There are plenty of laws about how to operate a moving vehicle. From the speed of travel to safe lane changes, and even how closely you should follow another vehicle. There are also constructs for you while inside your car, including no texting or distracted driving, and you must always wear a seatbelt. My question is "how is wearing a seatbelt affecting any other drivers, besides myself?" Forcing an adult to comply to the seat belt law is like telling an adult they can only listen to talk radio. Just because I am an adult doesn’t mean I always want to do the responsible thing. Sometimes I want to crank up the rap and get a little wild and crazy. And that occassionally means not buckling up.
There are several degrees to which the seat belt law, click it or ticket as it has been coined, is enforced in varying states. Utah adheres to the primary enforcement for individuals up to 19 years old. This allows officers to stop a vehicle if they see an a child, up to age 18, unrestrained in a vehicle. Also, children up to age eight must be in a car seat or booster seat, in addition to being buckled. The secondary enforcement in Utah applies to persons 19 and older, this means an officer can only ticket for the seat belt violation if another infraction has occurred first. The ticket can be issued in the amount of up to $45 for lack of seat belt use.
Not wearing a seat belt should be a personal freedom. The natural consequence for not wearing a seat belt should remain within the confines of gravity and inertia; bodily harm or death, but not a monetary fine. The usage of seat belts is not my contention with seat belt laws. My contention is that the government should not dictate the use of seat belts. The seat belt law assumes that motorists are not aware of the benefits of seat belt use and are unable to make correct decisions regarding their own personal safety in vehicles.
The National Motorists Association's, Eric Skrum, contends that allowing enforcement laws which dictate seat belt use directly violates of legislation's responsibility is to "do no harm." He argues that there is an abundant amount of evidence that in certain accidents, individuals survived only because they were NOT wearing a seat belt. "In 30% of fatal accidents, where a person is ejected from the vehicle, the person remaining in the vehicle is the fatality." Thus, he reiterates that if someone chooses to wear or not wear a seat belt and is injured or killed, it is a "personal tragedy." Where, on the other hand, if the person is injured or killed because the government required them to wear the seat belt against their own consciousness, it is an unforgivable disaster. The government is not meant to protect us from ourselves.
Seat belt laws started being passed in 1985, though there had attempts to pass them for 10 years prior. In 1984, "then-Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole promised to rescind the rule that required automakers to install passive restraints (air bags) by 1990 if states representing two-thirds of the U.S. population passed seat-belt laws by April, 1, 1989." Since auto makers did not want the expense of developing and implementing air bags, they began to lobby for the seat belts instead. The auto makers created the lobby Traffic Safety Now (TSN) and by 1992 had spent $93 million in an effort to pass the seat belt laws. Even the government added grants to states that reached certain levels of seat belt use to pay for enforcement of the law. Some states wouldn't allow the primary seat belt enforcement, but the option of secondary enforcement was permitted. Then, once the law was in place, the lobbying continued to whittle away at law, which added higher fines, included all occupants, and changed some to primary enforcement. After all the TSN did to pass the seat belt law, the air bags were eventually required as well. But, unfortunately our freedom of choice regarding seat belts is now gone.
The seat belt laws violate our rights as American citizens. This intrusion by the government into our personal daily lives is an example of how important it is to hold our elected officials accountable. Our elected officials were able to sell their vote on the seat belt law and we are the ones that suffer now that our inalienable right to choose stripped from us. Click it or ticket is the reality we live with, each time we get in our cars.
No comments:
Post a Comment