No one with any sense disagrees with the proposition that people should wear seat belts when they’re driving – the statistics on deaths and severity of injuries are overwhelming.
But people can, and do, reasonably disagree on whether the police should be able to pull over a driver on “suspicion” that the driver isn’t wearing a seat belt (right now you can be ticketed for not wearing a seat belt, but only if you were pulled over for some other reason). The debate on a “primary” seat belt law has been kicking around this state for years, and it’s now rearing its ugly head yet again.
Putting aside for the moment the philosophical debates on whether a primary seat belt law is a good idea, isn’t there a huge practical problem here? How in the world are the cops going to know that a driver of a moving vehicle isn’t wearing a seat belt? Maybe if they’re both stopped at a red light, the cop could peek into the next car over and pull an unbelted driver over, but failing that unusual circumstance, how is this thing supposed to be enforced?
Seems to me it’s more likely that we’ll see supposedly “suspected” violations of the seat belt law being used to justify stops that were really based on some other suspicion. Especially when certain characteristics of the person being stopped don’t match the demographics of the area in which the stop occurred. If you catch my drift. The Globe reports that Rep. Byron Rushing is trying to attach an amendment to the bill that would impose recordkeeping requirements to avoid that problem, but one has to ask whether it’s really worth it in light of the difficulty in enforcement and the risk of unfortunate consequences.
Anyway, why is the current penalty for failing to use a seat belt ($25) so low? If we really want to encourage seat belt use, why not just crank the fine up to $100? Seems to me a bigger fine is a much more effective way to encourage compliance than making failure to buckle up a primary offense, and it won’t set off a big ruckus over something that’s not that big a deal. Plus, a bigger fine raises more revenue!
. . . this law is problematic strictly from a civil liberties perspective. Remember, once a person is pulled over, there are a million things that can justify a police officer in getting the driver out of the car and searching both driver and car (furtive movements, nervousness, presence of passengers, fact that stop happens in a high-crime area, time of day, etc.). If the police can pull anyone over because they suspect he isn’t wearing a seatbelt, they can always later claim they felt a legitimate risk to their safety that justified a search of the car. It’s a failproof pretext that allows searches without reasonable suspicion.
On the spot. That should solve the problem, and result in far fewer driving deaths. It would be for the drivers’ own good, after all. A bit tough, perhaps, for those actually executed, but there would probably be relatively few of these given the strictness of the penalty. Many lives would be saved.
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Absurd. People who do not wear seatbelts get satisfaction from their decision to drive unbelted. Whatever injury they do is primarily to themselves. They should be allowed to do as they please — however inadvisable. (And let’s not start down the “we all pay for health care argument.” If the health care system is the problem, we should address it directly).
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Massachusetts voters rejected a primary seat belt law similar to this proposal in 1986.
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What’s next? Motorcycles, perhaps, then rock climbing and parachuting. Here are the risks.
this bill just gives police one more reason to pull suspsicious people. as someone who grew up in a small town I can say without a doubt the police don’t need anymore reasons. As a teenager the police (who had nothing else to do) would target young people for pullover hoping to catch them with drugs, drinking, etc…Now, I never had anything to hide but I was pulled over on several occasions for minor, VERY minor trafffic offenses like a side light, etc…This isn’t meant to be a woe is me example but merely a window into how this law can be applied. I can’t even imagine how it can be applied based on race, etc…
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That all being said I really, honestly feel that the majority of police are well trained professionals who don’t take part in such tricks but there is a big enough majority that we should be concerned.
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and…good point bob. there’s a HUGE opportunity for the House on health care so why are they focusing on seat belts?
Seriously, why did this issue come up now? Why aren’t we dealing with health care, or identity theft or education reform and instead are curtailing civil liberties in the name of saving lives? Yes, I believe that seat belts save lives (particularly if you have an airbag in your car), and as such we should promote their use, rather than give cops an excuse to pull people over.
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What happens if you are someone who has an implantable cardioveter defibrillator and can’t wear a seat belt like a gentleman I met last night? He’s going to have to carry a note from his doctor (!!!) to give to the cop who stops him. And quite possibly will have to go to court to contest some of these tickets.
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Or what if a cop pulls you over because he thinks you don’t have your seat belt on and in fact you did? Can he search your car now? Make you walk outside and touch your nose? Pester your passengers? I’m not a lawyer but I’m willing to bet the answer is “you betcha.” Ridiculous. I hope (but don’t expect) the Senate is a little more reasonable about this and defeats this bill.
Unlikely that they’ll block it – according to the Globe today, the Senate has passed similar bills several times in recent years. The obstacle has always beeen the House.
And Romney sounds like he’s going to sign it. So much for the ‘Goalie’ theory of the Massachusetts Governor.