Dying to be Safe

 by Gail C. Gray, A.B.A.T.E. of Pennsylvania

Reprinted from the MRF Reports

News reports published recently reveal that car air bags have not only caused the deaths of infants and children in front passenger seats, but also are responsible for the deaths of short women drivers, 5'4" and under. More than any previous revelation concerning the effectiveness of mandated personal safety devices, this news demonstrates with crystal clarity why such mandation based as it is on statistics, is faulty and un-American in concept.

In both the case of the automobile air bag as well as the mandated wearing of a motorcycle helmet, government has justified coercion to comply on the basis of statistics. It reasons that if more lives have been shown to be spared than lost, and the number and severity of injuries is reduced by compelling everyone to use this equipment, then forfeiture of the individual's right to determine what is in her best interest is warranted. This is the logical basis of all safety and economic arguments for government mandation.

However, in the safety advocates' zeal to protect us from ourselves, a very significant point is ignored. Personal protection devices do, in fact, cause deaths and injuries in and of themselves, because they are subject to human error in design, production, testing, application and use, and incompatibility with the particular specifications of the user. In addition, they are subject to variable rates of wear and fatigue, and may continue to be used after damage has rendered them ineffective or dangerous, whether such conditions are apparent to the user or not. Implicit in the hard, cold statement of fact that safety devices cause deaths is the defect in paternalist government logic. For government to argue in terms of more or less deaths is to admit that some deaths are acceptable, (acceptable to the government, of course). Further, in choosing and mandating personal safety equipment, government also must accept responsibility for those deaths since it is government which elects to compel individuals  to use devices of its own choosing. Individuals will die who otherwise may have lived, given the opportunity to evaluate their own circumstances and act accordingly.

I am a 54 year old woman who is 5'2" in height. I own a car equipped with a driver's side air bag which I had no choice in having provided with my vehicle, nor can I disable it as I would now choose to do based on the latest evidence. I am actually at increased risk of death or injury, due to my small stature, whether the air bag in my car deploys on low or high impact, or if it should deploy without impact due to a defect. The same is true if, on a hot summer day, a bee becomes lodged inside my motorcycle helmet, and I lose control of the bike, or I suffer a neck injury caused by a helmet I am obliged to wear at all times. As matters now stand, I am helpless to make any adjustments to particular situations which could increase my chances of survival. My very life and well-being are being held hostage to a government policy which values favorable general statistics more than my individual and irreplaceable life.

Government may argue that when I make a decision which may have vital consequences for my personal welfare, that I may err in my judgement, and suffer as a result, but I, and not government have the right to make that judgement, since it is I and not government who stand to lose most. Government cannot deny its fallibility in matters of judgement on safety equipment use, yet it would deny my right to self-regarding judgements because I am also fallible. It therefore is not entitled to gamble with my life for the sake of the general welfare. Government is wholly unjustified to insist that if my life is lost due to its fallibility, this is a sacrifice which must be borne in the name of economic efficiency. In a holy war against all risk, the government reserves its right to risk my life in support of general probabilities which at any given moment may be at great variance with my personal probabilities of survival. Herein lies the evil of a method elevated to greater importance than that of the individual. If Government labels me a social burden, because my own decisions and actions relating to my personal welfare fail to protect me, am I any less a social burden if the government's decisions about my personal safety prove injurious or deadly?

This is not the same as saying that the government must take no action as regards personal safety issues. The proper role of Government with respect to the best interest of the individual is best exercised through education. I am not a mere figure in a column, an abstraction or a unit of a statistical generalization. I am a living, thinking, adult American with my own best interest at heart. No government, however well meaning it claims its policies to be, has the ability to be inside my skin, feel with my senses, remember and interpret my personal experiences, and respond with more intimate knowledge of my unique and changing circumstances from moment to moment better than I can. No government, however much it assumes a vested interest in my personal welfare, has as great or as urgent a stake in my welfare as I do, and no government can presume to know better how best to pursue that well-being than I do.