Guy Campbell proudly asserts that he is unwilling to use a seat belt or similar car restraint in the name of “freedom” and “personal choice” (Jan. 20). I felt somewhat the same way until I took a family road trip through states that required seat belts. Based on those laws, I used them. After several days of using seat belts, I felt unsafe without them in place and have used them since that time.

Hooray for Mr. Campbell and his asserted independence. I have no problem with it as long as he has signed a waiver indemnifying all of us who pay taxes in Maine in a variety of ways from paying his medical and disability bills when some nitwit, through no fault of Mr. Campbell’s, involves him in a car accident that leaves him with serious injuries and in dire financial straits.

Everyone should be allowed to “do their own thing” as long as they are willing to pay their own way. It’s when the taxpayers have to start footing the bill – as always happens when some fool nose-dives off his motorcycle minus a helmet or some independence-minded individual decides a seat belt is “not for me, by God!” that I lose patience. Paying for someone else’s stupidity and foolhardiness gets old very fast.

Just buckle up. Beyond giving up cigarettes, it’s the nicest thing you can do for yourself. In most cases, looking after No. 1 comes down to merely using a bit of common sense.

Marlene R. Shields, Punta Gorda, Fla.

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