Safety, and Why it Sucks

A couple of days ago, I was sitting at an intersection in Taneytown MD waiting to make a left hand turn onto the town's one main road from a side street. Right next to me, and easily within earshot, was a cop writing tickets to two young boys for riding their bicycles without helmets. Neither boy looked like he could have been more than 13 years old.

Let me be clear: the cop was in no way abusing the boys, verbally or otherwise. He was as polite as cops ever are. The boys were duly respectful, if a little shaken (this cop was a pretty big dude, easily more than enough to intimidate a couple kids just by his presence). Ultimately, the cop was doing his job...

...which is busting kids for riding bicycles without helmets?!
Who the hell came up with that brilliant idea?

When I was a young'n, growing up it then-rural Carroll "Cow" county MD, every kid in the neighborhood had bikes, mostly BMXs. We rode constantly, everyday, because there wasn't much else to do, at least not until Super Mario Bros. 3 came out. We occasionally fell, collided accidentally, collided deliberately, jumped curbs and homemade ramps and went airborne like damned fools. We skinned knees, sprained ankles, broke fingers and toes, and usually got right back up and rode (how else were we going to get home?). We'd never seen a bike helmet. It was a foreign concept. If we'd seen one lying on the ground, we'd have probably reported it to the police.

All in all, we fared alright, even without helmets and even with the big steel un-kid-proofed contraptions at the old McDonalds Playplaces (many of us had our first mosh pit experiences on the spring loaded Grimace cage). Last I heard, we're all still alive and in good health, with no lasting effects from our various injuries. Except for that Miller boy, who might have sustained brain damage, but we figured he'd have been that way no matter what.

Today, everywhere you go, there's an endless gaggle of laws and regulations aimed at making sure we're all "safe", usually from ourselves. Children have to wear helmets while riding bicycles. Adults have to wear helmets while riding motorcycles. Drivers have to wear seatbelts while driving automobiles. All are things that only affect the individual in question. All are things that don't make anyone around them any safer. All are things the state will go into your wallet over, should you fail to do them.

Some laws make sense. I can see the point behind speed limits, or DUI/DWI laws, or reckless driving laws. If I'm operating a half ton piece of metal at a-mile-a-minute or better, and am drunk, or high, or going too fast to properly control the thing, then I'm putting everyone else on the road at risk. This is unacceptable. But if I'm simply driving without a seatbelt, the only increased risk is to myself. If I'm not putting anyone else at risk, then it's not the state's business. I certainly don't owe them any money for it.

Yes, I've heard anecdotes from several people about how their seatbelt kept them in control of a vehicle during a wreck. I've also heard just as many about how seatbelts have broken bones, severed limbs, choked people and rendered them unconscious during wrecks. When you get in a wreck, odds are something bad is going to happen to someone. It can unfold any number of ways. The variables are too many to count, much less preempt.

On another front, we see the persecution of smokers. I'm not talking about jacking up taxes on cigarettes. That may be unfair and born of malice, but it's not a tax anyone has to pay. The smoker can decide whether or not to buy cigarettes. I'm talking about laws which do little or nothing to actually curb smoking, but make smokers miserable. The latter is the real reason the assholes who push for such laws do so. They're not concerned with anyone's health, and they know all the hoopla over second hand smoke is at best over-hyped, at worst fraudulent. Most of it relies on epidemiology, a crude statistical science. A little info on how such studies are conducted might come in useful. The point is, these laws are simply designed to punish smokers for not acting the way these assholes want them to. For instance, in Montgomery county MD you can no longer smoke in bars. The net effect? People go to bars and spend most of their time standing in front of the place with their buddies, talking and smoking cigarettes. The bar owner loses money because people outside can't buy their alcohol and greasy food. Those bars that don't have a clear and private outdoor space for smokers lose business to those who do. But the smoking, in and of itself, doesn't decrease. The smokers and the bars that serve them are simply made as uncomfortable and as inconvenienced as possible, and that's the idea. The whole damned point of going to a bar is to engage in unhealthy living. Assholes who fancy themselves your betters disapprove, and are punishing you for it. That's all it is. Purely punitive measures, born of vindictiveness and malice.

Notice that no serious motions are put forth to actually outlaw bars, drinking, or even cigarettes. That's not the idea. If there were suddenly no smokers, the do-gooder assholes would have to find someone else to feel superior to. Make no mistake, this will happen anyway. Next it will be alcohol, then they'll want to tell you what food you can eat, regulate your exercise habits, etc. But the other half is, of course money. Taxes, to be specific. In Maryland, it's perfectly legal to buy as many packs or cartons of cigarettes as you please. But going across the state line into Virginia to buy your smokes can get you arrested. Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, MD's favorite self-absorbed tyrant, has the state police monitoring key points along the Potomac, searching for people buying multiple cartons of cigarettes in VA and bringing them back across the river, thus avoiding MD's substantial cigarette tax. VA's tax is one of the lowest in the country.

Thing is, this is all perfectly legal. Cigarettes are a legal product, and if you buy them in VA, you owe VA taxes on them, not MD taxes. MD has no legal right to prosecute anyone for not paying taxes which are not owed. Of course, Schaefer has never been overly concerned with the legality of his actions, being more akin to an organized crime boss than a statesman.

All of this bullshit done in the name of...what? Keeping us safe? From ourselves? They have no right.

In the interests of full disclosure: I wear my seatbelt while driving. I reckon it's probably a good idea. I quit smoking six months ago, and with a bit of effort and willpower, I'm doing well. Again, I reckoned it was a good idea. But it was my choice, not the state's, and not the do-gooders'.

Of the nanny state, well, I figure Ludacris put it best when he said "Move, bitch! Get out 'da way!". OK, that might not have been what he was talking about, but it fits. Leave the smokers to die of cancer. Leave the beltless to die in car wrecks. And leave our children free to enjoy the wonderful and injury-ridden childhoods we enjoyed back in Cow county; dissembling themselves on bikes, scooters, ATVs, Radio Flyer wagons, and all other two and three wheeled instruments of death.

"But Whiskey, Radio Flyer wagons had four wheels!"

Not when we got through with them they didn't.