Seatbelt Checkpoints (my story, post yours)

I'm in Pittsburgh, and was approaching the Parkway East from the Bates Street interchange during evening rush hour, and a police car was sitting in the median with both front doors open and emergency lights flashing. The two cops had a sign set up in front of the car, which said "Seatbelt Checkpoint".

It wasn't a road block, but they looked to be on the ready to jump out of the car and rush any vehicle occupied by someone not wearing a seatbelt (or someone suspicious who MAY not be wearing a seatbelt). Traffic was moving very slowly, so they'd have plenty of time to do this.

I almost wrecked putting my seatbelt on!

Training for something?

We've had them here in for 10+ years. So, wear your seat belt! :D

watch the america people roll over and take it up the ass

Where were you headed anyway, surface streets are usually better during rush hour.

I should've used the back roads and saved 10 mins, but it was just a bit before 5PM, so I figured it wouldn't be so bad. Wrong.

from Bates. You'd have to go up Zulema and then right onto Wellsford to make a left onto Allies

I do dislike not being able to make a left from Allies to Bates, though.

It really is so much faster than the crowded parkway. Bummer you can't turn left, but they'd need a 3rd lane. Maybe if they took down a few of those houses on bates.

To get people to WEAR THEIR SEATBELTS!!!

I have 2 friends who died in high school because they didn't, so I'm a little short on patience with people who don't. Especially people who allow their kids to crawl around in the backseat without them on.

How hard is it? Why not do it?

At the checkpoints, they usually watch with binoculars for people doing what you did. So you might wind up with a ticket anyway, if they see you. Just wear your seatbelt.

I'm an adult. It's none of their business what I do inside of my car, as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others. My car is my private property and the government should keep it's greedy paws off of it.

They have already mandated that the vehicle you drive measures up to certain safety requirements, why shouldn't they also mandate what drivers must and mustn't do while driving?

I guess you think the governemnt belongs to THEM as well?

The government is a SERVANT of the people not the other way around.

"It's none of their business what I do inside of my car" from Oaklander.

What you do in the car is of interest to us (both public and state)

And a good one that has proven time and time again to sane lives. What's so bad about about that?

body in a permanent suspended state of coma costs several hundred thousand dollars per month, not to mention the grief to your family.

When YOU buckle up, YOUR KIDS buckle up. When those kids buckle up, OTHER kids buckle up. It's the domino effect.

That way when that drunk driver t-bones you, do you don't go flying out into oncoming traffic causing OTHER cars to skid out of control causing a chain reaction disaster.

EMTs don't pull dead bodies out of seatbelts. They scrape them up off the pavement with a shovel.

Seatbelts save lives.

The craziest thing I EVER EVER saw was a woman in the driver's seat with a newborn infant in one arm, driving with the other.

And just because someone doesn't believe in legislating behavour to save us from ourselves doesn't mean that they regard their life as worthless.

considered 'greedy'? There is no profit in YOU wearing a seatbelt.

Actually, I agree with you. I also laugh my ass off that Bikers had better organization and passion to get rid of helmet laws than the cage drivers did with seat belt laws.

Cage drivers just bitch about it, Bikers actually visited their lawmakers and got the laws changed.

I worry that this may be yet another tactic in the ongoing clampdown on the public.

:spank:

All the LEO has to say is that he/she *thought* the driver wasn't wearing a seatbelt, justifyin why they then pulled the car over.

Thanks to Rhenquist & co., once a driver is pulled over by the police, it's now "Guiliani time"!!!

List of LEGAL things than the police can do once the driver has been pulled over:

- order driver and passengers out of car
- order driver & passengers to get face down on the ground
- frisk everybody in the name of "officer safety"
- claim "furtive movement" by occupants before they got out of the car and face down on the ground, which then allows a search of the vehicle interior "for weapons.":eyes:
- loom over the prone driver and "ask" to search the trunk
- call a police dog to the scene for a "sniff around"


Thanks seat belt law blissninnies . . . .:eyes:

I guess your always first in line for those anal cavity searches.
:evilgrin:

Not everything is some conspiracy to screw you over. Sometimes you get busted speeding because you were speeding. Sometimes they check seatbelts because they want people to wear them. Sorry to interfere with any romantic images of fighting the system or being a dissident that some here may have in their heads.

I'll stay vigilant thank you.

No big whoop. Of course I wasn't drunk, or driving a stolen car, or breaking any laws, so things have gone well. Of course I was once accidentally going 65 in a 55 zone (went from one highway to another and hadn't seen a speed limit sign yet) and of course I got pulled over and pistol whipped and then left to die, oh wait no that didn't happen, nevermind.

So - just because someone hasn't been thrown in jail without a warrant (a la Jose Padilla) some people are happy to let Asscrack & Co. keep that power "because it hasn't happened to them" - YET:eyes:

Better yet, let's push that power to the local PD, who we all know are really friendly towards certain members of the population.

Hey, I'm a swarthy guy with a funny name, but since I haven't been thrown in jail yet like that Padilla guy, I've got no gripe about police stop & frisks, right? :eyes:

:tinfoilhat: :scared:

They need money. They know that this will definitely catch some lawbreakers and that they'll get money for it

especially with apologists who gladly encourage police state activity

Before long these checkpoints will become permanent if things keep going the way they are.

And the seatbelt tyranny will continue forever

If you don't like it take the bus or walk

Your smart ass remarks aside it is not about "seatbelt tyranny"

And until you can prove that they are being abused and used for purposes other than their stated purpose (enforcing seatbelt laws in this case, or drunk drivers in other cases) I have no reason to start opposing them

It's all about the Ben-Jammin's.
Point:
Here in Indiana, car drivers have to be belted. Operators of pick-up trucks, big trucks, and farm equipment don't.

Why? are trucks safer? no, the trucking companies and farm bureaus had better lobbyists.

I wear my belt (obligitory disclaimer)

holiday weekend. Driving away from a beach.
My wife and I always have seat belts.
I think they were also looking for drinking.
they just waved us on through..

I do agree that these things can be taken further than they should, and worry about that. With the addition of conservtives to the courts we will see the ability of police to search increase, the "reasonable cause" standard will stretch out further

so long as NO public funds are used to keep your carcass breathing after you get thrown through your windshield and your own private funds are exhausted. I don't think insurance companies should have to pay for the medical care of those not wearing seatbelts, or of bikers not wearing helmets. If you want to take the risk, it's your body. But it's disingenuous in the extreme to say that it costs society nothing for drivers not to take precautions such as seat belts; it costs an enormous sum of money for all of us to pay the increased insurance premiums, drives up hospital costs (because they pass on the expense of the unpaid bills to those of us with insurance), etc. That comes out of MY pocket.

I've already been through a windshield once. I don't intend to do it again. I wear a seatbelt.