Wednesday, January 12, 2005

First Darwin Award Candidate of the Year

An editorial in the September 17, 2004, issue of the Daily Nebraskan entitled "Individual Rights Buckle Under Seat Belt Laws" argued against mandatory seat belt laws, observing that,

"As laws become increasingly strict for seat belts, fewer people will respond positively by buckling up in response to the laws. There seems to be a die-hard group of non-wearers out there who simply do not wish to buckle up no matter what the government does. I belong to this group."

The author of this piece was one Derek Kieper, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I use the past tense advisedly: The January 4, 2005, edition of the Lincoln Journal Star reports that Mr. Kieper was killed in a car accident and that the mishap in which his life was so cruelly taken was precisely the sort of accident in which seat belts have proved so effective in saving life. Kieper, who was a back seat passenger, was thrown from the car, which travelled off the road and rolled over several times in a ditch. The two other passengers in the vehicle sustained non-life-threatening injuries. Captain Joe Lefler of Lancaster County Sheriff's Office reported that they were both wearing seat belts.

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