

Brian Smaller – Care to share the gounds for exemption? I ask as I’m a regular cyclist and only very ocassionally see non-helmet wearers. They’re usually tripped out looking teens…
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November 26, 2008 4:09pm
brucehoult

er … rollbars and/or strong cabs have been compulsory on tractors since the 60’s.
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November 26, 2008 4:41pm
Banana Llama

^

On Most tractors i have seen the roll bars are laughable.
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November 26, 2008 5:09pm
Ben Wilson

Redbaiter, it’s uplifting to see you still on message. But I think it overstates the case to blame Nia Glassie on societal attempts to protect children from harm. Bike helmets did not force anyone to do anything that happened to her. Far from making parents immune from responsibility, it makes it clearer what their responsibilities are. The state doesn’t actually supply the helmet, the parents do. The responsibility for failures to comply with safety regulations provided by the state never falls on the state, it falls on the individual, or the organization the individual is in.

So I can’t buy societal breakdown happening through the steady creep of safety regulation. Quite the opposite, that regulation creep has just made the world safer. If there is societal breakdown (which I’m not convinced of at all, remembering quite clearly some equally disgusting stories of child abuse from when I was also a child), this is not where it’s happening.

This is just what happens as societies get bigger – they get more organized so that they can handle more people crammed into smaller spaces. For instance, in Ancient Rome, people used to throw their shit out the window onto the street. Then some genius invented sewerage systems and the state decided to make the system widespread. Quite rapidly it became one of the largest cities in the world. Obviously to make a system like that work involves stepping on the quite natural human liberty to shit wherever you like, which had existed since we were cavemen, or running around naked in the Garden of Eden. I put it to you that it was a liberty that was righteously sacrificed to the public good.

Now my reason for opposing bike helmets is because I’m just a bit old-skool. I remember not needing one, and surviving perfectly. It flows into my romantic view of the past, when we were freer, and things were better. But my rational mind knows that view is actually quite flawed, and the main thing that was better about the past was that I was younger. In practice I was a hair’s breadth from splattering my brains all over the road several times. Children these days are not quite so close to it (unless they come from the kind of irresponsible families that abuse kids, of course, who would never think of insisting their kids wear a helmet). But I still find it hard to accept that one of the enjoyable things I did as a child was actually quite dangerous.
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November 26, 2008 6:16pm
wikiriwhis business

They can’t prevent it

They just want to police it.

They can’t prevent car accidents they just police the roads (wrongly) and hand out fines.

The Waikato police chief was all smiles about the low road toll this year

it was because petrol was too expensive

I’m surprised RTNZ didn’t get their act in and pat themselves on the back
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November 26, 2008 7:55pm
llew

But I still find it hard to accept that one of the enjoyable things I did as a child was actually quite dangerous.

I accepted it at age 11 after spending 2 weeks in hospital with concussion & having to eat through a straw, after coming off my bike on a steep hill. Mind yu, I injured myself in numerous other ways too.
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November 27, 2008 8:20am
Ben Wilson

llew, I should say I find it hard to accept emotionally. Rationally it is beyond doubt that children wearing bike helmets are safer than ones without. I just don’t like the way the helmets look or feel.
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November 27, 2008 9:40am
llew

Yeah, I realised that Ben.
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November 27, 2008 9:52am
Gulag Archipelago

llew, want to take a bet? Farmers that I know are into common sense not legislation. I guess you believe that common sense can be legislated.
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November 28, 2008 11:59am
Gulag Archipelago

Any reference to a coroner not having ever driven a tractor was because so many people that contribute to the decision making processes that help create laws have actually never had any practical experience in the real world in certain fields. ie operating machinery.
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November 28, 2008 12:54pm

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