{"id":1585,"date":"2011-01-28T12:33:21","date_gmt":"2011-01-28T12:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/?p=1585"},"modified":"2011-04-18T10:57:05","modified_gmt":"2011-04-18T10:57:05","slug":"are-laws-going-too-far-you-can%e2%80%99t-outlaw-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/are-laws-going-too-far-you-can%e2%80%99t-outlaw-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Laws going too far? You can\u2019t outlaw life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In every country around the world there are laws in place to ensure a certain quality of life. For the most part they are designed to keep us safe and maintain a certain level of civility but where do we draw the line?<\/p>\n

There seems to be a common trend lately to try and outlaw anything that may be deemed dangerous, whether statistically valid or not. Not too long ago, some over eager Politician in Ontario tried to ban children from being passengers on the back of motorcycles and she manipulated her figures to serve her cause. It turned out that not one child was ever involved in a fatality as a result of being a passenger on a bike in over 10yrs. Although in the same time frame, several kids had been seriously injured or killed in skiing or tobogganing accidents. Are we going to allow law makers to look at banning them too?<\/p>\n

There has been a huge surge in banning in-car distractions in order to make our roads safer. Most of these laws are targeted at the use of hand held devices like cell phones, MP3 players and so on but will that really make a difference? Don\u2019t get me wrong, in car distractions are dangerous but where do we draw the line? Are we to ban radios, in-car controls, children in the back seat? Come on\u2026you can\u2019t ban it all. Now some US politicians are looking to introduce laws against pedestrians using their cell phones while crossing the street. Ya\u2026like that will be enforced. Just another waste of time and tax payers money? As has often been said\u2026you can\u2019t outlaw stupidity. But you can educate people to manage and mitigate the risks they take in their everyday lives.<\/p>\n

I for one will not live in a society that bans me from being human. I will make mistakes, I will take risks. I will ride my motorcycle and drive my car\u2026I will cross the street. I will pay attention to my surroundings and use common sense and my own instincts to keep me safe. I, like many thousands of people before me, for thousands of years, have taken risks and survived. Many of them helped found and develop the world in which we live. Yes\u2026many people have died along the way, yet many of those who have died have paved the way to make things better. Every time a plane crashes, there are investigations to find out why and how and safety improvements are made\u2026but we don\u2019t ban air travel. Millions of car crashes have occurred over the last hundred years and great improvements have been made to make road travel safer\u2026but we haven\u2019t banned cars. Hundreds of motorcyclists have been killed but advancements in safety gear have saved hundreds (if not thousands of lives) but we have no reason to ban riding. Thousands of pedestrians are killed annually on a global scale (often by their own fault) but I have yet to see any major effort to make them safer. Why not? Because you can\u2019t. You can only try and teach them to pay more attention to their surroundings.<\/p>\n

And for those who scream \u201cSave the children!\u201d I ask why do you let your child ski, skate, play hockey, football or even enjoy the simple pleasure of tobogganing or even ride a bicycle? Do you have any idea how many kids have been killed each year for engaging in such simple things? They are all dangerous to some degree and there is always a chance that by some fluke your child could be killed while enjoying such simple pleasures. Are you going to stop them from living? Are you going to tell us and our children that we are no longer allowed to enjoy such simple joys in life? Are you going to ban us from life? From being human? I went tobogganing a few years ago with a friend and hurt my back rather badly\u2026do I regret it or wish I hadn\u2019t done it? Hell no. A couple years ago I was riding a motorcycle while off roading and I crashed. I broke two ribs in three places and it hurt like hell for weeks but would I take that moment back? Nope.<\/p>\n

Let me make this clear\u2026I understand full well the reason for many of our laws. Many laws allow us to live our lives safely. However, if laws start preventing me from \u201cliving\u201d\u2026I\u2019m moving somewhere else. Somewhere where being \u2018human\u2019 is still allowed.<\/p>\n

There are many laws that allow us to live our lives safely but I will not obey any law that prevents me from living my life.<\/p>\n

My name is Shaun\u2026I am human. I will manage my own risks. I will live my life and enjoy it. Try and stop me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In every country around the world there are laws in place to ensure a certain quality of life. For the most part they are designed to keep us safe and maintain a certain level of civility but where do we draw the line? There seems to be a common trend lately to try and outlaw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pedVzR-pz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1585"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1587,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions\/1587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shaundejager.com\/road-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}