Is this sensible libertarian thinking?

No but it does show that there are Liberals just as screwed up ,as conservatives.

@SQUEEKY2 You are confusing liberal and libertarianism.

In Canada we have a small group of people calling thenselves “Freeman”. They claim to be an independent nation in Canada, and exempt from laws.

There is a group in central Canada who follow the Queen of Canada. Is around ~150 followers.

I can see how a Libertarian could construe small government to also mean we should have no speed limits.

Libertarianism in its extreme is very close to anarchy in my opinion.

Most Libertarians I know who also are religious focus on things like taxes are ilegal and owning guns is a God given right and on social issues often line up with the Republicans.

The Libertarians I know who are more like Independents are fiscally to the right, but socially more left than the right wing Republicans. They are very focused on Capitalism being a wonderful thing to a point of idealism and tend to feel government screws up everything.

Libertarian and sensible seldom go together.
What this example especially illustrates is the core of liberatrianism: egoism.
It does not cross his mind that he might run over someone, or cause a massive traffic accident killing dozens of people. He likey does not give a shit.
Would it be surprising if he was also against stopping at a red light? Obey traffic rules at intersections? Having to have lights on at night? Not being allowed to drive while shitfaced?
It would not shock me if he thought that he should not pe punished for it even if he caused the deaths of others.

Here is a good story to read:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling

Yes, actually, some libertarians really believe that and are that wackadoodle. Gorillapaws has a terrific video regarding seatbelts in the Libertarian debate for president.

Fortunately, though, most mainstream libertarians (on the left and right) understand the need for regulations like seat belts, speed limits, drunk driving laws, and traffic lights. It’s just the wackoes. I’m libertarian in many of my beliefs (free movement of labor, open borders, zero or low tariffs, and lower taxes so we can have decreased defense spending), but I am not libertarian in that I believe in free or low cost access to good healthcare, free education, and, yes, speed limits.

@ragingloli I’ve read about that town. He’s right in that Libertarians (capital “L”) are absolutely sure about their belief system. But that’s not just true about Libertarians—I’ve seen hard core Christian conservatives and left progressives be equally as passionate and convinced that they are correct. But capital “L” Libertarians are their own special brand of crazy.

Diesel engines, like those in big trucks, have governors that limit the maximum RPM of the engine, and so likewise the vehicle’s top speed. So the point is moot.

The idea of Libertarianism is that each person should be allowed to do as they want, providing their choices do not impact no the rights of others. But Libertarians also recognize that there are certain laws that are needed to keep society running, laws that are put there for the good of people. A speed limit would be like that. Driving as fast as you want would be an individual’s right, provided it didn’t impact others. And in this case, it could figuratively and literally lead to impacting others. So a speed limit is not an violation of your personal rights.

This is someone misapplying libertarianism. His speed affects the safety of others (@seawulf575 got it right). Now, I DO think speed are underposted on many roads, but that’s not disputing that communities have the right to establish and enforce speed limits.

But I used to identify as a libertarian. I do so less now. The movement used to be sort of a ‘big tent’ for anyone who was broadly socially liberal and economically market oriented. But it’s been taken over in the last decade-plus by anarchistic types with fantasy ideas about how people behave in the absence of rules. They’ve condemned themselves to increasing irrelevance…not that they were terribly relevant before.

Regardless, safety and security are the government’s first responsibility. Safe speeds on the roadways fall into that category.

@Caravanfan It was a driver’s license, not seatbelt, but the same-ish idea.

In the Libertarian mindset, speed limits aren’t necessary. You can have competing private companies that report your reckless driving to various private agencies and they would affect your private car insurance rates, so if you drive too fast you would have to pay more insurance and the free market would sort everything out—or something like that.

Sam Seder has an open offer for any Libertarian to debate him on his show. There are dozens of them. They’re pretty hilarious.

@gorillapaws What’s kind of funny is that I’m actually ambivalent on driver’s licenses myself. As you know having that card in your pocket is no guarantee that the person behind the wheel has any competence. Cars drive the economy of the world so much that the bar for getting a license is set very low as to make it meaningless. They’re more useful as ID cards.

@Caravanfan Perhaps in your state but in mine we have to pass fairly rigorous written and road tests, including the dreaded parallel parking test.

@janbb I had to pass the parallel parking test 50 years ago when I got my license. Never have I had to prove my parallel parking dexterity since. And I have lived in four different states.

How often do I parallel park? Maybe three times a year.

@janbb How many times have you had to do a road test? I’ve done one exactly once, 44 years ago. For the last 20 years all I’ve had to do is fill out a renewal application online. Maybe it’s because I have a good driving record, I don’t know.

@Caravanfan Yeah, I get that. There should be required road and vision testing, especially after a certain age.

I somewhat agree, but I’d put it like this:

Traffic safety laws should apply to situations that are actually dangerous or problematic in some significant way.

But some speed limits are set far lower than makes good sense, particularly for some types of vehicle, in good conditions.

So as long as people aren’t causing an actual problem, it ought to be legal to drive whatever speed.

@janbb Where I live, the parallel parking part is not on the road test, but I live 50 feet from the border of another county, and in that county, the parallel parking is on the road test. It’s not here because this is considered a rural area, so we very rarely have to parallel park.

@Zaku If we are allowed to drive at whatever speed (in good conditions and other criteria you mentioned), an auto in a collision where cars are going, let’s say 100 mph is likely to sustain more damage and more injuries and maybe casualties than a collision where the autos are going 50 mph. Then, we all pay in higher insurance, since when the insurance companies pay out more, our rates all go up. That’s why motorcycle helmet laws make sense, because when the motorcycle rider gets his skull smashed in from not wearing a helmet, we all pay for that, indirectly.

@jca2 In addition to the fact that the poor motorcycle rider has his head smashed in!

Add to my post above that that’s why seatbelt and child safety seats make sense, too.

@jca2 Yes, but I do not agree with the status quo acceptance of the insurance business, nor with letting it determine how we legislate things. From my perspective the insurance industry is extremely problematic, and a root cause of excessively low speed limits in many places.

Even under the status quo, I do not value reduced insurance rates over personal liberty.

Allowing laws and enforcement of laws that restrict liberty for the purposes of the insurance industry, is antithetical to me.

I am also for revising liability insurance, such that if and when someone does excessive damage, it wouldn’t necessarily be an insurance matter. I think if someone’s driving 100 mph and causes a lot of damage, they probably should be responsible for however much of that is reasonably assessed to be due to their indulgence, and that especially if they have the means to pay for it, they should, and the insurance & legal status quo should probably be adjusted to improve that situation.

But that does not require illegalizing everyone everywhere from ever going over 100 mph. It also doesn’t require helmets or seatbelts or airbags – at most, from my perspective, it calls for insurance reform, which is a larger and more important problem.

(Child safety seats have a somewhat different argument in favor of laws about them – in that it is arguably adding to the danger to a vulnerable child.)

Reading all these comments makes me think of what happened just about five miles from where I live early this morning. There was a head-on collision between a tractor trailer and a passenger vehicle on the interstate. Apparently the driver the passenger vehicle somehow managed to get going in the opposite direction and was driving 100 mph. Miraculously, I don’t think there was any loss of life but there were some very serious injuries. Perhaps the driver was a libertarian?

My sister is not a libertarian, but she refuses to wear her seat belt. I wonder if she’s ever taken the time to think about how it would affect her family, and especially her husband, if she was ever in a fatal crash where wearing her seatbelt would have saved her life.

@LifeQuestioner in my state – Georgia – you can be ticketed (primary offense) for not wearing a seat belt. I would have thought that was the law in all 50 states.

Where does she live?

^^I’m not sure about current laws, but I know in at least one state I lived in you could not be pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt, but if you were pulled over for something else you could have not wearing a seatbelt added on.

In Florida our highway electronic signs sometimes say click it or ticket. So, I’m guessing in FL you can get a ticket just for not wearing a seatbelt. Although, FL has fairly loose laws about kids in safety seats in taxis, ubers, and buses. You can have a baby/child without a car seat legally in “public” transportation in FL.

@elbanditoroso In NY, the law says you have to wear a seatbelt and everyone that I know does, but it’s something that’s hard to enforce unless a cop is actually looking at you (like for a traffic stop) so some people may not wear it, for various reasons (they don’t believe in it, they’re overweight, it will wrinkle their clothes, etc.). Helmet laws are easier to enforce because it’s easy to see whether or not a motorcycle rider has a helmet on. In CT, helmets are not required. I think riding a motorcycle without a helmet is sheer lunacy, but what do I know.

@Zaku The insurance issue actually does fall into this same situation. There was a period, before insurance was mandatory, where people were driving without insurance. And there was an increasing number of cases where someone would be driving too fast or driving drunk or whatever that would cause an accident. The people they hit were suddenly in a situation where they might be hurt or they might have no car any longer and they had to foot the bill. The driver with no insurance usually had little to no money. This goes back to Libertarians wanting people to allow everyone the freedoms of control over their own lives without impacting the freedom of someone else. Allowing someone to drive without insurance because they don’t want it was negatively impacting others.

But I’m with you on seat belts. If I don’t want to wear a seat belt when I drive, who am I impacting other than myself? No one.

@jca2 ”...riding a motorcycle without a helmet is sheer lunacy,”

Many think it is lunacy to ride a motorcycle with or without a helmet.

@zenvelo True dat.

Without a helmet the asphalt will shave off your face like a cheese grater.

@seawulf575 Yes, I know, that’s what some parts of auto insurance coverage (the legally required “liability” coverage”, and the “underinsured motorist [crashing into you]” coverage parts) are about.

Those are attempts to address the issues you mentioned. I would prefer other solutions, and to not have a law requiring purchasing insurance.

I am not pro-mayhem, and I am not against there being some laws to address those issues, but the laws I would prefer would be about the consequences of doing damage.

That is, I think there should be severe penalties for actually doing damage, and if driving over an advisory speed limit, that might be considered evidence that the driver was more culpable than otherwise.

And as I wrote before, people who are actually doing something dangerous or problematic, should be detained and possibly fined for doing that.

But I don’t think requiring paying private for-profit insurance companies is a good thing to ever require by law.

And I have not advocated dangerous driving. All my posts have been about speed limits that are too low, which they often are. They should also take into account the car being driven – if it’s safe to drive a mobile home or land yacht someplace at 30 mph, it’s probably safe to drive a high performance car there at at least 45 mph, unless there’s a blind corner or something.

@Zaku The problem with no insurance and having people pay severe penalties for doing damage and paying for the damage that they do is that a lot of people don’t or won’t have the funds to pay. If someone has no insurance and they hit you, and you end up with a 100k medical bill or a 500k medical bill, most people can’t pay that. So the other driver (the one who hit you) now has to pay your bill, or pay you back, and he can’t, because most people don’t have 500k to spare, now what? Or he wrecks your car and it’s 40k to replace it, and he doesn’t have 40k, now what? So if he’s fined, in addition to owing you a new car or a huge medical bill, what does that do for the people he harmed, or if he loses driving privileges until he can pay you back, now what? Now if he loses his job because he can’t drive, he really can’t pay you back.

You could seek a judgement against him, but as an attorney told me once (when a drunk driver hit my parked car), “You can wallpaper your wall with judgements but you can’t make him pay.”

Edit to add that the drunk driver had no insurance.

Can’t get blood from a turnip. Or someone with the intelligence of a turnip.

@jca2 Yes, that is a problem with the current system. Yes, it is used as a justification for a law that everyone who wants to drive a car (which US community design tends to penalize not having) required to regularly pay the insurance industry for liability insurance, and feel like they ought to also pay for underinsured motorist insurance.

And by the way, why are those medical bills quite possibly that high? The US insurance industry’s stranglehold on how medical billing and malpractice insurance works in the USA.

What’s the answer? Change the system. How much does the insurance industry profit each year in the USA? That’s how much society has to gain from reorganizing itself so that it isn’t in a position to drive up costs and profiteer on managing everyone else’s risks.

@Zaku you say “change the system”. Fine.

How,? Realistically.

Too much $$ and too many politicians have been bribed.

By whatever means necessary. Most of those politicians are corrupt, and much of the public knows it. The will of the people is there. Some actual democracy needs to happen. Eventually it will, at the very least, after the system implodes from its own unsupportability.

I would change that doctors, hospitals, and diagnostic centers MUST know fees at the time a patient is getting a procure done and none of this bullshit where the doctor tells you to call your insurance to find out and then the insurance tells you to ask the doctor. The way to take care of that is not letting charges be HUGELY different depending on whether it is medicare, self pay, or insurance. Especially not having these completely fake charges billed to insurance and quoted to patients like that is the real amount. Don’t quote $2,000 when in the end it will be knowcked down to $600..

Just recently my husband needed an mri and it was more for us to go through insurance than self-pay,and actually they “wrongly” quoted me the medicare price, which was around HALF of self-pay or insurance, and young woman at the desk when we got there said we have to pay the higher price. I said so because of my age or my insurance or lack there of, I get charged a higher price, plus your billing department quoted me the lower price and that is why I am here and not somewhere else. She was in the mode of tough luck. Right in front of her I called billing again and they quoted me the lower price again! I didn’t even mention that initially the staff told my husband he has to go through insurance or it is fraud. TOTAL LIE. They wound up giving us the lower price, but of course now it has to be uncomfortable for us at that diagnostic center.

For sure the insurance industry does not give a shit about the mental stress they cause.

My colonscopy was $2,500 with insurance that I would actually have to pay (something close to that) or $750 self-pay. That is so disgusting to me for two reasons. One, is obvious from what I wrote here, the other is that my colonscopies are preventative, not routine, I have had polyps since my 30’s and a very high risk of colon cancer. My colonoscopies probably save the insurance company a fortune by preventing me from getting cancer, and yet they are discouraging me from getting it done by not covering it.

Actually, I want to change the whole system to a more socialized system, but if we have to live with what we basically have now, we have to do something to stop the gouging and to stop the drastic fee difference and “secret” billing.

@elbanditoroso oh, it’s a law in our state but my sister simply does not care.