I just wanted to remind everyone.....

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J

Jeff

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Vermont
"Click it or ticket!"



I get so enraged when I hear this that I could eat nails. :banghead:
 
Shh. Drink your kool aid and buckle your seat belt. OR ELSE. :scrutiny:



MA also has a ban on smoking in quite a few places.
 
Well at least there is a weak argument that smoking can negatively affect the health of others. I see no need at all for an adult to be forced to wear their seatbelt. Proper restraints for young children seems ok, but not for a reasonable adult.
 
With laws like that. Who's side are the police on? I thought they where supposed to protect citizens, not harass them supposedly for their own good.
 
i love my seatbelt!

want future genretions not to be annoyed??

teach yer kids like my parents taught me.

i have always worn a seatbelt. my dad drives a volvo (inventors of belt) my mom is a nurse.
we always wore them, i feel naked in the car without it. helps keep me in the seat while driving. anyway point is it only bothers you if you think someone is telling you to put it on.

you really want to do a 360 faceplant thru the windshield, well i do know a guy with the following signature-
"stupidity should be painful"

PS= agioan, like with the helmets= if a bunch of losers who werent wearing seatbelts didnt get hurt and proceed to clog the courts going after $$$$$$
dollars, if people didnt use up hospitals, E/R services, police with their extra injuries due to lack of belt, it would be no problem.

you want to use public roads, you deal with the public, and we deal with you.
dont think most of us want anyone in that belt to protect them- heck, the less of you out there, the more for me (ha ha).
but say the brakes fail on my big truck= id rather do as little damage to you physically as possible. i feel much better slamming you forwrd in your seat than i do sending you upward, crushing your neck on the roof, then bashing your face against the windshield........

but hey man , it's up to you. my brakes are good for now............
 
anyway point is it only bothers you if you think someone is telling you to put it on.
Click to expand...

Point is, it is no one else's right to force you to wear it. And, someone is telling you to put it on...no thinking about it.

you really want to do a 360 faceplant thru the windshield, well i do know a guy with the following signature-"stupidity should be painful"
Click to expand...

Stupidity should also be someone's choice.

PS= agioan, like with the helmets= if a bunch of losers who werent wearing seatbelts didnt get hurt and proceed to clog the courts going after $$$$$$
Click to expand...

Why don't we outlaw motorcycles, since motor cycles don't have seatbelts? Hmmmm? Why don't we mandate helmets for bicycle riding, since they are not already mandated? Hmmmm?

Why don't we outlaw hang gliding, down hill skiing, big wave surfing, cave diving, motocross racing, rock climbing, etc, since all those activities are actually quite dangerous, and people get killed by them all the time. People file lawsuits for accidents/deaths incurred by those activities all the time. Let's outlaw all of them....hmmmm?

It's NO ONE'S job to FORCE me to wear a seatbelt......it's NO ONE'S job to protect me from myself when I am an adult who is fully capable of making adult decisions.

Whether I want to do something stupid or want to live dangerously, it is NO ONE else's right to force me to do otherwise.

Get it?
 
I remember back in 1984...

...when New York State first introduced this further abomination of the "Get more law into their faces" crowd, the top cop in the state, Thomas Constantine, I believe, said on the radio that the NY State Police would never stop anyone for not having a seat belt on. If they stopped someone for some other violation and the people were unbelted, they'd be ticketed. Right. They are not going to let all that money just roll by now are they?

An odd bit of trivia on the seatbelt law. Passed in 1984---hmmm. I took up a collection in a bar and raised $20 to send to the first person, a lady from Vermont, who was busted by this idiocy. That made it into the local scandal sheets and, I believe in Rutland, Vt. where she lived.

More odd, still, A student in a class of mine at a two-year college was the son of the cop that wrote that ticket. He was not proud.

I chat with a few state cops who do business where I do at times. Many are embarrassed to have to stand in the road and make these idiotic checks. One I know quit in embarrassment. But as we move further along and idiocy is the order of the day, as illustrated by the poster from Berkley, expect to see the country slide further into tyranny.

One of the highlights of this campaign of idiocy happened when a female cop drove her patrol car into the side of a guy's car trying to see if he had his belt on up here about two towns up the road.

Also, if you are driving alone and come to a seat belt check point, you have a great chance of getting a ticket, belted or not. The whole idea is criminal activity by the state. If you are running a scam operation, expect scammers to be attracted toward it especially if the scam is "legal."

An ex-state cop friend of mine said, back in 1982, that 90% of traffic laws are created for or enforced for the sole purpose of raising revenue. Witness the stop light cam scam where one geek figured out that making the yellow light two seconds shorter raised the "take" at a particular intersection by a few hundred thousand a year.

I am in favor of seat belts. A great idea. They have caused deaths enough times so that their use should be personal choice. On the average, they save lives. Specific instances of them causing death were recorded at least before the law went into effect. Honest cops on occasion, up here anyway, would tell a reporter that so and so would be alive if it hadn't been for the seat belt.
These cases were obvious. They all concerned small cars that were ripped apart and the occupants dragged out by their seatbelt.

Boy, you don't wanna state truth like that now if you are a cop or you won't have a job very long.

Enjoy the ride. This ol' handbasket is approaching warp speed.

rr
 
I think adults should be allowed to wear seat belts or not as they choose. I think the insurance companies should also be allowed to sell policies that require selt belt use (both automobile and medical) and policies (with a much higher premium) which have no such requirements.

If you're covered by a policy that requires seat belt use and you are found with injuries without one after an automobile accident...then you have no coverage...and the hospital doesn't have to treat you if you can't pay cash...up front.

Personal responsibility for your actions means more than just doing whatever you please. Your actions affect others. When your actions affect my finances...I get ornery. I don't want laws that force you to do anything that you do not choose to do. I do want laws that prevent your carelessness from affecting my wallet.
 
Might be good for teenagers who think it is not cool to put on your seat belt, but at the same time I don't think people should be forced to wear them. Myself I wear it so this doesn't get me one bit upset. Hopefully it will help save a life or two even if it does come from the fear of getting a ticket for buckling up.
 
Like helmet laws for motorcycle riders....

seat belt laws :cuss:

I'll not ride without a helmet, nor will drive/ride in a car without a seat belt. Better if I can use a lap and shoulder belt. But it is the INDIVIDUALS choice to use them, or not.

"Click it or ticket" laws are revenue generation laws, nothing more.
 
First off let me say I have NEVER written a seatbelt ticket. Of course I've never worked for an agency that required you to. Some agencies do.

Here in Illinois we have a primary seatbelt law. However when the nanny staters forced a motorcycle helmet law through the legislature the state supreme court declared it unconstitutional! Yep the very same same state supreme court that upheld the seatbelt law as constitutional, struck down the helmet law.

I have long said that by the time those people who have nothing more important in their life to do but worry about what everyone else is doing, we'll all live in foam rubber rooms, drink only distilled water and only eat a specially blended nutriant....

Jeff
 
Ive never supported any kind of seatbelt of helmet law. YES i absolutly use both of them EVERY SINGLE TIME that I am riding or driving and so does anyone else who rides in my car. Its a personal choice that shouldnt be within the bounds of government control.

I understand the argument that people not wearing seatbelts costs everyone money through medical costs and insurance rates. However the solution to that problem is to fix the insurance and medical systems NOT the limitation of individual liberty.
 
This reminds me of a story.

Pug didnt have to wear his seatbelt because of, something, I dont really know what, but it was medical. He rolls up to a seatbelt checkpoint and the officer informs him that he should be wearing his seatbelt, and he's getting a ticket because of the governor's "clicket or ticket" program. Pug reaches into his wallet, pulls out the note from his doctor and says "Well, according to this, I dont have to wear my seatbelt, so you can tell Governor Hunt to love it, or shove it." The officer laughed, and then said "I'll be sure to do that."
 
It puzzles me that, given the "it's for the children" mentality of so many nanny-lovers, there are still no seatbelts in school buses.
One of my co-workers is also a brand spankin' new deputy sheriff. Being a gung-ho newbie, he loves writing tickets. Last week, I noticed him coming up behind me in traffic, lights blazing, so I pulled aside and he flew past, and he pulled over a car. The same car which had just run a red light and was weaving at higher speed thru traffic. I mentioned to him later that I was glad that he had pulled this guy over, and he said the only thing he ticketed the guy for was no seatbelt...hadn't even noticed the other infractions. :banghead:
 
I wear a seatbelt 99.9% of the time and this campaign still annoys me.

Let's see, you're taking my tax dollars to pay for an advertising campaign to remind me of a law that I don't think should even exist, and using police officers on the public payroll to harass motorists so that you can garner more revenue from the taxpayers. Serve and protect or harass and tax?

I'm not blaming the officers here... just the idiots that put them up to this.

So, while we're running this massive click-it-or-ticket campaign around here we had an armed robbery of a gas station. That's not a regular occurance around here, and it makes me wonder if the criminal element considers it to be less risky to pull off a stunt like that when the politicians put the police officers on baby-sitting duty all day.
 
Jeff, being in Vermont, I'm sure you'll get an extra special laugh out of this one:

http://unionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=55084

article said:
Check the map! Are we in Vermont yet?
By SHAWNE K. WICKHAM
Sunday News Staff

Jeannie Johnson actually groaned aloud when she heard they had to cut down New Hampshire trees for two Vermont billboards that are quickly becoming infamous.

The story just keeps getting worse.

Johnson is the coordinator of the governor’s highway safety program in Vermont. That agency paid thousands of dollars to put up two billboards in the middle of New Hampshire that have been turning heads and sparking conversations.

“Buckle up in Vermont. It’s the law,” read the large billboards on Interstate 293 near the Manchester-Hooksett line, and on Route 9/202 as you enter Hillsborough.

Huh?

Is that supposed to be a swipe at New Hampshire, where seat belt laws only apply up to age 18? Was it just a mistake?

Nope, it was your federal tax dollars at work.

Johnson told the New Hampshire Sunday News that Vermont got a $24,000 federal grant to put up billboards reminding drivers of the seatbelt law.

Here’s what’s funny: Vermont bans billboards.

So the grant was for Vermont to rent billboards in New Hampshire and Massachusetts instead. Johnson explained past seatbelt surveys have found the areas of Vermont with the lowest rates of seatbelt use are along those borders.

Something different

The feds had made it clear they weren’t happy with Vermont’s seatbelt usage rates. The only way the state was going to get more highway safety money this year was if they tried something different.

Billboards were different.

The feds liked Vermont’s idea and gave them the grant in March. But when Johnson set out to find billboards close to the borders, they had all already been rented long ago.

“We assumed they were going to be right on the border, but it turned out there were no right-on-the-border locations that we could get.”

“We had a lot of money thrown at us and a very short time to get it done.”

Dumb or brilliant?

There were two billboards available in New Hampshire: On the Manchester beltway and on what serves as the local road into Hillsborough, now that the Route 9/202 bypass is open.

There were seven signs available in Massachusetts — and they’re not on the Vermont border either. Six are in Pittsfield in the Berkshires and one is on Interstate 91 near Springfield.

Johnson said she knew it wasn’t ideal. “We said this isn’t perfect, but maybe we can put our toe in the water and see whether this is the dumbest idea we ever came up with, or maybe it’s brilliant.”

“Here’s the deal: We either don’t do it at all and send the money back or give it a shot,” she said. “The fact of the matter is it’s federal money and if it only helps New Hampshire and not Vermont, that doesn’t meet my goals, but it’s good for the country.”

Still, she said, “If we’d known we were going to be in Manchester, we might have worded it differently.”

Did Johnson consider giving the money back? “Briefly,” she admitted. “But if nothing else, I realize I may be fried over this, but if I get fried in the flurry of conversation about people in Vermont trying to get you buckled up, I’m willing to go down.”

“I hate the idea of using my money to help New Hampshire when I need help so badly, but I don’t see how anything bad can come out of it,” she said.

That was before she heard about the trees.

Signs, trees come down

The company that owns the I-293 billboard recently hired a contractor to cut a wide swath of pine trees, to allow sight lines for the sign from the highway.

Bill Boynton, spokesman for the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, said the tree-cutting was part of an agreement signed in February between the state DOT and Viacom Outdoors. The company owns more than 250 billboards in the state, according to a Viacom representative.

Boynton said the pilot project let Viacom Outdoors do “vegetation management” around its billboards in eight locations, in Bedford, Rochester, Dover, Merrimack and Hooksett. In exchange, the company will take down five of its older signs, in Concord, Belmont, Keene and Goffstown.

“We’re allowing the private sector to have a certain amount of limited access and also enable us to get some of the less desirable billboards down, and they won’t be replaced,” Boynton said.

“And also part of the mix is some public service messages.”

Raising eyebrows and ...

Before the latest sign, the Hooksett billboard bore a message from the state of New Hampshire, reminding drivers of the penalties for buying alcohol for underage individuals.

But urging Vermonters to buckle up?

“We were pretty surprised by the nature of the message,” Boynton admitted. “We don’t have any problem with Vermont encouraging seatbelt use by spending money. We did find it somewhat eyebrow-raising that they did it in the heart of New Hampshire.”

Johnson sounded appalled when she heard about the trees. “I can assure you we asked nobody to cut down any trees,” she said.

“I can see outrage coming from that, and who could blame them?”

“Maybe they were just trying to improve visibility on the roadway,” she suggested hopefully.

A NH message

Peter Thomson, coordinator of New Hampshire’s highway safety agency, said any buckle-up message can’t hurt, especially as the state launches its own seatbelt campaign this week. But he said, “I wouldn’t spend the money to put a billboard in the middle of Massachusetts or in the middle of Vermont for a New Hampshire activity.”

For instance, he said, the state plans to put up message boards in time for Motorcycle Week in June, warning drivers and bikers alike to use caution. But he said, “That’s going to be on the border on the New Hampshire side.”

Reactions to the Vermont billboards last week ranged from jokes to minor outrage.

“We weren’t sure whether this was some sort of payback for the whole Killington thing,” Boynton said, referring to that town’s efforts to secede from Vermont and join the Granite State.

Jim Coffey is the business administrator for the town of Hillsborough. He wasn’t impressed with the new sign.

“Your tax dollars at work,” he said with disgust.

“I could see putting it in New Hampshire just before you cross the Connecticut River. But putting it in a commercial zone in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, is nuts.”

Then he had an idea: “Why don’t we put a New Hampshire liquor store in Vermont?”

Mary Ann Wells, who works in the state Bureau of Traffic office that regulates billboards, said her office got a good laugh when they heard about what Vermont was planning to do.

“It just absolutely boggles my mind that they did this,” she said. “It makes absolutely no sense.”

And she wonders if the signs will confuse out-of-state visitors: “You’re going to say, ‘Hon, grab the map. Where the heck are we?’”

Then there was this joke making its way around a certain state office last week: “It definitely can’t be a Vermont country road, because it has new pavement, new paint and four-foot shoulders.”
Click to expand...
 
just goes to show, how dense some people are.... the point here, is not who is telling you to wear seat belts... the point here....is that wearing them just makes sense, your head doing 30mph into the window...is bad news...and if anyone must tell you this, then good luck. I hate any commercials... thats why we have the "mute" botton. If you feel like this is a "freedom" issue... then do as you choose...be "free" to fly into the windshield.
 
Arc-lite, you misunderstand. Most of us wear seatbelts for the reasons you describe. Being told we must is what ticks us off.
 
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