Seat Belt Intrusion
Is All About Money

By Michael Bradley

            It’s money, not safety!

               The Massachusetts legislature is expected to vote this week on an effort to upgrade the seat belt law from a secondary to a primary offense. If this passes, it means that the average citizen who is driving properly, in an expensively registered, insured and inspected vehicle, but who is not wearing his or her seat belt can be stopped and ticketed solely because of that fact.

Currently a person not wearing a seat belt can only be given a ticket relating to the seat belt after being stopped for another motor vehicle violation. And, interestingly, when the seat belt proponents, after being defeated at the polls, repeatedly pushed forward the legislation making it an offense not to wear the belt, they promised, over and over again, that when they were finally successful they would never try to upgrade the law to a primary offense.

So much for their word.

But almost anything in today’s world can be justified if it can be labeled advantageous for general safety. What a boon for cynical politicians, especially when they are in desperate need of revenue.

Should we be surprised that our Republican Governor Mitt Romney favors ‘lifting’ what is now being called ‘the ban’ on primary police stops for seat belt infractions. To call it a ban is to twist the truth, and the Boston Globe and other papers that refer to it as such demonstrate journalistic prejudice rather than good reporting. It makes it sound like the police are being unfairly restrained; they are ‘banned’ from enforcing the law.

That is not the case at all, and the editors and reporters who use that phraseology know it quite well. The fact they continue to refer to the upcoming legislative vote as ‘lifting a ban’ instead of what it is, changing the law by upgrading the offense, shows the duplicity of the media and reflects why readers suspect the press. The Globe, which is owned by the NY Times, might want to be more circumspect, at least in the wake of the Jayson Blair fiasco.

But in the end, it’s all about money!

The state desperately needs to raise money, and generating more seat belt tickets is a way to do it while hiding behind a sanctimonious claim that people are being made more safe, even if against their will.

Seat belts, of course, are but the tip of the safety crusade. The righteous and the timid, exploited by the cynical, would have us all believe that somehow we can attain cradle to grave security. It’s a modern myth, but it plays nicely with those who so firmly believe they are correct that they want to force others to conform to their views, and so safety legislation fronts for the concept of legislating social morality. How convenient this phenomenon is for cynical politicians can easily be imagined.

The righteous shout, ‘but the statistics show…’

The fact that all of this is based on questionable research and controversial findings could be attested to by most experienced police officers, especially those who have had the misfortune of being the primary officer at a number of fatalities. Those officers know that in any serious accident it is, to be blunt, a crapshoot whether or not someone is fatally injured. Sometimes it’s great to be held in place in a catastrophic accident, but sometimes it’s definitely not what is best.

Not surprisingly, the seat belt law never applied to State Troopers and other officers; just like state police cars bear no insurance, since the state underwrites any possible lawsuits, etc. Among the ‘official’ reasons why the police aren’t required to wear belts is the assertion that officers have to be able to get out of their vehicles quickly. Well, if safety is the paramount concern, and everyone would have to admit that the police, especially the state police, usually travel at exceptionally high speeds, then all such excuses are vacuous and laughable.

How powerful politically correct propaganda can become, and how lopsided the research can become, was illustrated well by a number of police departments, and by news reporters, prior to the successful creation of a seat belt law, and even more so since the law was enacted. If an accident with injury resulting took place, and the individual that was hurt or killed wasn’t wearing a seat belt, that fact was reported prominently in the police report and the public log, and quoted by the press.

All too often the reporters happily took the cue, making a point of seat belts only when it seemed clear they would have been an advantage in the particular accident, and not asking the tough question when a seat belt wasn’t mentioned in a report of an accident with injury. In short, accidents with injuries in which the individual was hurt or killed while wearing a seat belt were very often treated quite differently. The seat belt simply wasn’t mentioned.

Another example of such twists and turns is the convenient side-debate recently initiated as a quasi-attack first on the Massachusetts State Police, and second on local police officers.

It is suggested that the Troopers, and some local police, have been violating the law by stopping people just for seat belt violations, which is prohibited by the current statute, as promised by its supporters when it was enacted.

But the State Police have quietly explained that often when they stop someone for speeding or some other routine moving violation, they are moved to give the driver a break but at the same time want to drive home the point of the traffic stop and, also, be able to show their superiors that tickets were written.

So, instead of a speeding ticket that would cost the driver perhaps a $100 or more to begin with, and then perhaps a $1,000 or more in insurance points over several years, the Trooper writes a $25.00 seat belt ticket. This serves as a warning that the traffic stop could have been much worse, it gives the Trooper a chance to be decent while lecturing the driver, and it shows the Trooper’s superiors that the Trooper was busy. It also reflects the fact that Massachusetts State Troopers are still among the nation’s best, not only because of their professional capabilities, but because of their common sense when dealing with their fellow citizens.

It’s a win-win.

But the politically correct and the safety at all costs lobby aren’t satisfied, and those groups are so easily the pawns of the insurance industry and cynical politicians that in all likelihood we will now see the seat belt law moved up to a primary violation. More tickets will be written, more motorists will be offended, rapport between the police and the driving public will be eroded, but the politically correct will be gratified and the politicians will hide behind the facade of safety at all costs, while the governor counts the new revenue. And the police will be further distracted from concentrating on truly serious and dangerous driving infractions.

It’s a lose-lose.