Why Do You Have to Have a Driver’s License and Wear a Seatbelt?

I’m not even going to explain how seatbelt laws get people killed, that this result is all intentional, etc.

I simply mean to ask why our rabbis so enthusiastically endorse all governmental traffic (and other) laws everywhere (even though they arbitrarily change drastically over arbitrary, shifting (read: accidental) State borders) as valid, and how exactly do they apply the laws of the Torah to these violations? In other words, what prohibition exactly is violated by someone driving without a seatbelt? Not endangering others, surely. Safeguarding your own life? Well, what if you are driving slowly? If anything, wearing a seatbelt makes the driver reckless toward others, because he knows he himself is safe (and indeed, it does just that).

And a State enforcing mitzvos? I thought that was Beis Din’s job (relinquished under minimal pressure by the State, by the way).

Here, for example, is an excerpt from Yeshiva World News:

… wearing [seatbelts] is an out and out halachic obligation (See Shaivet HaKhasi Vol. V #241, Menuchas Emes, by Rav Mordechai Gross, Vol. IV #10, Responsa Nuta Gavriel, and Nesivos Chaim by Rav Asher Zelig Mirsky Shaar #2 who cites the aforementioned Poskim).
With all due respect, that list seems short, unsatisfying, unfamiliar and these books a bit inaccessible. Besides, chances are, after I hunt the books down, I will locate the footnote simply saying so in a stern, “Appeal to Authority” voice.
But reportedly, the claim is made unless you follow every little detail, you don’t have any permission to drive from the community, so, including if you don’t have the “New Driver” sign or a license or wear a seatbelt or have a clean car or airbags or if you drank six drops of wine (or any other law soon to be enacted…) you are a “thief” of the public roads.
Now, since when does the State equal the “Tzibbur“?! Private road ownership should be decriminalized posthaste!
But in an accident, the victims receive medical care from public funds. Unfair!
You are right. End government medical welfare…

The whole newfangled idea of licensure for anything at all (like cutting hair!) is just a scam for State revenue. In Japan when tourism went up, litter “drivers” needed to pay for a license, and when tourism went back down, all of a sudden they didn’t. But as anyone knows, a license does not equal mastery. Driving is not like Shechitah where you need permission from a local Rav.

Truth is, there is a big difference between various kinds of vehicles, roads, conditions, climes, and seasons. Of course, if one lacks a license he is highly likely to drive recklessly if approached by a cop, so that alone makes it dangerous to others (overheard).
There is a great deal more to say about all this. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach had his own sevara for obligating seatbelts, too. I hope to find and comment on it.
Not to mention there is no justification in the Poskim for the rest of the “Justice System” for traffic violations, including kidnapping (read: prison), etc.
Let’s just ignore that unimportant detail, shall we??

Some other articles:

  1. How Should the Sanhedrin Save Lives?
  2. Do Seatbelt Laws Kill More People in Total? Maybe Not, but They Do Kill More BYSTANDERS!
  3. Israeli Gun Bureaucracy – Murdering Jews by Proxy
  4. How the ‘Jewish’ State Disarms Its Most Vulnerable Jews
  5. We Need More Arab Bus Drivers…

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