Alex, you beat me to it. We have helmet and seat belt laws because society is tired of bearing the financial and social cost of the inevitable deaths and maimings that occur from motorists riding unrestrained and bicyclists riding unprotected.

What's that? Your health insurance is flawless, and you have a large life insurance policy? Well, that's good. Most people aren't so prepared. But society would still lose the benefit of your productivity, should you become severely disabled or seriously dead.

And if you are underinsured, society will have to pick up the tab sooner or later. You see, those of us who are compassionate liberals cannot look away from the handicapped or neurologically devastated. We look at these unfortunates, and we see a human being who once laughed and danced and got into arguments on Mudcat. We aren't capable of throwing you out in the street to rot because you didn't fill out the right forms when you were 25.

If nothing else convinces you, think of the human cost. Seat belt and helmet legislature came about largely because of EMTs and ER physicians who were tired of informing bereaved family members that their loved one was dead or permanently disabled... when a simple measure could have saved them.

Chicago John, I hope that your statement was mere rhetoric and that you really do use a seat belt in your car and a helmet on your bike. If you don't, I suggest you, and others like you, check your insurance policies and make an explanatory videotape that the ER personnel can play for your loved ones, explaining your choice and the consequences thereof. Something like, "Hi, dear... I'm dead or paralyzed, because I wouldn't wear a seatbelt or helmet. Tell the kids that they, too, should stand up for their constitutional right to become a gorked-out vegetable. Good luck raising them all by yourself." And so on.

Yes, I feel strongly about this. I've seen children orphaned because their parents weren't wearing seatbelts (the kids, properly restrained, survived). I've seen parents who did survive struggle to recover from their head injuries. And I watched a boy die after his helmetless head was struck by a bus that he was riding his bicycle too close to.