[Vision2020] Question for the Vision

[Jennifer McFarland]

Dear Visionaries,

I hope you are all doing well as we enter the holiday season.  I issued a
press release a little over a week ago alerting the public of our "Click It
Don't Risk It!" seat belt compliance campaign.  I'm happy to say that of the
15 cars I pulled over yesterday, only one person was not in compliance with
Idaho's seat belt laws.  However, I was just visited by a friend form the
Lewiston Police Department (our partner in this year's campaign), and he and
I talked about our laws relative to Washington's laws.  In Idaho, an officer
must pull a car over for a "greater" offense (speeding, having a
registration sticker in the wrong place, not having a front plate, etc.) in
order to enforce the seat belt laws.  In other words, I cannot pull over a
car just because I see a small child standing up in the back seat-I'd have
to have other probable cause to pull over said vehicle.  The Lewiston
officer I've been working with has spent a lot of time trying to change
Idaho's laws regarding seat belt use to: 1. make it a primary offense, and
2. raise the fines so they are commensurate with other states' fines for the
same.  I've heard arguments supporting both sides to this, but I am curious
as to what Latah County's citizens think about our seat belt laws-whether
they are adequate as they are, if they should change, how they should
change, etc.  My own views on seat belt usage have as much to do with how I
was raised as they do with a general aversion to the gruesome scenes I've
experienced responding to collisions wherein the passenger(s) were not
properly restrained (and having to notify next of kin).  But I also realize
that my experience is just that-mine.  What are your thoughts?

Thank you for your time,

~Jennifer  

 

Det. Jennifer L. McFarland
Latah County Sheriff's Office
Public Information Officer
PO Box 8068
Moscow, Idaho 83843
(208) 882-2216
Fax (208) 883-2281
 <http://www.latah.id.us/Dept/Sheriff_Main.htm>
http://www.latah.id.us/Dept/Sheriff_Main.htm

Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs.
***Ralph Waldo Emerson

   

 

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