Excerpted from the Star Tribune:
If you heard a clicking noise around midnight, it may have been the sound of Minnesotans fastening their seat belts.
Starting today, drivers can be pulled over if they or their passengers are not buckled in. Under the old law, officers had to have another reason for stopping a vehicle, then could issue tickets for unbelted occupants.
The revised law, which includes a $25 fine, was passed in the recent legislative session and signed last month by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
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The busy bodies are at it again; saving us from ourselves with the aid and support of a Republican governor no less. Now, there are a plethora of reasons to oppose seatbelt laws and even more to oppose the recently signed one in Minnesota which makes it a primary offense. Consider that under primary enforcement:
1. Your vehicle can be stopped anytime, day or night, by the police merely under suspicion a seat belt is not being used. And even if mistaken, once the vehicle is stopped the officer can begin routine interrogation and testing – force occupants to exit – visually check out the contents of the inside of the vehicle looking for any kind of a violation of the law, all without the right of legal counsel; all under the pretense of not using a seat belt.
2. Primary enforcement encourages the use of random roadblocks. In a 1994 statewide campaign, North Carolina conducted 2,038 roadblocks in just two weeks under the pretext of checking for seat belt use. In spite of further use of random roadblocks that year, which the governor boasted increased seat belt use to 80%, total highway fatalities actually increased in the state for 1994 over the record of each of the preceding 3 years.
3. If not using a seat belt, you could be stopped for a minor traffic violation that otherwise would be ignored if using a seat belt. You may also be targeted because of a bumper sticker, your license plate, your age, race, or gender. Primary enforcement opens the door for police harassment, stalking, intimidation and profiling. Young people, women, and minorities are vulnerable, especially when traveling alone and at night, or in certain neighborhoods.
4. You are subject to an officer’s misinterpretation of your answers, your attitude, or what the officer sees in your vehicle. You could become the victim of a corrupt act, such as planting drugs in your vehicle by an officer. You could be accused of using drugs because the cash in your possession has the odor of drugs. Officers can confiscate your cash and vehicle if there is some drug residue without proving you knew about or caused the residue to be there. Courts have recognized most currency in circulation has some discernible drug residue. It is reported that 80% of the assets confiscated by law enforcement do not lead to a criminal charge, but only a small percent is ever returned. Confiscation of assets has become a lucrative business for some police agencies and offers big incentives to increase roadblocks and speed traps.
5. Some states issue a seat belt violation fine against the driver even if the driver is using a seat belt but a passenger is not, and even if the driver did not know about it. Drivers, therefore, could easily become distracted while driving by a constant watch of passengers, both adults and children in the rear seat.
6. Primary enforcement is an easy way to enhance state revenue through fines. Also, additional income comes from the federal government in the form of grants (bribes) to pay the police to enforce the seat belt law. Such grants are used by the police as lucrative overtime pay while enforcing the seat belt law, which is why the police support primary enforcement laws. Such lucrative overtime pay helps relieve pressure for a police salary increase. And in some areas where job performance standards include a citation quota, seat belt violations offer easy compliance.
7. Some insurance companies target seat belt law violations as an excuse to increase rates even for drivers without an accident or moving violation record. In fact, even if you habitually use a seat belt but forget just once, that might be the time an officer stops your vehicle, thus your driving record is unjustly marred.
8. Some states level points against a driver’s license for not using a seat belt in addition to a fine, which means a person is being punished twice for the same offense. Also, it means a driver’s license could eventually be suspended for repeated offenses even if the driver has been a careful driver for years with no accident or moving traffic violation.
9. If you are medically exempted from seat belt use, your vehicle could still be stopped since an officer cannot know until you are stopped. This applies to drivers who are using a seat belt but a passenger is not using one because of an exemption. Even with a medical exemption, once the vehicle is stopped, the officer can begin routine interrogation, testing and visually looking for any kind of a violation of the law. Persons with medical exemptions are also subject to being stopped repeatedly during any travel route by other officers along the way. Also, providing an officer with your confidential medical records and exemption is a violation of your right of privacy.
10. Primary enforcement is promoted as saving lives, however, stopping vehicles for non-seat belt use is only an excuse to arbitrarily and capriciously accuse people of traffic violations of one kind or another, thus issuing citations as a means of easily increasing revenue, as well as providing easy lucrative overtime income for the police. Primary enforcement has nothing to do with saving lives; has all to do with revenue enhancement at the expense of fleecing the motoring public.
11. While seat belt law supporters want the public to believe that passing a primary enforcement law will reduce highway fatalities, the government’s own 1998 report documented just the opposite. In the federal publication "Traffic Safety Facts 1998," under the heading "Occupant Protection," is the following information:
"A 1995 NHTSA study, Safety Belts Use Laws: An Evaluation of Primary Enforcement and Other Provisions, indicates that states with primary enforcement safety belt laws achieved significantly higher belt use than did those with secondary enforcement laws. The analysis suggests that belt use among fatality injured occupants was at least 15 percent higher in states with primary enforcement laws."
In other words, while primary enforcement does increase forced seat belt use, there is also a 15 percent increase in fatalities as compared with states with secondary enforcement laws. That is, the very purpose of forcing seat belt use is defeated by an increase in highway fatalities in states with primary enforcement laws according to this study.
Politicians have no authority to willingly and knowingly force some people to maim or kill themselves in some traffic accidents just because they hope others will be saved in other accidents merely by chance. The Constitution forbids the government from taking chances with a person’s body, the ultimate private property. The government has no right to play Russian roulette with a person’s life.
Also, the fact is, not one penny of the hundreds of millions of tax dollars spent in support of seat belt laws since 1985 has ever prevented even one accident. Conversely, because we feel safer wearing our seat belts, studies have shown that we tend to drive more recklessly. This is known as "risk compensation,." which is covered in more details in the 1995 book, "Risk" by Dr. John Adams.
The hundreds of millions of tax dollars spent on seat belt law support and enforcement would be better spent on road improvements and repairs. "The Road Information Program" (TRIP), a Washington, D.C. non-profit organization, estimated that every $100 million invested in highway safety improvements would result in approximately 145 fewer traffic fatalities over a 10 year period.
In a free society, if a person is injured or killed in a traffic accident because he/she freely choose to use or not to use a seat belt, that is a personal tragedy, as it is with all other kinds of freely chosen risks in a person’s employment, recreation and daily life. That is freedom working. However, if a person is injured or killed in a traffic accident because the government forced that person to use a seat belt, that is tyranny working, and reflects injury and death by government.
The insidious nature of seat belt laws is further shown in the April 2001 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court which foolishly ruled that it is legal for a police officer to arrest, handcuff and jail a woman for not using a seat belt in the Atwater/Lago Vista (Texas) case, including impounding her vehicle.
So, as the march of tyrrany continues to trample freedom, you'd better get in and fasten your seatbelts kids....it's going to be a bumpy ride.
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