No Help For Self-Inflicted Injury, Part 2

The number of people injured or killed in automobiles as a result of the usage of cell-phones to text while driving is increasing.  We all know that there is a much greater likelihood of having an accident while driving when we are distracted.  According to the Daily Oklahoman today, the chances of having an accident while texting are 23 times greater.

The Highway Patrol and the local police agree that making texting while driving illegal is not a practical solution to the problem, as it is almost impossible to detect the presence of that kind of distraction prior to an accident.  Why arrest when you can't prove in court that the driver was actually texting while driving?

I would be in favor of allowing texting while driving if the drivers killed only themselves.  Why not eliminate the dummards from the gene pool, and earlier/younger better than later?  But they kill people who aren't doing anything stupid and who deserve to be protected from the criminally stupid.  So the following solution suggests itself:  Why not excuse insurance companies from paying for damages caused by texting while driving?  Perhaps the victims of the accident could still be covered, but certainly the texting driver at fault should not be covered.  And perhaps criminal penalties could also be involved if the law were written properly.

By the same line of reasoning,  insurance should not pay a drunken driver for causing an accident.  It's important to add that the victims of the accident who were not the cause should not be penalized financially. 

The principle idea remains the same in this small series of blogs:  People who knowingly and willfully assume a risk should be financially and personally responsible for the outcome of the risky behavior.  It's impractical to assume that police can stop all irresponsible behavior before it has a tragic result.  But we can make the self-injurious pay their own bills, and perhaps that will discourage at least those few who can count.

A good way to start would be to contact your insurance agent and tell him/her:  "I don't want to pay extra for people who take unnecessary risks, like driving and texting or drinking.  Please contact the company and tell them I'm looking for insurance that doesn't reward deliberately reckless behavior."  You could also contact the Insurance Commissioner in your home state and share the problem with him/her.

No Solution To Mass Murders

Listening to a debate on radio re various gun laws.  A trenchant comment by one of the debaters:  "Considering all the gun laws before Congress now, it should be noted that not one of those laws, if enacted, would have prevented ANY of the mass murders of the last 40 years or so". 

Not one limitation due to "mental illness", however defined, would have stopped any of them either.  There was no apparent mental illness in the mass murderers, unless you consider mild or moderate depression, and that would include almost everyone in the US.  The mass murderers were not psychotic.  They had not lost touch with reality.  They were not mentally incompetent.  They simply made wicked choices, and it should be obvious to anyone that the concept of "free will" must include the capacity to make wrong choices or the concept is meaningless.

It is notable that, with the exception of terrorist attacks (such as in Oklahoma City), the killers expected to die, and were in fact without any hope.  So threats and punishments would never be effective; you can't threaten someone who is already hopeless.  Prohibition of guns has not been effective, any more than the prohibition of alcohol was in the '20s.  In Sandy Hook the murderer stole guns from a family member.  Fertilizer was the weapon of choice in Oklahoma City.  There simply is no way to limit weapons.  We will always have our bare hands.

I think we have to face the fact that this problem is not solvable.  Whatever we decide to do will not limit the possibility of mass murders.  We can lose our civil liberties in the attempt, but we will not be able to stop killers, even with the most stringent of laws.  How much are we willing to surrender our civil liberties to gain an illusion of safety, which will be lost on the very next mass murder?