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The Seat Belt Mentality
by JB Campbell
Apparently, most Americans have it. Most Americans ought to wear their seat belts because A), they’re willing to be told what to do by their employees and B), they don’t know how to drive. Of course, if I’m a passenger and the driver makes me nervous, I’ll buckle up to protect myself. But that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is you need to learn how to drive safely and defensively, and cops using “safety” as an excuse to arrest you.
We had a tragedy here recently. A seventeen-year-old acquaintance of my son was a passenger in a car driven by another kid the same age. The driver lost control in a corner and the passenger was ejected and killed. “Oh, he should have been wearing his seat belt!” Yes, because he was being driven by someone who had no training, who had no idea how to go around a corner a little too fast. Which thing was responsible for his death, no seat belt or no driver training? The reason the kid wasn’t properly trained was because Big Brother doesn’t want us properly trained. The Establishment (insurance companies, banks, government) has no interest in real safety – only in using the word Safety as a weapon to keep us under control.
I just got my second seat belt ticket in a couple of weeks. I’ll fight it in court and will probably win using court rules and technicalities, or maybe because the cop won’t show for a seat belt ticket. But then, this cop was pretty lame, so he might show up. I win virtually all my court fights here in California, using their own rules of conduct, which they hate to have to obey. If we all did that, the whole traffic ticket revenue scam would dry up because it wouldn’t be profitable. The traffic ticket scam, when there’s no property damage or injury and no victim, is a form of extortion, and the California Highway Patrol is in the business of extortion. These guys are a combination of terrorists and tax collectors, cruising around in hot rods with paint schemes psychologically designed to cause fear, scheming on ways to cheat you out of your cash.
Seat belts are designed for people who can’t drive. I don’t mean you don’t know how to parallel park. I mean, almost no people know how to avoid an accident no matter what gets thrown at you. Buckling up is an indicator of inability to be in total control of your vehicle. When you click that belt, your brain is un-clicking. Clicking that belt puts you in a slightly helpless state of mind, which is actually preparing you for a crash. Clicking that belt is a signal to yourself that some things are just beyond your control and well, if the worst should happen, at least you won’t be going over the dashboard and through the windshield.
As far as I’m concerned, clicking your seat belt is a sign of lack of responsibility, like voting. Here’s why:
I used to teach people how to drive. I mean, really drive. I had a thing called “The School of Slide Control.” It was part of the University of Nevada’s extension program, and they gave me some acreage outside of Reno. I had a big asphalt skidpan with pop-up lawn sprinklers and a very slippery seal coat on top. I taught would-be racing drivers, cops, normal people, old ladies, kids and even some curious California Highway Patrol instructors how to slide cars and not slide cars. I used VWs, Corvairs and BMWs.
To me, there’s no excuse for an accident. I accept full responsibility, no matter what. I don’t care how bad or ornery the other driver is, he’s not going to hit me, unless I’m parked and can’t get out of his way. But that’s not exactly seat belt country, sitting there parked. If my car’s moving, and he hits me, I’ll count it as my fault. So far, since 1958, it hasn’t happened.
A lot of guys can slide cars at low speeds. They usually don’t know what they’re doing and probably can’t do the same maneuver twice, exactly the same way. I can drive sideways at 120, 130, 140 mph. The faster, the better. There are no mysteries for me in the sliding of cars, or the control of slides. One-eighties, three-sixties, parking it backwards – I can teach you anything.
I learned the hard way, driving single-seater formula racing cars in Australia and England back in the mid 1960s, starting at age 18. Lotus, Cooper, Brabham, etc. In 1970, Road & Track magazine, Popular Mechanics and others pronounced my school and my teaching method the best they’d seen. Mercedes-Benz introduced their new 1970 V-8 engines to the USA at my driving school, represented by the legendary chief racing engineer, Rudolf Uhlenhaut. This was an extraordinary honor for me. Eng. Uhlenhaut brought eight new sedans with the big engines. All the automotive magazine guys were there and we raced the cars around my skidpan. Then, Herr Uhlenhaut, age 64, got in one and proceeded to blow our doors off. Even my doors, on my own skidpan. (In test sessions for the 1954 MB Grand Prix racer, he posted times that were faster than those of the even more legendary works driver, Juan Manuel Fangio, the ultimate Formula 1 master of the 1950s.) Then we went out onto the Nevada highways for a high-speed run, since there was no speed limit in those days.
Uhlenhaut’s blowing my doors off aside, I’m still a pretty fair speaker on the subject.
People today are shocked to learn that road racers, the Grand Prix drivers, from the early days right up to the 1970s, did not wear seat belts. We never did in Australia or England. The American drivers always did, at least since the 1940s. And those seat belts got a lot of American drivers killed. The deadliest aspect of racing, everywhere, was fire and when those screaming gas cans crashed or rolled, they invariably caught fire. The stunned driver was trapped and either couldn’t extricate himself from his seat belt or rescuers couldn’t unhook him and drag him out of the flames and he fried. The road racers preferred an easy exit to being strapped in and barbecued, with the exception of Phil Hill, who tied himself in so he wouldn’t have to hang onto the wheel.
But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about being told what to do by a bunch of stinking cops and bureaucrats who think they own the place, and this “it’s for your own good” excuse for stopping you and checking you for warrants and contraband.
But if seat belts are so wonderful, and if our children’s lives are so precious (which they are), then why aren’t children required to wear seat belts on school buses? Do school buses never crash? “If it can save ONE child’s life?” Why aren’t you forced to click it on Greyhounds, which are definitely known to crash? Because safety isn’t the point of the seat belt law. The point of the seat belt law is mind control and separating us from our money. In other words, it’s about power.
Now, I will concede that wearing seat belts in racing cars today, now that crash fires are not so common, is a good idea, because you’re really being slammed around by some very high G-forces when cornering and breaking. But motor racing has virtually nothing in common with normal driving, believe me. The average driver cannot imagine the brutal acceleration, cornering and impossible breaking that’s done when racing. The tires are at the very limits of contact with the road, and often just beyond, and it is quite common to see racing drivers, even the best, lose control and spin out. But racing is a blood sport in which drivers frequently lose their lives – it is that extreme. The speeds at Indianapolis, etc., are insane, for example.
My pilot friends insist that seat belts are good because, by God, if they’re good enough for airplanes then they’re good for cars. People in airplanes are subject to some very unpredictable forces but even in airplanes you’re usually free to move around the cabin until the pilot asks you to buckle up. Then he tells you you’re free to move around once more. And I’ve found that pilots live in their own special world and generally, however brilliant they are in the sky, aren’t as good at controlling cars. They spend their time breaking the Law of Gravity and they’re good at it, but when it comes to breaking Newton’s Laws of Motion, most of them don’t get it.
Again, if you don’t know how to drive and you like being told what to do by people you pay, then by all means, buckle up. Seat belts represent to me the Police State.
Then there’s the helmet law, here in the Golden Police State. Did you know that in California, it’s against the law to wear a helmet while driving your car? Why do you suppose that is? Because helmets limit your vision and hearing! Don’t you think helmets have the same effect on motorcycle riders? All it’s about is telling us what to do, getting us in the habit of obeying. A heavy, high-priced full-face helmet may prevent a cracked skull but it can also snap your neck, which is not designed to support all that weight. Which do you think is more survivable? I survived a compound skull fracture (horses), but the great Jimmy Clark couldn’t survive his broken neck at Hockenheim. Or Dale Earnheart at Daytona.
How about those ultimate safety devices – the airbags? How many children have been killed by these explosive safety devices? Have you seen the warnings of death and destruction on all new cars – from airbags? Children under 12 can’t ride up front because they might be killed by airbags. Same with small adults. What happened to the “If it saves ONE child’s life”?
It’s not about safety, it’s about power over our minds, and it’s about taking away our responsibility for our own safety, same as the Thugs Standing Around in the airports. Have these abusive, armed morons prevented one hijacking or “terrorist event?” They can’t even identify bombs and guns when their instructors stick them in luggage as tests.
Now, I’m all for automotive safety. I devoted my life to it for years. I’m also big on gun safety and have been since around 1954. But safety with machinery cannot be mandated by law, with gimmicks. Safety comes from good training and the right state of mind. The way to keep from crashing a car and needing a seat belt is by learning car control and accepting total responsibility for preventing accidents. If that’s too much trouble, then buckle up and get ready to crash.
The equivalent in the gun world is another gimmick called a “trigger lock.” Anyone who would put a trigger lock on a gun shouldn’t even have a gun. What, are we afraid the thing is going to go off by itself if that trigger is left exposed? Oh – I forgot: the children. Trigger locks might save ONE child’s life. But my old man handed me a snub-nose .38 when I was nine years old, only after I’d shown him since age seven that he couldn’t get in front of any gun in my hands. He had a couple of dozen guns around the house, on the walls, in cabinets, on his nightstand. None of them ever went off by itself. Some of them did go off down in the basement, where he had a shooting range. We shot guns down there quite a bit, and we had to make them go off.
No, you say, I’m not afraid it’s going to go off by itself – I’m forced to do it by law where I live. Really? So what? Imagine needing your gun at three in the morning or any time at all and right now you, with shaking hands, have to locate the key to unlock the stupid thing, in the dark, so you can wrap your finger around the trigger and save your life. What’s more important – obeying the law or defending yourself? You decide.
It’s all part of the same program to turn us into Canadians. I guess they figure if we obey them on the seat belt scam we probably won’t be carrying guns in our cars, to defend ourselves from hijackers, muggers, cops and other low-lifes. And many of us do keep our guns at home but, because it’s The Law, don’t carry them with us where we also need them – in our cars and on our persons. But as a friend once said, if your life’s worth protecting part of the time, it’s worth protecting all the time. Regarding kids, just follow Stephen Stills’ advice: teach your children.
So, we all need to learn how to drive defensively, being ready for any eventuality, and get out of this mind-control and behavior modification syndrome of automatically reaching back and pulling your safety-blanket over your shoulder. I want to make the case for achieving total control of your vehicle and accepting full responsibility – in your mind – for preventing accidents. No excuses, such as, Oh, this drunk pulled right out in front of me! Tough. Deal with it and don’t hit him, no matter what. But I just couldn’t stop in time! Really? Then steer around him, or fling the car sideways and catch the slide but don’t hit him! To be able to do this requires a clear mind, constant checking around you and always looking for an escape from the worst thing that could happen where you are right now. Don’t just cruise along, daydreaming. Think about the worst case scenario all the time. What if that big rig coming at you on the two-lane at 75 mph has a blowout and veers right into you? Are you thinking of a place to go to keep him from hitting you? You should be. How fast could you change direction from straight ahead to going suddenly right (or left) to avoid a wreck – and stay in control? How long does it take you to get your foot on the brake? What if you’re going through a fast turn on a cold day and right in the middle of the turn is a patch of ice? Could you deal with it and not spin off the road, maybe sideways into a tree or over an embankment? Probably not, but I used to teach people exactly how to deal with it, in eight hours of training.
The insurance companies, the government and the cops want you to deal with it by buckling up. All that does is maybe help you survive the crash. But your real job is to prevent the crash, and nobody in the above groups has any plan for doing that. This is America and Americans aren’t supposed to be able to drive, or think or defend themselves. They’re supposed to shut up and do as they’re told, by armed parasites that live on our tax money.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=85006
Posted by J. Bruce Campbell on Mar 5 2011, With 0 Reads, Filed under Living, Of Interest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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[...] the original article at Veterans Today [...]
Great article JB and all too true. Then again you left out the biggest vehicle-related demonstration of subservience to “the law” (color of law actually) in getting “permission” (a license) to exercise your Constitutional right to travel by any means you so wish.
What we are taught to consider as “the law” is actually nothing but “statutes” which are not LAW, but commercial regulations pertaining to commercial (for profit) entities, not private citizens using the public right of way (all highways and byways) by sovereign right (and confirmed by Supreme Court ruling). It is the illegitimate reduction of our RIGHTS into mere PRIVILEGES for which we are then made to pay to enjoy. Sadly, as you say, most are too numbed by indoctrinated obedience to “the state” to even think to question it.
All the better for the criminal fraudsters who have reigned over us for the past 100+ years.
I am very curious about the techniques and rules you use to beat them at their game, JB. I’ve tried following various sovereignty streams but find much conflicting and sometime false information being dished out to the public. Any clarity you could provide on the matter would be greatly appreciated. Income Tax is another big area of falsehood as well, with its own set of ways and means to beat the systemic fraud but again so much is new to me after being so long away from this country, it’s hard to get it all into proper perspective and order.
Hope to hear more from you on this important subject matter.
There’s a piece under my name on the income tax and how I deal with it, which is not to file or pay a penny, asI have been doing now since 1976. And why. I’m not a Constitutionalist because I do not consider the Constitution to be our friend. The Bill of Rights, maybe, but Lincoln showed what that was worth in 1861. It’s not worth a damn. And virtually everything evil has been pronounced “Constitutional” by the Gang of Nine. And we’re not allowed to mention the Constitution in court nowadays by the lesser black-robed renegades anyway. to do so can get you jailed for contempt. The “Constitutionality” of anything must only be “decided” by the Gang of Nine, if you have a spare million to pay your lawyers. And after you pay all that money, the Gang of Nine will probably decline to consider your case. These are all reasons not to file, which is advertised as voluntary. So, don’t volunteer.
The traffic court tyrants are getting tougher to beat, but the main thing is the 45-day time limit to bring you to trial. Any cop using radar must produce a current traffic survey of the section of the road on which he was revenuing, if the speed limit was under 55 mph (i.e., within city limits). And radars must be calibrated and more importantly the tuning forks must be calibrated, which they seldom are. Cops are quite ready to swear they properly calibrated their radars just before and just after citing you, but they are not prepared to show that their tuning forks are certified as producing the proper testing frequencies and not damaged by heat or being dropped or bent. If the cop can’t show that the tuning forks are calibrated, case dismissed.
The cop’s speedometer must be calibrated by the officer himself, which never happens. If someone else did the calibrating, the testimony is hearsay and inadmissible, unless the mechanic shows up in court, too.
If the cop doesn’t show up, of course, the case must be dismissed. Some tyrannical judges will ignore this fundamental rule and you must appeal his ruling to the next court up the food chain, which we must always be prepared to do. Most people are not aware of this next step. Appellate judges are generally more scrupulous than the jerks ripping us off in traffic court. I have won on appeal several times, just by showing that the trial judge “was mistaken.”
These are some of the things I have used successfully back when my only natural enemy was the Highway Patrol.
I don’t volunteer, but neither at the moment do I have any employment as I walked away from my career before coming back to this country, thus there is nothing to file according to their wonky and conflicting definitions anyways. I am simply concerned with eventualities as I would like to know more about reclaiming sovereignty based on prior voluntary surrender of natural rights through my ignorance and their non-disclosure (fraud).
Many thanks for your further details. So noted and filed.
If we weren’t a continent apart and my financial situation so constrained, it would be an honor to meet you and discuss such matters and world perspectives in person. Maybe one day.
Pen. Judging by your formal use of the English language, I would say that you are either very English, or, perhaps, Indian, since India has been considered to be more English than England. I would also hazard a guess that you are, or were, an academic..
Very much Caucasian Yank, Ingrid. I’ve simply been a lover of the richness of the English language since childhood and have had the fortune to live and work abroad amongst well-spoken colleagues through most of my adult life.
Not an academic but well read.
Many thanks.
I am half Scottish, half Norwegian, lived in Scotland most of my life, came to live in Norway a number of years ago now, too many to want to remember. I hadn`t been here all that many years when a colleague asked an elderly man if he could tell where I was from. He spoke slowly and carefully and said: “according to your accent (it`s pure Scottish,) I would say that you are probably from a little place on the border between Trøndelag and Bindal, (two areas in the neighbourhood.) It was priceless..
[...] [...]
Excellent and funny article, JB.
A few years back I was riding down a semi-clogged freeway to our local NASA installation in one of my Astronaut friend’s (we call him Naut) Ferrari sportster. It was about a normal 25 minute drive which we made in slightly over 22 seconds, at least that’s what my heart told me.
Now, our speed was nothing compared to the 17,000 mph it takes to get in orbit, or the much greater speeds it takes to get to the moon and back before the crew runs out of air. But, none-the-less, our Ferrari was hauling ass.
I asked my friend why we were passing other cars like they were standing still, zooming in and out, and using all four lanes like they all belonged to us.
Naut’s answer?
“It’s safer to go faster. If the other cars are going 60, and we are passing them at 140, it’s like they are parked and we have the highway to ourselves at 80 mph. That makes sense, doesn’t it, Tex?”
You know JB? As long as I didn’t concentrate on the buildings or signs flying buy, or the panicked police car buried in our dust, Naut seemed pretty logical. I just sunk down in my seat, cinched my seatbelt tighter and rode it out. After all, my heart and terroized mind knew I was at risk for only a few more seconds before Naut and I got to our destination.
T.V.
CHP officers also like using “green lasers” to burn holes in tires of “trouble-makers” as the officer tail-gates the “target”…the tire flattens slowly…looks burned at the site of deflation…”operator error”? Actually, exposing tyranny.
Green lasers are used to cause mischief against pilots…google the DOJ site, there’s a case in California.
Also, Dan Lungren(can’t remember which strips he’s wearing now…Congressman maybe?) has a bill to increase the criminal penalties for using a green laser against aircraft…will they extend to rouge CHP officers, Dan?
Right! All fine advice, JB.
Now we got to get kids to dump bike helmets.
They are hazards and I’ve seen people nearly get killed because of them. I was a long-range, competitive cycler in my thirties (about the time Reagan was prez) and I was stunned, the first time I tried wearing a “safety helmet”, how much they restrict your vision. Since I also sweat from my head, it restricted my vision even more by getting everything from my hairline to my belly button soaking wet.
Teach those kids to FALL right, for pete’s sake!
In North Ridgeville Ohio in 1986 I was knocked on my butt by a pick-up truck, a woman driver who never saw me. I have no doubt I’d a been dead and gone if I’d worn a helmet. As it was the bike went left, I flopped far right, and in the middle was a rural postal box on a reinforced rail-type stump. I didn’t hit the stump because I could clearly see it just before I went airborne and I was able to twist slightly after the bike got hit.
I wore a neck brace for a few weeks. Beats death, broken back, whatever.
Laws were mandated locally for kids to wear what I call BLINDERS and I testified against them… talk about a waste of time, these people pass laws like this and are furious when regular people try to give them information. Dumb, all of them, or maybe paid off by whoever makes the helmets.
Growing up in the fifties I never SAW a helmet, not once. The first instruction given to all kids back then was, FALL RIGHT. Still the only thing that matters.
I would love for you to teach me how to do a 360 in my 1970 Monte carlo!!
1968 327 Corvette engine…I hate the helmet laws wind drag on my neck…sigh
I beat a ticket a few years back it was great…But when Bill died and I watched a guy fight a ticket for 5 years and then just decide to pay up I decided my time was worth more to avoid the racket scene…
Here are some helpful items:
http://www.beatmyspeedingticket.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fZQWjDVKE&feature=related
Good advice for avoiding legal problems.
Good advice there. The brainless bureaucrats are the backbone of every tyrant. Without bureaucrats no dictator would be able to survive long enough to take out even their mildest opponents.
Today’s bureaucrats do even worse..they rob you of you dignity, self respect and your wealth. Seat belt, helmet laws and airbags are just a cover for the stupidity of the average driver who couldn’t navigate his or her way to the grocery store without endangering the lives of at least a couple hundred other drivers. Besides it’s a good way to enhance revenue. Up here in Northern Michigan in a Town called Charlevoix, they once boasted that the city had acquired more then a million dollars in traffic related fines. Now what does that tell you? The roving tax collectors who call the selves servants of the public are trained to believe they are working towards public safety.
It will continue to worsen as the states and municipalities continue to lose revenue and attempt to make up for the loss on the backs of the driving public. It is already happening in some areas where drivers are being ticketed for going 1-2 MPH over the speed limit.
I have to agree that all these so-called safety laws are more about revenue enhancement as well as control. Bureaucrats love control. They are control freaks. The worst of them get to Washington
JB,
Agree with you that enforcement of “laws” is a money making venture for the local and state governments. I am no fan of the enforced driving standards we live with today, and I see much of this ‘safety’ implemented crap from a monetary standpoint. Much like anything in this wonderful plutocracy called the U.S.A. if there is some way to earn a profit from something some greedy S.O.B. has a devised a way of doing it. The really smart ones get our inept government to mandate and enforce it through the ‘law’. Behind every helmet law is a company like Bell financing some ‘study’ to validate the claim that helmets save lives. Then they put money in the pockets of an idiot lawmaker who will in turn force upon the people the mandate (law) to wear a helmet. Everyone will point to the so-called ‘study’ or my favorite the never truthful statistics that show “helmets save lives”. Of course, if you’re a really good marketer you find that Mom who will tearfully profess on a TV commericial how a helmet saved her son’s life and viola you’re manipulating the populace to buy into the hype.
Americans believe in studies, polls, and other hyperbole doled out to them by their government and their corporate controllers. Of course, most Americans are dulled to the point of idiocy by our pathetic public education system, churches who are state-controlled under 501(c)(3), and their own ineptness to unplug from the TV and the other information outlets. It takes an open mind and strong will to pull yourself out from under the state-provided bullsh!t and propoganda.
Lastly, JB I am with on the Constitution and its so-called importance in our society. If you study history you will see our government ignored the enumerated powers granted to it under Article I, Sec. 8 of the Constitution before the ink dried from the signatories. Some scholars would say America is too enlightened to allow the government to be restricted to those powers. I disagree and one need only look at the decline of our economy and social structure to see what direction all this ‘enlightenment’ has taken us since the signing of the constitution!
I never wore a seat belt until I lived in San Diego. Now there was a bunch of stupid drivers. They drove so bad they scared the crap out of me. But I still don’t like seat belts. One day I forget to fasten the thing and started driving and I felt free. Why is the government so concerned it I go through a window anyway? As long as I don’t kill anybody else, isn’t my life my own? Another thing that would help is a stick shift. I learned a lot about driving with a clutch. You even feel like you’re really on the road. When I had to give up my manual transmission I was so sad but my health wouldn’t let me use a stick anymore. I don’t get that excited feeling of being on the road, but I’ve adjusted. I think I’d be a much worse driver if I hadn’t learned to use a stick.
Yeh, B.A., but you are forgetting a couple things. First, we would missy you and your introspective comments. Second, as a former Highway Patrolman, windshield catapults can be such a mess to clean up.
Charlie from California
Or when they’re thrown from the car in front of an oncoming vehicle….
Strange when I ride my motorcycle nobody cares if I’m wearing a seat belt. Call the discrimination police!!!