[Vision2020] Question for the Vision

[Tony]

Jennifer, to answer your question regarding seat belts:  You are correct.  They obviously prevent much suffering and to refuse to use them as a way to buck the system or show a defiance of authority, is just self destructive and ignorant.

Good luck.  -T
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jennifer McFarland 
  To: 'Vision 2020' 
  Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 12:16 PM
  Subject: [Vision2020] Question for the Vision


   
  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

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

     

   



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