I lit another vigil candle this morning.
A 20 year old girl is dead, among seven to die in two accidents this morning. Preventable deaths. Vehicular homicides.
In both accidents, the drunk drivers were wearing their seat belts – and they lived.
Their teenage or twenty year old passengers, including my daughter’s boyfriend’s twenty year old sister…
WERE NOT WEARING SEAT BELTS AND DIED. The police report says “potential vehicular homicide”.
How about a $200.00 fine for being in a moving vehicle with a passenger who is not wearing a seatbelt?
We would make money for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts [maybe dedicate that money to pay for Driver’s Education Classes?]
AND save lives. You can bet the life of someone you know on that!!!
All I could do was light a vigil candle, hold my daughter as she cried after talking to her crying boyfriend, after she spoke with his crying mother…and write this post.
One of you legislators who read this site, how about filing such a bill and calling it, “Anna’s Law”???
would not only save lives, it would bring in nearly $14 million from the feds. But hey, we didn’t need that money anyway, right?
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p>MA’s peculiar resistance to this rather mild law, already in force in more than half the states, is hard to fathom. And our seatbelt usage is apparently the lowest in the country (67%, while the national average is 83%).
My kids have never, not once in their lives, been in a moving vehicle without a seatbelt. For all the difficulties I have had being firm enough to teach them to pick up their rooms [sigh] that one thing was a no brainer and I have been consistent.
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p>Thank you David for just maybe helping save at least one life.
I thought Montana was for rugged individualists! Maybe in Montana they realize even if the driver is a g#!damn drunk if you are that drunk’s passenger, a seatbelt might just save your life.
what an incredibly painful loss.
To you, your daughter and her boyfriend and all of her family. I read this almost exactly a year to the hour of when I learned of Lori’s death. I’ve been thinking a lot about death and friendship today. Thank you again for the support you gave me and Lori’s friends when she died. I hope that we can support you and your family the same way.
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p>In sympathy,
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p>Kate Donaghue
I mean it, Kate. This was a senseless, preventable, stupid death, more than almost any such.
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p>It is shameful, truly shameful that our state has the lowest rate of seat belt use of the 50 states! Imagine – worse then Alaska or Montana!!!
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p>This must be changed.
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p>Sen. Jehlen has a bill timely filed that would save lives, and might have saved Anna’s life.
It helped me to come to Springfield, collect trash [’cause I brought trash bags] and be as supportive in concrete, tangible ways as I could.
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p>In THIS case while I hadn’t spent any time or energy on supporting a primary seat belt law, well, getting a primary seat belt law passed has moved up onto my “Top Ten” – I hope you and many here will now pay attention to and support this particular change. Actively.
When I get pulled over (not that it happens often), I get my license and registration in-hand because I know what’s going to happen. Say I unbuckle my seatbelt to get my wallet out. Can the officer cite me for not wearing a seatbelt because as far as he knew, it wasn’t on the whole time?
I did the same thing one time – I always wear my seat belt but I took it off to get my wallet and registration as the officer was approaching (just wanted to be prepared!). Of course, he notices I am not wearing my belt. I told him I had just taken it off and luckily he believed me, but he could easily have cited me if he wanted to.
In order to be cited for not wearing a seatbelt, the officed must observe you “operating the vehicle.” It can’t be for not wearing it while pulled over or just because “as far as he knew it wasn’t on the whol time.”
in the drivers seat, with the keys in the ignition… I’d bet that “counts”.
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p>After all, try this:
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p>1. Get roaring drunk.
2. Park outside your police station.
3. Sit in the drivers seat.
4. Put the keys in the ignition but don’t start the car.
5. Fasten your seat belt.
6. Lower the windows.
7. Start singing drinking songs, complete with slur.
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p>Think you’ll get a drunk driving charge? I’d bet you do.
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p>Extra credit if you keep an ice cold six pack on the front seat, unopened of course.
A person “operates” a motor vehicle who, when in the vehicle, “intentionally does any act or makes use of any mechanical or electrical agency” of the vehicle which, alone or in sequence, will set the vehicle in motion or “driv[e] the vehicle under the power of the motor machinery.” Commonwealth v. Ginnetti, 400 Mass. 181, 183-184 (1987), quoting Commonwealth v. Uski, 263 Mass. 22, 24 (1928).
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p>Without starting the car, you could likely take all seven steps and not be convicted of drunk driving. Anyone can be “charged” with anything at any time under any circumstances. Doesn’t mean you violated the law or that a conviction is likely.
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p>A caveat?: Under your scenario, you could be arrested for “operating” the car while drunk but only if the police had reason to suspect you drove the car there before you parked outside the police station. This might or might not be hard to prove byond a reasonable doubt. Also, of course, you would be arrested for disturbing the peace, public drunkeness, etc, etc.
…you should be making every effort as the officer approaches your car to reassure him/her that he/she is not about to be shot with the handgun you might be fumbling for in your glove compartment. I open the window, then sit motionless, with my seat belt fastened and both hands on the wheel in full view, until instructed to do anything. You’ll never get a ticket for not already having your license and registration out, and you can’t get cited for not wearing your seat belt if you leave it on.
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p>In fact, the last time, as part of the “I’m going to do you a favor…” part of the transaction, the officer said, “I see you have your seat belt on; that’s good.” Just a word to the wise.
Everyone should wear seat belts.
I wear ’em in the front seat, but not always in the back seat. Don’t know why either… that’s just how I roll.
says cops shouldn’t be able to pull people over for what they think, as you’re driving 60 past them, is car with a person that’s not wearing a seat belt. The realist inside me says that such a law would, as its done in other states, increase by 20% the amount of people who wear seat belts. It would be nice if we could just legalize the installation of a device placed under every seat that could detect if someone was in that seat and either create an annoying sound that won’t go away until it’s buckled, or won’t even let the car start. IMHO that’s the best solution — and shouldn’t cost too much to add to a car, especially if mass produced.
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p>Sorry for this loss. These deaths are just a tragedy.
The front seats in my car do that. They have a weight sensor that decides whether someone is sitting there, and if someone’s there but the belt isn’t buckled, it starts beeping after a few seconds. I don’t think it does that for the back, but there’s no reason the same device couldn’t be added.
They’ve gone through several variations, but what you describe is pretty much universal. We had a car with the ignition interlock Ryan describes. It was horrible. The sensors kept failing…
The Yahoos would buckle up, start the car, then unbuckle.
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p>THIS is not a civil liberties issue. This is a public safety issue.
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p>Plus, according to Senator Jehlen accidents and injuries due to the abysmal failure to wear seatbelts in our state cost Massachusetts 260 Million a YEAR as well as almost 14 million in matching funds.
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p>Is the right to act like an idiot in public really WORTH 274 million dollars?
Back in the mid-70’s federal rules demanded an interlock that prevented the car from starting if the seatbelt was not fastened. Many people got into their cars, buckled their seatbelts underneath them, (there was a weight sensor) and drove off.
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p>As this was something else to go wrong, it was able to send a lot of mechanics kids through college. I do remember my Plymouth would occasionally stop on Rt 128 until, still neatly wrapped in my seatbelt, I shimmied. “Oh, the best laid plans…”
Is there any reason besides laziness that people don’t buckle up? If people are going to take the trouble to buckle their belts underneath them, they might as well buckle the belts around them. They’re not THAT tight and uncomfortable, are they?
is most people wouldn’t do that with a law today; it’s a different era, when everyone is used to having seat belts. There will always, however, be a small group of people who refuse to abide by common-sense rules, no matter how easy we make it for them. We can’t not enforce practical rules because some people will break them.
at least 10% still won’t wear seat belts. There’s always, unfortunately, going to be some yahoos. I think a lot of the time people may forget. Such devices would make it so they couldn’t forget. Furthermore, anyone who’s not a yahoo and actually puts the seat belt on probably won’t take it off — and most, thankfully, aren’t yahoos.
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p>In order to solve problems like this, there isn’t any one solution. It’s important to take the steps that make the most sense and bring about the biggest results. I think a sensor system would work, especially for all the devious little children out there who like to try to trick their drivers into thinking they have seat belts on (like my little brother (I can still call him that for a tiny bit longer), when he was younger).
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p>I’d like to see what we’d get for results should we pass that law, requiring weighted sensors of some kind for all seats in the car. Maybe that gets us to where the better states are at, in terms of numbers buckling up, without having to put our civil liberties at risk.
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p>Note: I’m not trying to get this state to act like an idiot on public policy. I want to get to the point where every single somewhat rational human being in this state buckles up, and then some, but I think there are serious reasons why we should be worried about giving police the power to pull someone over because they don’t think the driver’s buckled up. It’s right up there with the law that allows drivers to be pulled over for hanging air freshener from their rear-view mirror. Have you ever been pulled over for that? I doubt it. I haven’t either. I’ve known two black classmates at college who were, though — and then ended up having their entire cars searched (for no good reason, finding nothing). Can we get to the 90+% promise land using more carrot approaches, that don’t risk civil liberties? I think so.
I feel very much saddened when people are killed such a way. I always wear a seatbelt and demand my passengers do. We have M.G.L – Chapter 90, Section 13A and if the purpose is to get money, bring the fines up to thousands of dollars or just increase everyone’s taxes. If the purpose of the law is to lower these senseless deaths, then the law fails – and so will similar laws.
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p>I’ve known three young people. All went to driving school. In different schools. What did they tell me about driving school? Well, you go there, sit down, attendance is taken and you go on “smoke break”. When you come back, a movie with a chase scene is shown. (Goodfellas, French Connection, etc.) “Smoke break.” Safety is a non-issue. The instructor lectures about his personal life, yada, yada, yawn. “Smoke break.” The time is eventually used up and you get to go home. Essentials are only covered so that you pass the test. Many years ago there was a plan to driving schools. When the highway system came about there were public service advertisements explaining how the drive. (“When your eyes leave the road, you’re looking for trouble”, “Don’t back up on a limited access highway.”)
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p>If driver training is about training drivers, and not helping with their insurance rates, why not have the schools reviewed and checked to ensure they follow a training plan that covers safety? If we can use advertising to sell anything to people, why not safety?
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p>As far as enforcement of the seatbelt law, I was pulled over for wearing a seatbelt in a small Massachusetts town. I had heard of their little trick. They then ask for your license and registration. If you unbuckle your seatbelt to go for the registration in the glovebox, you get a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. My registration was in the visor. Pulled it down, the cop never looked at it; “Get outta here.”
Amber the $200 fine for anybody in a moving vehicle is not wearing a seat belt is crazy on its face. It is not my job as a passenger in a car to ensure that every other passenger wears a seatbelt. And as my response states, MBTA buses and trains and trolleys don’t have seat belts.
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p>This could solve all our problems even without a fare increase.
Also, I’m pretty sure the fine was for the driver rather than other passengers. It’s certainly reasonable for the driver to assume responsibility for the passengers buckling up. I for one refuse to move the car until my passengers are buckled and never carry more passengers than I have seat belts for.
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p>So her idea isn’t for the driver, it is for all people in the car.
I think Christopher is probably right, but will of course defer to her. I suggest you do the same.
Why don’t you explain why you’re opposed to seatbelt laws?
The driver…controls.
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p>The size of the driver’s fine is related to the number of passengers not wearing seatbelts.
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p>I won’t start a car until everyone is buckled. If anyone unbuckles, I pull over until they do. Just ask my kids.
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p>No driver need move until or unless all passengers are buckled; the buck and the fine stop with the driver.
that is not what you wrote and multiple people who read your comment that I talked to and emailed me thought what I wrote is what you meant. Because that’s the way you phrased the sentence. You did not say driver, you said “$200 fine for being in a vehicle” While I don’t agree I can see the point for your clarification. The way your statement was phrased was and is crazy. I’m glad to see that you don’t want to fine everybody in the car.
It’s a blog post, not a Talmudic text. What Amber meant was perfectly obvious to anyone with any common sense.
I lost a dear friend on a beautiful spring Sunday morning who was going to visit his friend when a drunk going the wrong way on the highway (it was mid-morning – the drunk was still cocked) killed him. The drunk survived.
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p>We wear seats belts; why children on school buses are not protected with the use of seat belts needs to be included in this discussion, how bizarre is that?
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p>Blessings for peace and strength.
The buses are constructed that the seats provide the protection for the child. Studies show that seat belts would increase the chance of injury. From the Canada Safety Council:
I’m really sorry to read this. But I’m upset no one seems to be addressing the issue of drunk driving- could have been even more preventable than just seat belts.
But the fact is, if you buckle your seat belt, and the Drunken Moron driving the car gets into an accident, you are way more likely to live – despite the Drunken Yahoo at the wheel.
And, per today’s papers, multiple driving under the influence. That is really unfortunate.
…I was spinning out of control on a snowy highway (not drinking, just forgot for a second how to drive in the snow) and hit the oncoming truck head-on. I was wearing my seat-belt/shoulder strap and the airbags engaged. No a scratch on me…all this nanny state BS about seat belt laws defies common-sense. Not wearing seat belts defies common sense and if you lack that common sense, then you need a f’ing nanny.
Frank – THANKS for that first person story aboutr hitting a tractor trailor head on but walking away without a scratch ’cause you had your seat belt on!
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p>I rolled a Datsun into a ditch to avoid hitting a cat, had my seat belt on, and even though the cat ran in front of me and the car folled down an embankment like a barrel I walked away fine.
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p>The cat, of course, was long gone.
Bad proofing again.
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p>But really, doesn’t it shame anyone else here that our state has the LOWEST rate of seat belt compliance of all 50 states?
Here is the link: http://www.bostonherald.com/ne…
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p>For sure, THIS is not the reason any parent would like to have to see their child on the front page.
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p>I note that the coverage does note that these young adults might well have lived – they were expelled from the car at the crash into the tree only due to not wearing their seat belts.
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p>Even if the driver is a drunk who, arguably, is solely responsible for the crash, if a passenger is belted, they can walk away from a resultant crash.
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p>Shameful, really, that our local culture is so anti-seat belt.
Trying to define it so won’t make it easier to get more people to buckle up. It’s true we need to do more, but 67% of Massachusetts wears a seat belt – about the rate of us that voted for the Democrat in November, and we called that a massive victory. We’re 13% from the national average (I think it’s around 80%). We can make up that ground quickly.
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p>Hopefully, this story can serve as means to help will nudge the State House to enact sensible legislation that gets us there. I think the best thing this state could do would be to enact a sensor system requirement for all seats in new cars. If that doesn’t work, then maybe we need to try a more aggressive/stick approach. We’ve had too many tragedies in this state because people weren’t buckled — there’s no excuses for the state not to act.
In the tragedy that killed Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed, the only person in that car to survive was also the only person wearing a seatbelt. It seems the media glossed over that fact because they didn’t want to be seen as blaming them for their own deaths. I think the paparazzi and the driver were the more immediately guilty myself, but objectively, the results could have been different.
Frankly, I think wearing a seat belt is a no-brainer. My hesitation for this bill would be to surrender whatever legal restrictions exist to police officers randomly pulling over and looking inside private vehicles. As we saw in a recent post, police aren’t always staunch followers of privacy guidelines, and giving law enforcement carte blanche to say they didn’t think I was wearing a seat belt disturbs me.
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p>If there were some way that we could develop this law so that i doesn’t devolve into officers staring into any car at any time for any reason, using the seat belt as cover, I could favor it a lot more easily. As it stands however, we’re looking at trading off lives saved (I don’t know how many will buckle up just because of a legal change) for everybody’s vehicular privacy.
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p>2. If some nosy cop had looked into Jason Spurlin’s vehicle and seen the open beer and intervened, Anna Dubois would probably be alive and I would not have tears in my eyes nor would the Dubois family and my daughter be grieving.
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p>You are correct – some police are not the righteousn guardians we wish all of them were. Any rule potentially has an impact on freedom of choice.
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p>In this state, so many drivers and passages have abused their freedom of choice that more die on our roads then in Iraq or Iran – and the only defense a passenger has if the driver of the car they are in turns out to be a drunk, a moron, or a maniac is to wear their seat belt.
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p>Also, if the driver is financially liable, maybe even the morons, the drunks, and the maniacs guard their wallets. Alexander Hamilton had more faith in targeting the wallet to change behavior than harping on morality – I happen to think Hamilton was right.
I hadn’t realized and I am surprised that such a law would affect peoples’ choices so radically. I am sorrowful for your loss and the loss of your family, and I regret not saying that earlier.
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p>And it is quick work to find occasional or even frequent cases where giving up our personal privacy to government inspection would save lives — that is the debate of everything from wiretapping to seat belt laws. If the FDA were permitted to enter and clean out my kitchen on a regular basis, I’d probably be healthier for it. However, I personally think government should very much help people help themselves, but I tend to proceed cautiously on the idea that government should help people despite themselves.
I think there are. I want to see those laws passed before I surrender my constitutional rights. I would be shocked if a sensor system with horribly annoying, loud sounds wouldn’t be more effective in getting people buckled up than providing cops with the tools to pull over literally anyone they’d want, for whatever reason they’d want, the least of which is public safety. As I said in a previous post, I know two people who have been pulled over for hanging air freshener on their rear-view mirror. Neither of them were white. Such policies are ripe for abuse — there are other policies that could be just as, or more, effective that wouldn’t be ripe for abuse. Let’s pass them, first, and then see where we’re at.
A concern is general privacy, but my concern is the police using the seat belt law to harass black citizens. Driving while black is a very real phenomenon, and while I suppose the police can always make up a reason to pull someone over (not signaling within 100′ of a turn or signaling before 100′ of a turn), I worry about giving police further tools to enforce DWB.
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p>
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p>I wonder: have there been any recent, comprehensive studies within Massachusetts about racial profiling in traffic stops?
but a primary seat belt law goes too far.
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p>It’s like smoking. Who doesn’t know by now it’s deadly? Why should anyone who smokes be issued health insurance? Or life insurance? At least without hefty premium penalties?
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p>Same with helmet laws … bust your head, that’s your problem. Why should I pay?
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p>I say whoever doesn’t buckle up shouldn’t be covered by medical insurance (or maybe have a huge deductible) if they are injured in an accident.
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p>And there should be stiffer penalties (perhaps manslaughter) if you injury someone in your car while you are driving, and the passenger had not buckled up.
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p>People should be able to do what they want to do — the libertarian in me — but I do not want to pay for their folly.
Aren’t you ashamed that more citizens [percentage wise] wear seat belts in EVERY other state then in Massachusetts?
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p>Don’t you think if drivers knew THEY would pay a fine, they would MAKE their passenger’s buckle?
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p>I won’t drive someone who doesn’t wear a seat belt. My kids have never been driven without one.
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p>People injured BECAUSE they weren’t wearing seat belts, according to Pat Jehlen’s office, have cost you and I almost 300 million dollars this year alone.
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p>I like the idea of stiffer penalties for drivers whose passengers were injured or killed due to not wearing seat belts. Any driver can refuse to drive until everyone is buckled. Of course, then that is YOU impacting their liberty, isn’t it?
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p>And it seems I would like to protect morons, knuckleheads, teenagers, and those who just never got into the habit of wearing seat belts from killing themselves through their own stupidity. So at that point, you and I will once again agree to disagree.
Here in Woburn we lost a 20 year old on the West side Friday night. and in my own neighborhood there was a crash on Green Street that shut the street down Friday Night as well. This morning I saw the State Police accident recreation team on the street and the locals had the street closed again while they were there, suggesting to me that another fatality likely took place on our side of town.
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p>This weekend seems, from the Globe, to have been especially sad for far to many families. Certainly sad for the rest of us who are left to grieve and shake our heads at how senseless it all seems to have some one so young snatched away.
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p>I posted this back away to support Senator Pat Jehlen’s attempt to get the primary seat bill passed. Thank you for your comments then and your recommendation for those who may have missed it here is the link
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p>http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/d…
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p>Unfortunately the bill did not get enough support usually because this kind of tragedy has not yet touched enough members to push the legislation through. I will certainly encourage Senator Jehlen to re-file, I suspect she already has if I can get a bill number maybe we need to start calling to support it. Hopefully after the tragedies of this weekend we can avoid such tragic consequences in the future.
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p>Best to your family Deb and our prayers for the family of the young girl and for your daughter who has lost a close friend.
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p>As Usual Just my Opinion
I had a close friend lose a son to not having his seatbelt on… such a senseless tradedy.
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p>It is just common sense to wear one… it is also the law that you wear one.
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p>Blaming legislators for not passing this is just scapegoating. It is on all of us to teach our children to wear them. To insist that they wear them, and that they insist their friends do.
let us all pitch in to advance fascism.