Seat belt laws represent unabated tyranny on the march as each year law enforcement is expanded. Such laws infringe on a person’s rights as guaranteed in the Fourth, Fifth, and the Ninth Amendments, and the Civil Rights section of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Seat belt laws are an unwarranted intrusion by government into the personal lives of citizens; they deny through prior restraint the right to determine a person’s own safety and health care standards for his/her own body. Not using a seat belt is a victimless, state-created crime that does not hurt or threaten anyone.
There is a body of law that states a person has the right to refuse any personal health care device, drug treatment, or surgery, even if such refusal might result in an earlier death or an increase in medical expenses. All seat belt laws violate that right, that is, to freely choose to use or not to use a “health care” seat belt. Any medical professional attempting to do the same would be prosecuted, yet politicians claim they can ignore the law while demanding strict compliance from the private sector.
The fact is, the government has no authority to mandate seat belt use.
We do not need to spend millions of dollars for seat belt law enforcement, for more forced seat belt use, for more traffic accidents. Dollars spent for road safety should focus on achieving more responsibly educated drivers, and more safer-built roads and vehicles in order to prevent accidents. Preventing accidents will not only save lives but will save the cost of property damage and, most importantly, save our freedom.
The insidious nature of seat belt laws is shown even further in states with primary enforcement of the law. The following is what can happen in states with primary enforcement:
1. Your vehicle can be stopped anytime, day or night, by the police merely under suspicion a seat belt is not being used. And even if mistaken, once the vehicle is stopped the officer can begin routine interrogation and testing; force occupants to exit; visually check out the contents of the inside of the vehicle looking for any kind of a violation of the law, all without the right of legal counsel; all under the pretense of not using a seat belt.
2. Primary enforcement encourages the use of random roadblocks. In a 1994 statewide campaign, North Carolina conducted 2,038 roadblocks in two weeks under the pretext of checking for seat belt use. In spite of further use of random roadblocks that year, which the governor boasted increased seat belt use to 80%, total highway facilities actually increased in the state for 1994 over the record of each of the preceding 3 years.
3. If not using a seat belt, you could be stopped for a minor traffic violation that otherwise would be ignored if using a seat belt. You may also be targeted because of a bumper sticker, your license plate, your age, race, or gender. Primary enforcement opens the door for police harassment, intimidation and profiling. Young people, women, and minorities are vulnerable, especially when traveling alone and at night, or in certain neighborhoods.
4. You are subject to an officer’s misinterpretation of your answers, your attitude, or what the officer sees in your vehicle. You could become the victim of a corrupt act, such as planting drugs in your vehicle by an officer. You could be accused of using drugs because the cash in your possession has the odor of drugs. Officers can confiscate your cash and vehicle if there is some drug residue without proving you knew about or caused the residue to be there. Courts have recognized most currency in circulation has some discernible drug residue. It is reported that 80% of the assets confiscated by law enforcement do not lead to a criminal charge, but only a small percent is ever returned. Confiscation of assets has become a lucrative business for some police agencies and offers big incentives to increase roadblocks and speed traps.
5. Some states issue a seat belt violation fine against the driver even if the driver is using a seat belt but a passenger is not, and even if the driver did not know about it. Drivers, therefore, could easily become distracted while driving by a constant watch of passengers, both adults and children in the rear seat.
6. Primary enforcement is an easy way to enhance state revenue through fines. Also, additional income comes from the federal government in the form of grants (bribes) to pay the police to enforce the seat belt law. Such grants are used by the police as overtime pay while enforcing the seat belt law, which is why the police support primary enforcement laws. Such lucrative overtime pay helps relieve pressure for a police salary increase. And in some areas where job performance standards include a citation quota, seat belt violations offers easy compliance.
7. Some insurance companies target seat belt law violations as an excuse to increase rates even for drivers without an accident or moving violation record. In fact, even if you habitually use a seat belt but forget just once, that might be the time an officer stops your vehicle, thus your driving record is unjustly marred.
8. Some states level points against a driver’s license for not using a seat belt in addition to a fine, which means a person is being punished twice for the same offense. Also, it means a driver’s license could eventually be suspended for repeated offenses even if the driver has been a careful driver for years with no accident or moving traffic violation.
9. If you are medically exempted from seat belt use, your vehicle could still be stopped since an officer cannot know until you are stopped. This applies to drivers who are using a seat belt but a passenger is not using one because of an exemption. Even with a medical exemption, once the vehicle is stopped, the officer can begin routine interrogation, testing and visually looking for any kind of a violation of the law. Persons with medical exemptions are also subject to being stopped repeatedly during any travel route by other officers along the way. Also, providing an officer with your confidential medical records and exemption is a violation of your right of privacy.
10. It should be noted, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a federal agency, in a 1995 study, “Safety Belt Use Law; An Evaluation of Primary Enforcement and Other Provisions,” stated “The analysis suggests that belt use among fatally injured occupants was at least 15 percent higher in states with primary enforcement laws.”
11. Primary enforcement is promoted as saving lives, however, stopping vehicles for non-seat belt use is only an excuse to arbitrarily and capriciously accuse people of traffic violations of one kind or another, thus issuing citations as a means of easily increasing revenue, as well as providing easy lucrative overtime income for the police. Primary enforcement has nothing to do with saving lives; has all to do with revenue enhancement at the expense of fleecing the motoring public.
In a free society, if a person is injured or killed in a traffic accident because he/she freely choose to use or not to use a seat belt, that is a personal tragedy, as it is with all other kinds of freely chosen risks in life. However, if a person is injured or killed in a traffic accident because the government forced that person to use a seat belt, that is tyranny working, and reflects injury and death by government.
There certainly is nothing wrong with voluntary seat belt use, as it is with all other personal safety and health care recommendations in life; however, there is a great deal wrong with all seat belt laws.
