Among the bigger first world nations the USA has an extremely low rate of seat belt usage. ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicherheitsgurt#Anlegequoten ) And from comments on previous articles this is not even frowned upon, although this varies from region to region, and in general people from places like Portland seem to consider this behavior insane.
> He's not a "good guy" because he didn't wear a seatbealt?
Yes. He was a danger to himself, as evidenced; could've been a physical danger to others; and actively was a danger to others, economically. All of this because of a conscious decision. Where i am from he would have been actively shunned, and berated from anyone close enough to him to care.
You have no evidence that the seat belt would have helped (it was a side impact, and the driver's side door was caved in). You have no evidence that his treatment was funded by taxpayer money and not by insurance. You've made no explanation of how he could have been "a physical danger to others." But aside from that:
> Where i am from he would have been actively shunned, and berated from anyone close enough to him to care.
You know what? I don't believe you. I don't believe that there is anywhere on this sorry planet that a reasonable person would say "You know, Bob was a good friend of mine. A solid guy. But when I heard about that car accident, I marched right into his hospital room and told him to get out of my life. Life's to short to coddle people who make a mistake."
Also, given that you complain about "American attitudes," it seems awfully American of you to blame a person in distress for consuming public resources set aside specifically to help people in distress. You're a short step from channeling Reagan ranting about "welfare queens."
> You have no evidence that the seat belt would have helped
There's no evidence either that it wouldn't have helped, but a good chance of it having potentionally helped and a vanishingly small chance of it being detrimental. The article says he hit a patch of ice. It's entirely possible that that momentary loss of control would have been dampened by a belt keeping him straight in his seat so he could've avoided the obstacle.
> You have no evidence that his treatment was funded by taxpayer money and not by insurance.
True. I admittedly do come from a society where in almost all cases tax payer money would be involved in the medical treatment and i did jump to a conclusion there.
> You've made no explanation of how he could have been "a physical danger to others."
There was no need to since it's utterly obvious. Lack of belt excacerbates any kind of loss of control in which the driver is subjected to forces moving them about in the seat, by making any further control attempts much more difficult; thus increasing chances of further uncontrolled collisions with other traffic participants.
> I don't believe [...] I marched right into his hospital room
Now you're jumping to conclusions. The kind of thing you're saying is obviously unreasonable so i did not consider it worthy mentioning that i was not talking about that. I was talking about what would have happened throughout his life before that.
> You're a short step from channeling Reagan ranting about "welfare queens."
Among the bigger first world nations the USA has an extremely low rate of seat belt usage. ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicherheitsgurt#Anlegequoten ) And from comments on previous articles this is not even frowned upon, although this varies from region to region, and in general people from places like Portland seem to consider this behavior insane.
> He's not a "good guy" because he didn't wear a seatbealt?
Yes. He was a danger to himself, as evidenced; could've been a physical danger to others; and actively was a danger to others, economically. All of this because of a conscious decision. Where i am from he would have been actively shunned, and berated from anyone close enough to him to care.