How do you feel about drivers getting ticketed or even tossed in the slammer for not wearing a seat belt?
How do I feel about it? Or what do I think.
How about if I give you personal experience as an example of what I think. One of the guys I went to school with endo'd his car 5 times into a local cemetary. He wasn't wearing his seatbelt and because of that, was thrown to the floorboards and survived. The roof of the car was caved in flat to the body line of the car. He would have died had his belt been on. And even the Police said so. That was before the law. Seven years ago, my Aunt was coming home on a winter day driving her truck down the bypass in bad weather. My uncle was in his car right behind her. She hit a patch of ice in the road and lost control of the vehicle. The truck rolled and she was thrown part way out of the window - before the vehicle landed on it's roof and literally cut her in half. My uncle saw it happen right in front of him and could do nothing. She wasn't wearing a seatbelt. We all still miss her - the entire town. She was well and widely known, loved and respected and her funeral was massive. If she'd been wearing a seatbelt, she might have survived but the chances are slim. Long and short of it is that it's at best a 50/50 bet. Sometimes they'll save you and sometimes they'll seal your fate. There is no way to predict when it will be either. And therefore, their requirement is bad law. Helmets for motorcycles are the same. The majority of helmets in accidents exceeding 50mph will Kill you on impact. The only difference they make is open or closed casket. And this can be understood quite easily. Your neck can handle 2 g's of pressure. A helmet will take 3. The helmet will bounce where your head will not, thus putting a reflexive 3 g's force to your neck - snapping it. Death or vegetablised. On low spead impacts they can help you. I haven't personally seen too many low speed impacts with bikes. And this state does't have a helmet law, though it does have a seatbelt law. Then again the state is run by dems but votes pubby nationally quite reliably. Go figure.