State trooper or panhandler? Drivers fooled

[rsmith6621]

n Saturday, a trooper stood on a street corner in Spanaway, Pierce County, and helped bust 30 people for not wearing their seat belts. The trooper, wearing plain clothes and a cardboard sign around his neck that read "Happy Holidays Buckle Up," was able to keep a close eye on passing traffic from the southeast corner of Highway 7 and 112th Street East. When he spotted someone who wasn't wearing a seat belt, the trooper radioed fellow troopers parked nearby who pulled over the offender.

In four hours, 41 cars were stopped and 30 seat-belt tickets, costing violators $101 per infraction, were handed out, Trooper J.J. Gundermann said. Troopers also made one drug arrest and six outstanding-warrant arrests.






http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002667004_panhandle06m.html

[Redstone]

1. Wear your seatbelt! It can save your life, and can save you big $$.

I am here today because of wearing a seatbelt when I needed to.

You're a damn fool if you don't.

And I do not want to hear about "well, I heard of a guy whose cousin knew a guy who went to school with a guy whose brother read somewhere about someone who was in an accident, and only survived because they weren't wearing a seatbelt and got thrown out of the car."

Bullshit.

(Oh, and by the way, don't waste your money on one of those idiotic "window-breaker hammer and seatbelt-cutter tool" devices. Guess what? You can't break a window with one of them, nor can you cut a seatbelt. They're an utter fraud.)

Wear your seatbelt!

Redstone

[TomInTib]

4. Right here I was the only one in the car wearing one when we

went airborne and flipped and rolled a long way.
Everyone else was tossed and totally fucked.
I was beaten and bruised and stiff for a few weeks.

[Cooley Hurd]

18. You're absolutely correct, Redstone - I wouldn't be responding to you...

...if it weren't for my seatbelt:

This is my 928 after hitting a large tree. Had I not worn my seatbelt, I'd be worm food now.:thumbsup:

[jbnow]

20. Ah those stories. Unfortunately

one is my step-father and is the justification for most of my family not to wear a seat belt. It was true for him because in a storm a huge tree landed on his car, he was pushed to the floor and survived, he'd have been crushed with a seat belt on.

But how many times does a huge tree land on us as we drive down the road?

I've always worn seat belts even in a family that didn't, even when driving around with other teens, even when for some reason the owner of the car got angry when I dug it out to put on. My kids always wore seat belts.

I had a dream back in my teens where I was in an accident and thrown from a car. As I lay dying I thought how crazy that was, I always wore a seat belt it had to be a dream. It didn't stop me from dying in the dream but I thought it was a funny dream thought.

[MrSlayer]

2. This is bullshit.

Mandatory seat belt laws suck. It's just a phoney way to raise revenue from tickets and a cheap way to search anyone's car you want.

[Redstone]

5. Well, I'd be just as happy to replace mandatory seatbelt laws with

a law that says: Don't want to wear a seatbelt? Fine. But if you get injured in an accident, YOU are responsible for your medical bills, not your insurance company. Or the government.

Want to be a "free spirit, not bound by the Fascists Who Demand You Not Be Stupid?" Be my guest. But if we had a law such as the above, at least YOU, and not everyone else's insurance premiums, would be responsible for the aftermath.

Redstone

[MrSlayer]

8. That's fine.

I didn't say seat belts were bullshit (I always wear mine), just that the mandatory laws are bullshit. It's just an excuse to pull people over and invade their privacy.

[mongo]

9. Seat belt laws were the first step down the road to nanny statism

A law designed and paid for by the insurance companies.

I wear my seat belt and encourage others to do so. But these laws to save us from ourselves are not condusive to a free society.

[400Years]

21. Yep and this action was also revenue generation

these laws are bullshit. It is a smart move to wear a seatbelt but it is also a smart move to avoid bungee jumping.

[Solon]

7. The only exceptions would be these...

First, the driver is liable for all injuries of everyone else in the car, if they don't insist that they wear a seatbelt. Second, parents of minors who don't buckle them up lose custody of the kids for reckless endangerment, simple as that.

[MrSlayer]

13. That's also a fine alternative.

I just have a problem with law enforcment using this as an excuse to search people's vehicles.

[Solon]

16. Glad you agree...

I too, find it disturbing at how these laws are abused, but, the exceptions are reasonable. A child is legally under the protection of either parents or the DRIVER of the car, just like everyone else. When I drive, I wear a seatbelt, I also expect everyone else in the car to wear one, they have a problem with it, I tell them to walk, no exceptions.

[Webster Green]

3. Pigs suck! (n/t)

[SofaKingLiberal]

10. yep

[hobbit709]

6. Personally, I wear them

but if you don't want to that's fine with me. It's Darwinian selection at its best.

[Deja Q]

11. ENTRAPMENT.

Fight the fucker in court. Shitty Hall doesn't need another damn dime.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

19. How in the world is this entrapment?

As far as I can tell, the police weren't out there trying to convince otherwise law-abiding drivers to remove their seatbelts.

[dsc]

12. I think those who refuse to wear seat belts are stupid

but the police in way too many places have shown themselves to be unworthy of trust to the extent that a mandatory seatbelt law requires us to trust them. I have no problem with a law that states that you can get a ticket if you aren't wearing one an are pulled over for another offense but not as the offense.

[Mythsaje]

15. That's how they originally passed the law here...

It was intended as a "secondary offense" statute. They couldn't pull you over for it. So the voters approved it. Some ten years or so down the road they changed the rules WITHOUT voter approval.

I've been pissed about it every since. Just another bait and switch job.

[dsc]

17. I think the feds made the states do this

as part of keeping highway funds.

[400Years]

22. government paternalism is even more stupid

I guess we should outlaw bacon as well.

[Mythsaje]

14. The simple fact of the matter is

that I have ALWAYS worn a seatbelt, and think it's stupid not to, but I'll be damned if I want a rule enforced at gunpoint to make me or anyone else (except perhaps children) do so.

[lectrobyte]

23. The problem with any "for your own good" law is that once you start,

where do you stop? Smoking is basically already illegal, what's next, a law against eating fast food more than once a week, since it is really bad for your health?

[Javaman]

24. A seatbelt has saved my life 3 times. Enough said.

I used to be a fireman, believe me when I tell you that seat belts save lives and the one in the billion that survives without one is a nothing more than pure luck.

I have gathered up ejected bodies, pulled bodies, pieces of bodies, things that no longer look like pieces of bodies, from cars of people that didn't wear their seat belts.

On the other hand I have seen head on collisions, roll overs, crushed, split in half cars where the drivers wore their seat belts and survived, a bit banged up, but lived.

Wear them, cut the macho bullshit, the I don't have time, the they don't feel comfortable, they will ruin my dress, jacket, shirt, they cut into my shoulder bullshit. Properly adjusted you don't even notice them.

Wear them.