SEAT BELT LAW
 

One would expect that the ‘mission’ of government in a free society is to ‘represent’ the interests of the People. One might also expect of its government that the Laws enacted on our behalf, not only have the support of the People, but would be applied equally to all. The proposed mandatory Seat Belt law is neither supported by the People of New Hampshire nor is it intended to be applied equally or fairly so one is forced to ask what motive the elected Senators of our State might have to support a such a bill.
 
The existing law (RSA 265:107) makes it an offense to transport any minor (under 18) in a vehicle without seat belts and active restraint. Yet, while it subjects the Citizens of our state to penalties and fines for any violation it allows our towns, cities and their corporate contractors to pack our children like sardines into their town owned buses, with their faces within 16 inches of steel framed seats and does NOT require these corporations to comply with the law. This is clearly a double standard.
 
The new, mandatory law requires, not just minors, but all Citizens, to wear seat belts and, while at first blush, this might be construed to be enacted for the safety of the public the government’s own statistics do not bear this out. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s own statistics say that in 2005 (at http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departments/nrd-30/ncsa/STSI/33_NH/2005/33_NH_2005.htm) 166 people died on New Hampshire’s roads, of which, if we subtract the 44 which were on motorcycles (no seat belts there) or the 3 people on bicycles and 5 that were walking on a road (no seat belts there...) we have 122 of which 66 weren’t wearing seat belts. So out of the 1,309,940 people residing in our State a 66 folks died without their seat belts on and, of course, 60 of those deaths were alcohol related fatalities. The fact that 56 people died wearing seat belts (essentially a statistical wash out) demonstrates that this law will have minimal effect on the safety of the Citizens of New Hampshire.
 
Don’t get me wrong, every loss of life is a tragedy to the families and friends of the individual and, having lost a family member to a drunk driver only last year I know this to be true, but, the State is initiating these laws NOT because of the 66 people who died without seat belts on but to generate revenue for the state. Of the 985,775 licensed drivers in New Hampshire 36.6% don’t regularly use seat belts. That’s 360,794 chances per day to put fifty plus dollars (1st offense) into the state coffers. If 1% of those folks are ticketed that’s 3,608 people that get to donate a total of $180,396.50 to the State’s already substantial budget and we Citizens know there are 365 days in the year!
 
So, when our government tells us they are trying to ‘protect’ our safety through this mandatory seat belt law we remember that they are transporting our kids, twice a day in a vehicles less safe than a VW without seat belts and they have insured that the law does NOT apply to them. We also remember that out of 1.3 million people in the New Hampshire 66 died without their seat belt on while a statistically equal
number had used them to no effect. Given the facts we will interpret your vote on this issue as either representing the will of the People (who don’t want this law) or a blatant attempt to generate more revenue from an already burdened Citizenry.
 
We await your vote - and we will remember.
  QUESTION: HOW MANY PEOPLE DIED BECAUSE THEY HAD SEAT BELTS ON?
 

RC

April

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