As a guy who spent over 20 years as a ticket writing small puncture wound I'd like to correct a few things and offer a tiny bit of insight.
1- No, the majority of seat belt tickets aren't handed out to middle aged white guys. They appear to be handed out to young males, mostly mouthy young males. A lot of them go to people who got stopped for something else in the first place IME. Given the choice between a ticket for 78 in a 55 or a seat belt, which would you want?
2- No, cops don't enjoy having to go out and write tickets when they have piles of paperwork waiting to be done related to burglaries, drug arrests, domestics, accidents, etc. But, the bean counters demand proof the cop is doing his job and the only thing they consider "proof" is a certain number of tickets in a variety of categories.
3- Yes, cops really, really do care about safety. I've held mothers and fathers, husbands and wives who I've just told their loved one was dead. I watched my own mother mentally die and become a different person after my sister was killed in a DWI accident that she'd have lived through had she been wearing a belt. I've attempted to save the life of a toddler that hit the windshield because dad was "just going down to the store". I was unsuccessful BTW. Seat belts DO save lives. My father was killed in a roll over accident because of no belt, You could have driven the truck away. So don't give me that crap about it all being a revenue generator. That's part of it, but it's a small part.
4- A lot of our guys have been hit by drivers as they were on the side of the road. I knew 2 I think that are dead because of it. I had a little old lady, very sweet woman, hit the note book hanging out of my hip pocket as I spoke to a driver in another vehicle on the side of the road. I stopped her and she told me that frankly she thought I'd give her a ticket if she pulled across the center marker. Crazy, eh?
5- I hear crazy stories about thing cops do all the time. I can't answer for every guy that asks for a drivers license in a cow field or allegedly does something else inane. Neither can answer for the citizens that does something equally or more stupid. People are people and that's just life.`
6- Here in my state when we had a big seat belt push they would have us go out and do road blocks. Well before the road block there would be signs plainly stating "SEAT BELT CHECK AHEAD". I have seen people pull up to the check with no seat belt after passing 3 signs warning them and sitting in a line for at least several moments observing the check. Keeping Darwin in mind, what would you do?
This post was edited by Bret4207 at 04:38:36 09/12/13 3 times.
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Today's Featured Article - Third Brush Generators - by Chris Pratt. While I love straightening sheet metal, cleaning, and painting old tractors, I use every excuse to avoid working on the on the electrics. I find the whole process sheer mystery. I have picked up and attempted to read every auto and farm electrics book with no improvement in the situation. They all seem to start with a chapter entitled "Theory of Electricity". After a few paragraphs I usually close the book and go back to banging out dents. A good friend and I were recently discussing our tractor electrical systems when he stated "I figure it all comes back to applying Ohms Law". At this point
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