Comment by short_sells_poo

In a perfect world, nobody would be forced to wear a seatbelt and yet everyone would eagerly wear one.

I'd also much rather live in a world where everyone does the right thing, there's no greed, stupidity and short-sightedness. Unfortunately I have to make do with our current one. The fact is that a lot of people are stupid. Even very clever people often act irrationally and against their own interests. In the end, we have to strike a balance between personal freedom and the need to protect people from themselves.

Let's look at the case of mandatory seatbelts, and entertain your proposition that people don't need to be protected from themselves. What will happen?

Well, quite a few things are basically inevitable:

1. The issue will be politicized and there'll be hardliners who refuse to wear seatbelts. There are people who are vehemently against wearing full face helmets while riding motorbikes, even though the injuries from faceplanting into the road at speed are truly ghastly. 2. Once the number of people not wearing seatbelts goes up, a whole slew of interesting negative externalities pop up (and you seem to be gleefully ignoring these): 2.a) Simple fender benders will suddenly result in severe and fatal injuries instead of scuffs and bruises. 2.b) Insurance costs increase to cover the higher likelihood of injuries. 2.c) Fewer people can afford insurance. 2.d) Society has to bear the burden of treating and supporting people who get maimed and need lifelong care.

So what is your proposal to do here? What would you do with a person who didn't wear a seatbelt and got severely brain damaged due to this? Just abandon them to die? It was their choice after all. Who should bear the burden of treating these people? Do we now have tailor made insurance for those who don't wear seatbelts? What if these people will simply opt out of insurance?

At the end of the day, a society has to make a few pragmatic tradeoffs and limit certain freedoms as the cost is just not worth it.