lower seatbelt use, higher drunk driving, more speeding.

I blame our cultural sense of individualism and it creating a sense of having a right to ignore the rules when we want. It's everywhere. You see it in the soccer mom taking a cartful of groceries to the express check-out demanding to be served because she doesn't want to wait in line. You see it in young computer users who torrent television shows or video games because they don't want to pay full price for entertainment. You see it in the rich who store their wealth in tax havens. We have tabloids about celebrities with substance abuse or marital problems. We have whole genres of heroes who flaunt authority from comic book characters who engage in vigilante justice to cowboys, soldiers, and cops who decide to take matters into their own hands. We not only engage and celebrate in this behavior, but we always seem to find ways to justify it.

So what do we get from that? We get the sense that rules, even ones that are there to protect us and keep us from harming ourselves and each other, can be pushed, bent, broken, and worked around. Use you're seatbelt cause it's safe. Don't speed cause speeding is dangerous. Don't drink and drive because it's super dangerous. Don't expect those rules to apply to you though, cause you're an American, you can do what you want. Then when someone tells you no, punishes you, or heaven forbid something disastrous happens, you get to play the outrage/entitlement/victim card.

/rant