[Vision2020] Question for the Vision

Mon Nov 27 10:41:20 PST 2006

John Donne wrote long ago:

"No man is an island."

All our actions affect others.  Seat belt laws not only protect the sitter in a vehicle but anyone who may have a collision with the vehicle with the unbuckled sitter, no matter whose responsibility the collision/mishap is.

The liability of the others involved in a collision/mishap is greater when any of the people involved in the colliding vehicles are unbuckled thus more exposed to serious injury or death.  No one wants to live with the consequences of the more serious results of colliding with a vehicle with someone unbuckled.  Hence, the seat belt laws are there to protect others than those that "choose" not to buckled.  In general, if a person's choice only affects themselves and very minimally affects others, perhaps we ought not interfere with it.  But like in the case of unbuckled persons in motor vehicles, the choice is likely to affect others, sometimes catastrophically.

In addition, the cost all of us bear for emergency responses for collisions/mishaps with unbuckled drivers is increased by the unbuckled.  EMTs and LEOs are also additionally stressed by the carnage of the unbuckled.  Besides the trauma for these officials, it is likely that turnover will be increased for those agencies.  In addition, some of the additional injuries etc suffered by the unbuckled happen to people without the resources to cover their medical costs.  The rest of us must then pay those costs not because of our choice because of the "choice" of the unbuckled.

There is another cost when some one is killed or seriously injured in a vehicle collision/mishap (more likely to happen to happen to an unbuckled):

Family members, friends, and employers suffer unnecessary losses -- sometime horrible, long term ones.

Hence, seat belt laws are just good public policy enacted for public health and safety.

Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
deco at moscow.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Kai Eiselein, editor 
To: Jennifer McFarland ; 'Vision 2020' 
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 1:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Question for the Vision

I believe that all persons under the age of 18 should be belted, and officers should be able to pull over a vehicle if they see an unbelted minor.
Adults, however, should make their own choices.
I say this in light of the fact that I ALWAYS wear a seatbelt and twice have walked away relatively uninjured because of them, including an end over end rollover.
I've also been injured by a seatbelt; compression fractures in my back. But that was an oddball accident and if I hadn't been wearing a seatbelt, the doctors said I would have probably broken my neck.
What is needed is better education as to WHY people need to use seatbelts and use actual, close up, gory photos of those that didn't. I've crawled into a car after a guy hit a telephone pole at 30 mph with no belt and it is not a pretty sight. Maybe if people see the real, unsanitized results, their seatbelt usage would change.
I think our police have better things to do than play parent to adult drivers. 
It also seems a bit goofy to me to toughen seatbelt laws on adults, while having no helmet law for them.
Just my two cents worth.
  -----Original Message-----
  From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]On Behalf Of Jennifer McFarland
  Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 12:16 PM
  To: 'Vision 2020'
  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

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

=======================================================
 List services made available by First Step Internet, 
 serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
               http://www.fsr.net                       
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20061127/ad00ebbd/attachment-0001.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 2743 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20061127/ad00ebbd/attachment-0001.jpe 