Click It or Ticket = $
When you see the sign “Click it or Ticket” you may or may not listen to it. Well if someone told you that you were paying for all of those who are not wearing seat belts within your health care and insurance bills, would you still think about putting it on or leaving it off? I know I wouldn’t.
Today, states with primary enforcement on seat belts laws average 78% of belt use, while secondary enforcement states on average 63% of belt use. These numbers might not seen like a big deal to you unless you are told that you are getting charged for the other 22% or 37% of people that do not use seat belts while driving. The increase in health care and insurance costs for those crashes with unbelted drivers and passengers are is not only paid by the ones who chose wrong, but paid also by society. About 85% of the increased costs is distributed to those who were not involved. So, why don’t you just take the 5 seconds to buckle up when you are going to drive?
It is said that, “Increasing the national seat belt use rate to 90 percent from the current 68 percent would prevent and estimated 5,536 fatalities, 132,670 injuries and save the nation $8.8 billion annually.” So if there is an increase in the quantity of those who wear seat belts then there will be a decrease in the price of health care and insurance costs.
Society today is based on money; people are greedy. This being the case then why aren’t we trying to save money in one of the easiest ways, wearing your seat belt?
http://www.policyalmanac.org/economic/archive/seatbelts.shtml
2 comments:
This sounds like a classice case of a negative externality (of which we'll talk about during part 4 of our course). From an individual's point of view, is it really rational to wear a seat belt? What is the expected benefit and the expected cost? The likelihood of being involved in an auto accident every time you get behind the wheel is probably quite small. The cost, however, is the reduced comfort and restriction imposed by the seatbelt. I come from the old school and rarely wear my seatbelt...though I do make sure my daughter wears hers. Does this make me irrational?
Not wearing a seatbelt sounds pretty irrational to me. Despite the relatively small chance of getting in a car accident each time you get behind the wheel, I feel that the benefits of wearing a seatbelt (increased safety) greatly outweigh any minor inconveniences of the seatbelt being uncomfortable or restricting. Seatbelts save lives, and it seems foolish to risk injuring yourself or getting killed (and complicating or devastating the lives of your loved ones) by not wearing a seatbelt.
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