More Nanny State

[Vladimir]

I was looking at someone else's (no, not the .org member) link on the BBC and noticed this gem. BAM! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5279142.stm)


From 18 September, children up to the age of 12, or up to the height of 135 cm, will have to use safety seats - which could mean that youngsters who have spent several years in adult seats will now need to return to using child seats.

Apparently:


Safety campaigners and motorists' organisations have all welcomed the changes - which the Department for Transport says will reduce the number of child casualties in traffic accidents by about 2,000 per year.

Ok, protecting is children good, but how far do you want to go? How many children are in the UK? What percentage of that total is 2,000? How long before everyone is required to wear safety helmets, goggles, and fire retardant clothing? Because, surely, saving the life of at least one child is worth it, right? I imagine they'd also be a lot safer if you keep them locked in a basement or garage like that girl that was discovered in Austria lately.

I’m still laughing about the helmetless scooter perp that the police wouldn’t pursue.

Edit: Oops, edit.

[Banquo's Ghost]

I imagine they'd also be a lot safer if you keep them locked in a basement or garage like that girl that was discovered in Australia lately

Austria (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5285290.stm), I think. :smile:

Australian girls have all been discovered already.

[Vladimir]

Austria (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5285290.stm), I think. :smile:

Australian girls have all been discovered already.

Thanks, changed. :coffeenews: Need more coffee.

[English assassin]

I'm not too sure that this case is an example of health and safety gone mad, since using a child seat is hardly a big imposition on your life, but in a month when the head of the Heath and safety executive tells people to stop worrying about minor risks http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5273292.stm (maybe his agency would like to stop prosecuting people for minor risks?) the general point is a fair one.

We are very bad at assessing relative risk. One example: our house is fairly newly built, and in accordance with buiding regulations, all the doors have self closing springs. Safer in a fire I guess. When my first child was born I realised just what effective guillotines door jambs are for little fingers, and went around removing all the springs. Sure, you can still get fingers caught, but at least the doors don't slam shut any more.

Sure enough last week my 18 month old daughter did get her fingers caught, as more or less every child will, eventually. She got a nasty nip instead of breaking or even severing her fingers, which the door certainly would have done when the spring was attached.

I wonder if the geniuses who devise building regulations are recording the number of injuries to young children alongside any reduction in fire damage?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Hey, I heard a rumor that the UK is also testing governors for motorcylces to physically prevent them from going beyond a certain speed. How do ya like them apples?

You know, in the interests of public health, its probably necessary for any person under 5'4" or so to have a booster seat so as to enable the safety belts to function at the proper angles and such. How about that one next.

Come to think of it, children aren't really equipped with the hand strength and motor skills to hold glasses full of liquid. How about requiring all households with children under 7 and any restaurant serving children to divest themselves off all non-plastic drinking ware, plates, etc. Moreover, sporks would be a lot safer than those nasty forks and knives.....

[English assassin]

Hey, I heard a rumor that the UK is also testing governors for motorcylces to physically prevent them from going beyond a certain speed. How do ya like them apples?

This is true and I signed the Motorcyclenews.com petition against it yesterday. I fail to see the connection. There are genuine and common situations on a bike where the ability to wind the revs on (and it may be exceed the speed limit ooh naughty us) is the safest thing to do.

If you can suggest to me a scenario in which it is safer for a small child not to use a child seat then you have a point. Otherwise you don't. Not even John Stuart Mill (who, after all, felt we had a right to injure ourselves if we wished) would be agaisnt this one since (1) children are too young to take an informed decision on the risk themseklevs and (2) anyone injured in a car crash injures not only themselves, but all of us who fund the NHS.

This is like people bitching about crash helmets being compulsory. Seriously, there are more important battles to fight.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

More important battles surely.

However, your NHS comment is, ultimately, Vlad's whole point.

Why should the government be responsible for you and your decisions and at what point do you draw the line between public and private responsibilty?

Laws like motorcycle governors and safety seats are wonderfully well intentioned, but supplant individual responsibility with government intrusion. Government should be about preventing me from infringing on other's rights, not running my life for me.

[BDC]

I know people who remove the H&S door springs. They're finger-traps. Someone should sue.

I can see the benefits of car seats (it is based on sensible stuff, like how at certain heights the belt will cut through a child's neck), but should be advice only.

[Ser Clegane]

Laws like motorcycle governors and safety seats are wonderfully well intentioned, but supplant individual responsibility with government intrusion. Government should be about preventing me from infringing on other's rights, not running my life for me.
So you are saying that it your right to treat your children however you see fit - regardless if you are causing harm?
And that the government has no right to protect children from being harmed by their parents' behaviour?

[Don Corleone]

I think he's saying we should take a reasonable middle. Children are hurt in sporting injuries each year. Should the state step in and forbid parents to allow their children to play football (yours or ours) or face having the children removed from the home, for their own safety? Using the logic you're employing, that the state has the right and the duty to do anything it can to make children be safer, parents' rights be damned, shouldn't the state just snatch all the kiddies away now, and from here on out, at birth?

[Ser Clegane]

I know that my response to Seamus seemed to imply that I believe the government should we allowed to generally interfere - and this was intentional, as I wanted to show that this is not simply an issue of "government intrusion - good or bad?"

The basis of discussion should be - as you implied in your response, Don - "does the specific intrusion make sense or not?".

So, does the benefit from this regulation justify the government intrusion or does it not? (and I do not have enough facts yet to have an informed opinion on that).

I do not think that a simple "government has no right to interfere" is enough here.

[Don Corleone]

I would agree Ser C, and I apologize for misreading your intent. I would go so far as to say, however, that for the government to step in and dictate parenting to the parents, it had better have incontrovertible evidence and a strong compulsion to do so. What Britain calls the Nanny-state is a common phenomenon here as well, to the point where the phrase "and if it saves even one child, isn't it worth it?" has become a parody.

[yesdachi]

Safety seat manufacturers will be happy.

[Ser Clegane]

I apologize for misreading your intent.
No apology necessary, as my post was using a bit of hyperbole ~:)


What Britain calls the Nanny-state is a common phenomenon here as well, to the point where the phrase "and if it saves even one child, isn't it worth it?" has become a parody.
A valid point - and there are certainly enough cases in Europe or the US were the government is overdoing the care for the citizens (even if the intentions are good - not very different from parents pampering thier children too much and sometimes causing more harm than good, even with the best intentions).

The benefits of a regulation will always have to be weighed up vs. the impact the regulation has on personal freedom. The safety seats in this specific case are probably more a financial issue than an issue of "freedom" if you neglect the fact that a safety seat can be somewhat bothersome if you have a lot of different passengers in your car (of course spending the money you earn as you see fit also represents a degree of freedom)

But these are the things that need to be the focus of a discussion about such regulations, as generalizations such as "government has no business interfering" or "are you against safety for children?" are usually not helpful for finding practical solutions.

[Ser Clegane]

Safety seat manufacturers will be happy

They sure will be - better buy stocks ~:)

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Ser:

Don C is, as usual, pretty much on target. A complete absence of government regulation is anarchy, not freedom.

I find car seats for my tots an annoyance, but their proven safety enhancement of such inestimable value that I never even considered not using them -- even for a trip across my own cul-de-sac.

As your later posts note, however, despite the best of intentions government regulations can become excessive and counter-productive. In general, I prefer to err on the side of the individual taking personal responsibility rather than the government trying to forsee and counter every danger.

I've lived in neighborhood's with homeowner's associations all of my property owning life. The first had a manual more than 150 pages thick delineating everything short of where it was permissable to vent flatulence. The current one has guidelines numbering about 12 pages -- and the neighborhood looks just as nice or nicer and is holding values as well or better.

[Duke of Gloucester]

Yes, but this is not for tots. When my children were too small for normal seat belts, we used car seats. When they were large enough we gave them away. My eight-year-old is taller than many twelve-year-olds, but, it now seems we are going to have to buy another car seat for her. This won't make her any safer, it will just cost me money. It will also make it impossible for me to drive her with any friends anywhere unless their parents provide me with car seats. I forsee problems for her brownie leader in this area.

In addition, this is the first I have heard of this legislation, so if I spent less time on the computer, I could have picked up a driving offence.

Finally, what about school trips? Will the coach company have to buy one booster seat for each child? Daft!

[InsaneApache]

Finally, what about school trips. Will her the coach company have to buy one booster seat for each child? Daft!

What! ~:eek: they still do school trips? I thought that the HASAWA (http://www.healthandsafety.co.uk/haswa.htm) police had stamped on that particular pleasure. :wall:

[Duke of Gloucester]

Phew. I have just measured her and she is 138 cm tall. One expense I can do with out, but I will take my tape measure with me if I give a lift to one of her friends.

School trips are alive and well. Last year she went to the National Museum of Film and Photography, Bradford, Magna in Shefield and Saltaire and Shipley Glen. Mind you, the last one she walked to. Her older sisters visited Harewood House, the Thackery Medical Museum and the University of Bradford as well as Waterworld in Cleethorpes. Rumours of the death of school trips are greatly exagerated.

[Brenus]

“Why should the government be responsible for you and your decisions and at what point do you draw the line between public and private responsibilty?” Perhaps the answer is because in England the cost of your individual decision is paid by the community.

The problem with Nanny State is more with the complete incoherence of all the regulations. Kids don’t get enough exercise but if one gets hurt during sport events, the parents sue the school and get huge compensations. Children are too fat but the cheapest food is the junk food. All places where kids were able to run and play were sold. Something often mention on popular radio show is they are more swimming pool in Paris than in all England.
The problem is this obsession to give us a good healthy life: you can’t smoke, you can’t drink, you can’t eat… I just wait the moment when some “studies” will “prove” that sex is not so good for your hart and it will be regulated…:dizzy2:

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

This is like seatbelts.

Like seatbelts its a good idea but it should be based solely on hight. A 14 year-old, or even a 40 year-old, is just as likely to get strangled.

[Crazed Rabbit]

The principle question posed to us is how far we are willing to accept government intrusion into our lives in the name of safety.

I say, very little. I am willing to have the gov't prevent me from walking down a street with a bottle of nitroglycerine in my backpack, but I should be able to ride my motorcycle without a helmet if I so desire. Of course, I would never do that for a trip across more than a parking lot, but the crux of the matter is that I free to make the choice. I know there are many who sit comfortably in suburban homes and want the government to look after government, and fear the full implications of freedom.

EA's example of not minding helmet laws because he has to support the NHS is another part of the problem. When the gov't takes responsibility for your troubles, medical and the like, it uses that as an excuse to say what you can and cannot do. That is not a free society. It is a society where the gov't claims power over what you can and cannot do because it is taking care of you. Or, they claim that "its for the children" which has probably been applied to everything by some nutter with an agenda in the USA.


I'm not too sure that this case is an example of health and safety gone mad, since using a child seat is hardly a big imposition on your life, but in a month when the head of the Heath and safety executive tells people to stop worrying about minor risks http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5273292.stm (maybe his agency would like to stop prosecuting people for minor risks?) the general point is a fair one.
Such agencies thrive on exacting detail of what you can and cannot do. In Washington State, the state employee health organization (OSHA, I think) was pondering limiting the number of times a person could lift 50 and 75 lbs a day. Luckily that supidity was thrown out.


We are very bad at assessing relative risk. One example: our house is fairly newly built, and in accordance with buiding regulations, all the doors have self closing springs. Safer in a fire I guess. When my first child was born I realised just what effective guillotines door jambs are for little fingers, and went around removing all the springs. Sure, you can still get fingers caught, but at least the doors don't slam shut any more.
You are not very bad at accessing risk, the gov't is. Is that stupid regulation in place in the whole of Britain, or just London? I can't imagine in living in a house with such doors.





Hey, I heard a rumor that the UK is also testing governors for motorcylces to physically prevent them from going beyond a certain speed. How do ya like them apples?

This is true and I signed the Motorcyclenews.com petition against it yesterday. I fail to see the connection. There are genuine and common situations on a bike where the ability to wind the revs on (and it may be exceed the speed limit ooh naughty us) is the safest thing to do.
I read about the bike with that thing built in on the MCN site, and good gracious, that sounds dangerous. Cutting your throttle in the middle of a turn? But even were there no need for revving up, I would still be against such a ban, because it assumes you are a criminal and punishes you for what you might do. It takes your freedom.


If you can suggest to me a scenario in which it is safer for a small child not to use a child seat then you have a point. Otherwise you don't. Not even John Stuart Mill (who, after all, felt we had a right to injure ourselves if we wished) would be agaisnt this one since (1) children are too young to take an informed decision on the risk themseklevs and (2) anyone injured in a car crash injures not only themselves, but all of us who fund the NHS.

Child seats are needed until the age of twelve? Talk about overdoing it, not to mention inconvenence. It should be the parent's authority to decide when their child needs a special seat. Question, do you have school buses in Britain, and if so, do they have seat belts? In WA a cop can pull you over for not having a seat belt in a recent law that's so vague gov't lawyers don't completely get it, and then bust you for a number of stupid minor infractions, while 5 year old kids sit on school buses without any seatbelts and fabric covered steel in front of them.

In short, the whole idea that gov't has to solve problems, that it must 'do something' whenever some new media-whipped crisis appears, is the root of the real problem here.

Crazed Rabbit