We should have no COVID-19 restrictions... or traffic restrictions

Author's note: This is satire. I don't actually believe any of this. I'd like to think that I don't truly have to explain that, but... that's kind of where we are now.

I’ve been listening to people who are against any government restrictions related to COVID-19 for several months now and, I gotta say, they’re starting to make a lot of sense. In fact, based on their arguments, I’ve come to an important conclusion: we must immediately repeal all traffic laws.

It’s become clear to me that these “rules of the road” are really just another example of egregious, nanny-state government overreach. By tolerating them, we as citizens have just moved, like willing sheep, one step closer to welcoming tyranny.

We must protect our right to drive the way we want to drive. The government should get out of the way and let everyone choose their own level of risk. If you want to stop at every red light or stop sign, fine. But I refuse to live in fear.

For years now we’ve been warned about the dangers of reckless driving. But did you know that only about 40,000 people in the U.S. die in traffic accidents every year? That’s about the same as the flu, and we don’t make people follow a bunch of rules just to prevent the flu.

Besides, the car wreck death count is obviously overinflated. How many of those people had other medical conditions, like obesity, at the time of the crash? A lot of them were probably going to die anyway. I bet doctors are just writing “car accident” on death certificates so they can get kickbacks from trial lawyers who are looking for big paydays suing auto insurance companies. My friend’s co-worker’s uncle knows a nurse who said she saw that happen once.

Most car wrecks aren’t even serious. I bet you didn’t know that, because the fear mongers in the media never show you the thousands of wrecks that are just harmless fender-benders. They concentrate only on the few here and there that end in violent dismemberment and death. So cynical.

Now the “morality police” (and also the actual police) keep telling me I have to wear a seatbelt. I can hardly get in a car with other people without them telling me to put it on. One time I even got pulled over by a cop who warned me that the next time I drove without a seatbelt I might get a ticket. I mean, is this America, or Soviet Russia?

I don’t believe in seatbelts anyway. Sure, a bunch of “experts” say they have “studies” that show they save lives. But where were all those experts in the 1950s? We had cars then, but no seatbelts. And some people who wear seatbelts now still die in car crashes. Really makes you think. Whenever I try to wear a seatbelt it feels like I can't breathe. That's probably the real danger: getting strangled by your seatbelt.

And what’s with all these capacity laws? How is the government going to tell me that I can’t put 11 people in my subcompact car, when there are vans and buses all over the road carrying way more people? How is one safe, but not the other?

Anyway, I’m done listening to the government or blindly trusting the “experts.” If cars had some kind of potentially debilitating condition that they could spread to other cars just by getting close to them, then maybe we would actually need traffic laws. But right now, I just don’t see it.