More clicks, more crime?

I was inspired to write this post by a Daily Times article by Sharahn Boykin that appeared in today’s paper. In describing the capture of seat belt scofflaws, Boykin noted that the Wicomico County sheriff’s deputy in question was spending a portion of his patrol “struggl(ing) to see far enough into each car to find what he was looking for — drivers without seat belts.”

The “Click it or Ticket” program places local police officers in the position of peering into cars and playing nanny to verify whether drivers have had the sense enough to use their safety belts – we can’t have people not using the safety equipment made available to them on cars for the last 40 years or so can we?

Sometimes I wonder if devoting manpower to programs like this in order to satisfy the twin masters of Washington bureaucracy (because I believe states had to adopt a get-tough program for safety belts to maintain their highway funding) and revenue creation takes officers away from investigating crimes which have actual victims. After all, if someone without a belt is killed in a traffic accident they may have walked away from had they been wearing their seat belts, whose fault is it in the end?

Don’t get me wrong – I do wear my seat belts about 99% of the time, unless I’m doing something simple like moving my car up the driveway. But when I see money spent on annoying advertisements telling me that cops are looking for seatbelt violators yet the crime rate locally is among the highest in the state, it makes me question priorities. Each time I see the spot played on the video board at the Shorebirds game, I have to add at the end, “…brought to you by the nanny state of Maryland.” Of course, violating the law takes a quick $25 out of your pocket. It’s sort of a non-user tax…wonder if the fines go toward paying for more annoying ads? I’m sure the insurance companies kick in a little bit of money as well, certainly they were a chief proponent of get-tough laws on safety belts because they save money on injured motorists.

On the whole, this program offends me on two levels. It makes criminals out of people who otherwise would prefer their personal choice of whether to wear their seat belts or not, and more importantly, not wearing a seat belt has become a primary offense like speeding or running a red light. The latter two are much more dangerous to other motorists, but an officer can spend a lot more time racking up revenue by peering into cars to see whether someone has their seat belt on.

If someone in the Maryland General Assembly had some cajones and really wanted to begin a movement toward a little more sanity in government, they would run the risk of offending our Washington masters and introduce a bill that would simply remove not wearing a safety belt from the list of primary traffic offenses. It’s a small step but a necessary one because it’s time to restore the Tenth Amendment and state’s rights into our country.

As I close in on the thousandth post, it’s worthy to note that this will be my first remote post not written at my trusty PC. Yes, I’ve gone wireless – but don’t look for me to go cover events on a live basis (at least for awhile.) It’s just nice to not be tethered to my little office and be able to sit outside on a gorgeous evening yet do my posting. Maybe it’ll be encouragement to write more stuff!

Also, I have an update to an earlier post I did about the Move America Forward telethon coming up in June. They have a heavy hitter on board now.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.