Editorial

The perfect marketing cliché, brought to you by the state police in an advertising campaign usually funded by federal dollars that aren’t available to fix potholes but are accessible to warn of costly penalties for violating the various state seat belt laws.

Of course, the state and local police – at least in Massachusetts and probably in other states as well – do not have to wear seat belts, the theory being that they must be able to get in and out of their cruisers quickly. This is an Orwellian concept, particularly in implying that state police, who normally travel at high rates of speed, are somehow considered safe without seat belts, and in fact such belts are considered an impediment to them, but the average person must be belted in if he or she is to be safe while traveling at a much lower rate of speed.

Arguments that police are better trained in driving techniques than the average driver is but another twist, since while that is true it doesn’t change the fact that accidents, unavoidable or not, are still a true possibility, if not a probability given the preponderance of high speed driving that is normal for police officers.

So what is the point?

Obviously, it’s all about money!

First of all it’s important to remember that state police, and many local police as well, drive uninsured vehicles. The vehicles are registered to the state without insurance because the state acts as the insurer; if a state cop has an accident the claims go against the state. This is also true for any city or town following the state’s example. Therefore the pressure from the insurance industry and its lobbyists is deflected from the state and the municipality.

In effect, every taxpayer is an insurer who underwrites the police cruisers, since if there are any serious claims resulting from a cruiser accident they will be resolved via tax dollars in any related settlements .

So it is deeply ironic, but not very funny, to see a state police officer in a TV ad sternly warning the public that for safety’s sake, everyone had better be wearing a seatbelt or be prepared for a ticket and a fine. The entire ad campaign is patronizing in the extreme, with a police officer lecturing fellow citizens as errant children, but it is also hypocritical; the law doesn’t apply to the people applying it to others.

Yet again, while it is certainly another intrusion of government into private lives on the pretext of safety and/or security, in the end this is all about money!

Currently the Republican dominated federal government is severely restricting highway funds and other reimbursements, from gasoline taxes and a vast array of other federal taxes that normally are redistributed to the states, therefore the states are deprived of normal revenue streams and are increasingly desperate for revenue.

Obviously if there is an increase in the issuance of fine producing tickets there will also be a quick infusion of cash; it is, in reality, another tax. It is a tax enforced by states, but brought about by the federal government in an underhanded manner.

The insurance industry, of course, will scream that it is all about safety, but as The Bradley Report has pointed out before, the so-called studies indicating seat belts are essential were consistently flawed in their conclusions because of underreporting injuries resulting from people wearing belts and being hurt while pinned in place.

There is no doubt that seat belts can save lives, especially in roll-over accidents that are now more commonplace since the advent of the high center of gravity SUV’s, but it is equally true that people have been severely injured or died either because they were held in place, or circumstantially while held in place. The latter reality hasn’t been portrayed accurately, but is well known to all first-responders, whether police, fire or EMT personnel.

The insurance industry, however, in its constant quest to require everyone to be insured while at the same time avoiding any liability payouts, puts immense pressure on public officials to enact more and more stringent and personally intrusive laws. Someone injured in an accident that can be shown to have not been wearing a seat belt, for example, may have trouble collecting on the insurance that they bought.

So it’s all about politics and money. It has little to do with anything else. And the hypocrisy of a state police officer standing before a camera warning his or her fellow citizens of penalties for not wearing a seatbelt, when the trooper never wears a seatbelt, is a great example of what this personal intrusiveness is all about: money!

6/6/05