Recently, I was stopped by a NC highway patrolman because I had neglected (forgotten) to fasten my seatbelt. When I gave him my driver’s license, registration, and insurance information, he was about 18 inches from my face.
My driver’s license is from Florida and depicts me wearing glasses. When one reads the reverse of the driver’s license there is a driving restriction —“Corrective lens required.” The young trooper had my license for some five minutes and when he returned the document, along with the citation for failing to wear a seatbelt, he rested his arms on my door window opening and was about 12 inches from my face.
I was not wearing glasses and without corrective lenses my vision deficiency is greater than 20/250 in each eye. In the United States, one is considered “legally blind” if one’s best corrected visual acuity (meaning one’s best corrected vision with eyeglasses or contact lenses) is 20/200 or lower. At the time I was not wearing glasses or contact lenses!
When one reads G.S. 20-135 2A, the North Carolina seatbelt law, one finds, in addition to it being ambiguous with regard to whether one can be stopped solely for a seatbelt infraction, it is also clear that safety is of secondary consideration. Those exempt from wearing a seatbelt are: (a) passengers in a motor home (probably because law enforcement folks can’t these passengers anyway), (b) a driver of a garbage truck, (c) rural letter carriers (those in a city or municipality must wear a seatbelt), (d) one under custody in the back seat of a law enforcement vehicle, and (e) children on a school bus (actually school buses are exempt in only certain cases). However, the school bus seatbelt requirement is never enforced.
So, if one’s child is on a school bus they can become a human missile in a collision — but they must be protected in a private vehicle —represents total legislative nonsense to me.
Actually the seatbelt laws have constantly changed in NC — but only to increase the amount of the court cost. In 2006, the court cost was $75.00 and the court cost (even though the court has no function unless one contests the citation) has steadily risen to the current $145.00! The fine itself for an operator seatbelt violation has remained constant at $25.00. The seatbelt law is such a cash cow for the state that additional highway patrolmen have been hired to write seatbelt citations —and because of the additional payroll cost created by hiring more highway patrolmen, it becomes increasingly necessary to write more seatbelt infraction citations to offset the increased payroll. Isn’t more government to feed more government just great?
The logic for the seatbelt law is that it saves lives and more importantly saves money spent by healthcare insurance companies, Medicare, and Medicaid for medical treatment. This sounds like sound logic, but the reality is that whether one is wearing a seatbelt or not when involved in an automobile crash is not admissible in a court of law.
People are expected to exercise “due care” and take every reasonable step necessary to protect their own safety. Therefore, the failure to wear a seatbelt would constitute negligence. Personal injury attorneys love the loophole in the law because without “admissibility” in court, no one can be found negligent.
The seat belt infraction was my fault, and I will pay the fine and the outrageous legal theft of $145.00 imposed by the state solely to produce revenue. The money will no doubt be passed on to contributors in the form of “pork barrel” gifts. The offensive thing that grinds on my sense of fairness is that the court is not even involved— but spuriously still demands a hefty $145.00.
I don’t wear seatbelts for the state, I wear it for my personal safety —I am celebrating 49 years of additional life thanks to a seat belt. Also, I recently underwent cataract surgery and received implants —I now have 20/20 vision —but the highway patrolman didn’t know that, and by not inquiring, convinced me that it was all about the almighty dollar, without a care about road safety.
Bill Shuey is a freelance writer from Murphy, NC.
