Hashemian Blog Web Tools, Financial Markets, Technology Tuesday, May 13, 2008 Seatbelts and Risks  Since my last seatbelt ticket I have given the seatbelt law some thoughts. While in my mind this is an oppressive rule, there is one other side of this law that I hadn't considered before. I have always argued against mandatory seatbelts due to infringement on personal freedom. I don't disagree that they can help save lives and minimize bodily harm. And yes, there is the potential for curbing additional societal cost (police, medical, etc.), but that could lead to the slippery slope of banning many activities since there's always some level of risk and potential financial loss associated with them. My position is that as long as the risk is generally on the risk-taker, personal freedom should trump protection of self by coercion. In extending that argument to seatbelts, I had neglected to consider another side of this issue and that is the possibility of severe financial and emotional risk to others. The new perspective popped into my head while driving to work the other day. Suppose that due to my negligence I cause an accident. And suppose the other driver wasn't wearing his seatbelt and as a result he is gravely injured or he dies. Since the accident was my fault I would be faced with a large financial liability, not to mention the emotional guilt I would suffer for causing injury or death to another individual. If only he was wearing his seatbelt, he might have walked away from the accident with superficial wounds. I would still be liable for property damage and medical treatment, but the scope of damages would be much smaller and my emotional stress would be nowhere near that of the first scenario. So it can be argued that by not wearing my seatbelt I'm creating additional risk not only for myself but more importantly for other drivers as well. Looking at this argument from a non-selfish point of view I have now begun to realize that if I am the cause of an accident I hope that the other driver was buckled up. But even if the fault was with the other driver and he wasn't buckled up, I might still suffer the trauma of having been involved in a fatal collision. Judging on that, perhaps the seatbelt law isn't as oppressive as I had initially thought. Of course this argument can again enter a slippery slope and extend far beyond wearing seatbelts, but that's a subject for another time. btw, which is the correct spelling, seatbelt or seat belt, or both? If had to guess I'd go with the latter (Wikipedia also has the latter), but I have also seen the former used frequently. seatbelts,traffic laws,accidents,lawsuits Labels: law, seatbelts <Seatbelts and Risks> // posted by rh 0 comments Thursday, May 08, 2008 Seatbelt Ticket, Again  And so the law caught up with me again for the third time, barely 9 months after my last seatbelt ticket. This time I was caught in my own little hometown while driving to work. I was alert enough to see the cop standing by the side of the road looking into cars. I scrambled to grab the belt but it kept slipping out of my hand and by the time I had a good grip, I was spotted and got pointed out of the traffic. Game over. As I waited for the cop while he was checking my license and registration, I thought the only thing I hated more than wearing the seatbelt was to pay the fine. I could mount no defense. I had clearly broken the law and the officer was just doing his job. Other than that, I consider myself a law-abiding driver. I drive defensively, observe all traffic rules, and I don’t chatter on a cell phone. I don't even have a cell phone. The policeman's gruff manner had changed by the time he returned. He actually apologized for taking long to check my papers (I had handed him an expired registration) and gave me a $37 ticket. Not too painful, considering the fact that my last one was over $100. I suppose being a town resident had something to do with softening him up. The police department is requesting a sizeable budget from the town for upgrades and there's a lot of grumbling from the taxpayers who are fed up with high taxes. The referendum is coming up soon and there's no need to harass the already irritated residents. As I continued my commute with the seatbelt fastened I kept fighting the contraption to get some breathing room. I felt like a shackled prisoner in my car, trapped and pinned down to my seat. Several times I was distracted from the road while I kept yanking on the belt to loosen the death grip. Clearly this wasn't going to work. Obviously fighting this law through civil disobedience was going to cost me a lot of money and a bad record. The apparent solution was in the form of a small keychain store card. I pulled the belt far enough to keep it loose about me and then jammed the card through the slit on the top hook. That put enough pressure on the belt preventing it from being recoiled by the spring. After adjusting the length several times, I think I finally achieved a good balance between looseness and a buckled seatbelt. I'm not sure if what I've done is illegal or constitutes tampering, worthy of a fine. while I have slightly inhibited the natural operation of the seatbelt, I haven’t made any changes to the mechanism itself. I consider it more of a superficial adjustment, but I suppose it has somewhat reduced the belt's safety factor. For now this allows me to be a more alert driver, while hopefully dodging another ticket. By the way, I don't recommend anyone doing this. Drive safely and wear your seatbelts. seatbelts,law,seatbelt law,traffic,police,traffic laws Labels: law, seatbelts <Seatbelt Ticket, Again> // posted by rh 0 comments Wednesday, October 10, 2007 Adult Bicycle Helmet Law  A couple of entries ago I griped about the seatbelt law and how I was caught and ticketed for not wearing one driving in Westchester county, NY. Little did I know that there is a move afoot in the same county to make bicycle helmets mandatory. Mind you, this is not for children (which I support), but for everyone, including adults. I just don't understand how people can tolerate this erosion and intrusion into their personal rights. This is yet again another obvious attempt for municipalities to transform law-abiding citizens into law-breakers and collect money. It always comes down to money, doesn't it? A bunch of bureaucrats got together one day and brain-stormed about how they can raise more money and this emerged as a good candidate under the guise of protecting public safety. The slippery slope is indeed upon us and you can be sure that it won't stop with mandatory adult bike laws. Soon, there will be mandatory blood tests to measure your bad cholesterol and fine you if it's over some arbitrary limit. Like to exercise? There will be laws forbidding you to raise your heart rate beyond a certain number of beats per minute. Like to shovel your own snow? There will be laws banning that. How about swimming? There will laws requiring flotation devices for everyone; laws that will ban lifting heavy objects, laws against strenuous hiking, laws against running with scissors, laws against wearing too few layers during the cold, laws against hammering a nail without a permit, and laws against other laws to make sure everything is covered. You laugh now, but all these laws will be enacted to save you from yourself, and of course each offense will carry its own scheduled fine. Why not even a law to punish you if you haven't committed an offense for a certain length of time? The justification is that it's unfair for some people not to pay into the system while others are being bilked. And you had no idea you were a criminal a hundred times over already. helmets,bicycle helmets,helmet law,laws Labels: law <Adult Bicycle Helmet Law> // posted by rh 0 comments Wednesday, March 14, 2007 YouTube Copyright Trouble  When Google bought the fledging, but popular video sharing site, YouTube, for $1.6 billion in early October of 2006, it created a firestorm of controversy surrounding the transaction. It seemed like we were back again in 1999, the height of the Internet bubble. Google itself had actually launched its own video sharing site months prior to the acquisition. I had actually never visited the YouTube site, but had begun to check out some of the Google videos, mostly motorcycle stunt and race clips. Some praised Google for its quick action in grabbing a popular site instead of pouring cash and resources in its own service. But many were convinced that Google had overpaid. The acquisition translated to instant wealth for the YouTube executives and employees. Even the administrative assistant there became an over-night millionaire. Then began the task of integrating YouTube into the Google roster of products, the way it had been done a few years earlier with Blogger. But it wasn't too long before the copyright monster started to rear its ugly head. Only a few days after the buyout announcement, YouTube acceded to the Japanese media's complaints by removing some 30,000 of their clips from its site. Obviously media companies weren't sanguine about having their work pirated and put on display on YouTube to begin with, but YouTube was a startup with little money. There was little to be gained by dragging a cash-poor company to court. But this was a different matter, Google was a titan, flushed with money and a rich valuation and the media was smelling blood. The next big copyright news came on early February 2007 when Viacom demanded the removal of 100,000 clips from YouTube that it claimed to have had copyrights to. Finally the hammer fell today as Viacom came out swinging with a $1 billion lawsuit claiming that YouTube and its parent, Google, had failed to protect Viacom's copyright interests in regards to 160,000 videos on its site. There is speculation that the lawsuit is sour grapes, stemming from the fact that the two companies had failed to reach a licensing pact. It's difficult to predict the outcome of this litigation, but for its part YouTube maintains that it has and continues to make all reasonable efforts in protecting owners' rights on its site. All this has some people questioning Google's initial decision to acquire YouTube and therefore find itself mired in the legal mess. But if Google had succeeded with its own video sharing site, it would have found itself in the same situation today, albeit at a lesser cost than the YouTube's purchase price. What I wonder is what effect all this distraction will have on nurturing and growing YouTube. I, as a user, have been on YouTube a few times now. The user-generated clips of practical jokes and humorous situations were amusing at first, but the novelty quickly wore off. What I have generally been viewing consists of bits and pieces of news, educational material (mostly technology related), music videos, and nostalgic clips of old Persian TV. I assume most of these videos are copyrighted, and if complaints and subsequent removals continue, YouTube would soon have nothing for me to watch. I admit, some user-created material there have redeeming quality. I found this one very thought provoking, for example. But I even wonder if at some point this video will be axed as it plays a Pink Floyd tune in its introductory portion. I have to admit that there was one genre of videos on YouTube I would watch for which I was labeled (deservedly) immature and childish by my family. These were clips of a popular 80's televangelist, Robert Tilton, embellished with audible flatulence perfectly synchronized with his contorted facial expressions. Guess what, those clips have also been removed, replaced by the following note: "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Reverend Robert Tilton." If the good Pastor succeeded in having YouTube delete these comedic but otherwise useless clips, I wonder if YouTube is on the proverbial slippery slope of losing the majority of its assets and thus its audience. youtube,google,copyright laws,viacom,online videos,robert tilton,pink floyd,hubble Labels: google, law, music, space <YouTube Copyright Trouble> // posted by rh 2 comments

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