Yesterday was Memorial Day. Being a holiday at the end of the month the road pirates were out in force. You see, despite citation quotas being illegal, a lot of police departments have unofficial quotas that officers are encouraged to fulfill so at the end of the month enforcement tends to increase. Holidays provide a convenient excuse whether it’s enhanced drunk driving enforcement, texting while driving enforcement, or seatbelt enforcement. This Memorial Day was seatbelt enforcement.
Mandatory seatbelt laws are enforcement of the nanny state, which means they enjoy widespread support. The general population is gullible and tends to roll over and accept new laws that protect them from themselves. Seatbelt laws are one such case.
When an individual decides to not wear a seatbelt the put themselves at additional risk. The key word there is “themselves.” If I refused to wear a seatbelt that wouldn’t affect you in any way. Even if we were in the same vehicle, if we were in an accident I might go flying through the windshield to my certain death but you would remain in your seat. Yet a good number of people seem to believe it’s appropriate for the State to send men with guns and no accountability after anybody who decides not to wear a seatbelt. Somehow the act of a police officer zooming down the highway with their seizure inducing lights flashing so they can pull somebody over and cause a massive traffic clusterfuck as people desperately try to merge over a lane to avoid getting a ticket themselves is a perfectly reasonable way of dealing with an action that only puts the person performing the action at risk.