Seatbelt law in cars, helmet law in motorcycles: Is there a difference?
We have a small story on the site today about how more than 100 drivers were ticketed on Monday in St. Louis County for not buckling up.
Police are enforcing a county ordinance that allows them to ticket drivers in unincorporated areas for not wearing a seat belt.
Elsewhere in the state, police may only ticket a driver for not buckling up when the driver has been pulled over for something else.
What do you think of the seat-belt laws? Some people on this board espouse a philosophy that government should leave us alone and let us be in our own homes and cars. On the other hand, studies say seat belts save lives, so does government have a legitimate role in advocating that level of safety?
Meanwhile, the same debates swirl around the laws that require helmets on motorcycles (Missouri has such a law; Illinois doesn’t). What’s the difference? Or is there a difference?
Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
helmet saved my life. maybe not wearing it if it hadn’t been the law. still recieved a severe whiplash that i suffer from some 29 years later. you have to have laws to protect people from themselves or society will pay