Click It or Ticket . . . I Say "Suck It"

In the mid-90's, two friends and I were on our way home from a Dwight Yoakam concert in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We crested a hill, and drove head-on into a Black Angus bull loitering in the middle of the highway. My seat belt held me tight, or I would have flown deep into the night. We made it to the side of the road. None of us had ever been in an accident where air bags were deployed, so we mistook the floating powder for smoke and piled out of the car. As we stood on the highway, gathering our wits, we noticed that the bull we'd struck at 65 mph had gotten up and walked off, no doubt with a terrible sideache.

I tell you that little anecdote to assure you that I am a dyed-in-the-wool believer in seatbelt use. However, I do not agree with mandatory seatbelt laws. Seatbelt usage is a personal choice, and the decision not to use one is (or should be) a personal choice. You risk only your own life if you choose not to buckle up. I'm tired of these busybodies who think they need to force laws that require the police to save me from myself. I'm sick to hell of reading accident reports that make a point of noting that the dead at an accident scene weren't buckled up, as if they deserved to die.

I say, if we're going to turn the state into everyone's mommy and daddy, let's go the whole route. In addition to seatbelt check points, how about cholesterol check points? I want these overweight seat belt advocates to have their cholesterol checked by police. After all, someone with heart disease careening across six lanes of traffic during a heart attack is a far greater threat to public health than one individual being thrown from his vehicle. Wouldn't you agree? How about home inspections to make sure we aren't consuming too much alcohol? How about regulating tobacco use? How about mandatory exercise times, supervised by the police? Don't think there aren't people who would advocate all of the above. Some people love to tell others how to live.

What prompted this little rant was a news item I read before the holiday weekend. In Omaha, women and children are being abducted, murdered and fished out of the river with alarming frequency lately, so imagine my rage at learning that the Omaha Police were devoting five police officers and a police sergeant . . . to seatbelt enforcement.

Glad we got our fuckin' priorities straight.