The government preventing us from hurting ourselves
Laura Creighton
>>The point is not that society is trying to save you from yourself,
>>Garry. The point IS that unhelmeted motorcyclists cost alot of
>>money when they are in accidents. This money comes from
>>the same pool of insurance money that the rest of us
>>contribute to. If unhelmeted motorcyclists will take on all
>>responsibility to insure themselves (that is, have their own
>>separate insurance pool), then I will gladly allow them to take
>>the additional risk that coincides with riding without a helmet.
Actually, all the motorcyclists I know who ride without helmets
would bne interested in taking this risk. The problem is that
it is not set up to enable them to do so. When you look at this
as a problem you might then take a look at the insurance racket.
If you don't end up thinking that it is (not that it has to be,
and not that the concept of buying insuirance in itself is a
wrong) as practiuced today, exactly like paying protection money
to your local Mafioso enforcer, then I don't think that you have
looked hard enough.
Between the government and the insurance companies, we all have
to pay far too much. If you want to drastically lower your
insurance bill, you are going to have to lobby. My favourite
ideas is to have a paper which one can sign which gives away
your right to sue in a given circumstance. Not too long ago
I was kicked out of a tree by a Forest ranger. It seems that he was
afraid that I might sue if I fell out of the tree. The hell with
it. Life is pretty bleak if I can't go climb a tree when I feel
like it. I would love to sign away my right to sue if I am injured
or killed while climbing a tree on National Forests.
At somepoint I would like it if it were understood that if you were
killed or injured while driving a vehicle drunk, then you chose to
take your life in your own hands and nobody else shoudl be
in any way responsible for your injuries, et al. (If you think
that this is the way your insurance works, read it again. and
Again. A lady so drunk she could not walk fell in front of my
mother's car from between a hedge after she started up from a
stop at a stop sign. She (my mother) was going >10 m.p.h. when
she hit the old lady. Unfortunately, the lady was 65 years old and
broke a leg.
My mother went to court, after being sued by the old lady, with the
full cofidence that any reasonable legal system would understand that
an old lady who had drabk illicit liquor (>7 bottles of beer in 3 hours)
at a place she was babysitting and got so drubk she had to hold onto a
hedge to stand up let go of the hedge, and fell into the path of an oncoming
automobile that was not going more than 10 m.p.h beiong less than 20 feet from
where my mother had made a full stop could not win a case againt her for
damages.
Wrong-o. Mymother got to pay dsamages, and in insurance money is still
paying for it in higher premiums a decade later.)
This is a rotten articel. I apologise. There are millions of
typos and I should delete words and whole sentences. What you don't
realise is that I am typing a full paragraph ahead of the echoing
because of some bugs in CGI which make it use all of the CPU on
hoptoad....and John Gilmore is using it now. I could wat until
he is done and fix this up, but I want to go to bed. Typing
this damnb article has been frustrating enough as it is.
Pised off at Insurance and buggy software....
Laura
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Laura Creighton
ihnp4!hoptoad!laura utzoo!hoptoad!laura sun!hoptoad!laura
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