“Experts blast bill to nullify seat belt laws.” This recent headline in a statewide newspaper was supported by the record of the recent legislative hearing on L.D. 112.
Many of the bill’s opponents likely were spurred to testify by the recent titanic interstate vehicle pile-up, in which first responders attributed the relatively small number of injuries to likely seat-belt usage.
On hand to blast the bill were two trauma surgeons and representatives from the Maine Sheriffs Association, LifeFlight of Maine, the Maine Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association, the Maine Chiefs of Police Association, the Maine Department of Public Safety, AAA of Northern New England and the Maine Medical Association.
Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Auburn, was in the blast zone as L.D. 112’s author. The bill also has support from Sen. Ron Collins, R-Wells, Rep. Beth O’Connor, R-Berwick, and Rep. Charlotte Warren, D-Hallowell, but no expert of any description showed up to support him, only a lone resident of Sidney.
Let’s for a moment ponder the words of Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury: “No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.”
In this case, it seems, insipid common sense requires the experts to explain why drivers need coercion to take precautions. Less insipidly, common sense asks why experts expect idiots to buckle up when faced with the threat of a fine while they remain indifferent to the threat of the death, maiming or broken bones if they remain unbuckled.
More than 20 years ago, my vehicle was rear-ended by a driver (drunken, drugged or maniac) outside Farmington, Conn. I recovered consciousness securely buckled, inside a cocoon of wreckage. I did not require the threat of a fine to buckle up back then, still less now. Yet, I support L.D. 112.
Brakey also favors the use of seat belts, agrees they save lives and fastens them around himself regularly. He does not agree that law has the power to cure people of recklessness, thoughtlessness or absent-mindedness.
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