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Click it or Ticket OR STICK IT


fooswinger

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I got pulled over today by a Sheriff for no front license plate and no seat belt.

 

No front license plate $75.00

No seat belt $50.00

 

I couldn't believe it but my question is...Since we don't have the choice to wear seat belts. HOW COME PEOPLE ON MOTORCYCLES DON'T HAVE TO WEAR HELMETS BY LAW AND THAT'S THE ONLY THING THAT'S SAVING THEM FROM LIVING.

HEH?

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Why didn't you just put your belt on when he got behind you?

 

I have always been able to pull it off descretely enough to not get ticketed.

 

BUT, you got pulled over for no front plate, so you can only blame yourself. I doubt he would have just pulled you over for no belt.

 

:)

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last I checked, driving w/o a seat belt was a primary offense, meaning they could pull you over for it. You're right about the bikers though. Then again, riding a bike is dangerous enough itself. Wearing a helmet is like reducing the height of a parachute jump from 20,000 feet to 2,000 feet. Its a huge difference but if something goes wrong, you're basically still fucked.
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Apparently, you've been paying attention to the commercials and advertisements. So, why exactly weren't you wearing your seatbelt again? Something tells me you knew about the front plate thing, too...
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Why didn't you just put your belt on when he got behind you?

 

I have always been able to pull it off descretely enough to not get ticketed.

 

BUT, you got pulled over for no front plate, so you can only blame yourself. I doubt he would have just pulled you over for no belt.

 

:)

 

 

correct, NO belt is not a valid reason to pull some over accord to my dad ( Deputy Sheriff)

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I've been pulled over for the license plate before. Also, not wearing a seatbelt you can get pulled over just for that "click it or ticket"

This pretty much sums it up. You knew both, you didn't correct either, you earned your tickets.

 

Laws aside, seriously people, wear your fucking seatbelts. I've been knocked around in a car before, I feel naked without mine now. I make my passengers wear them, too. Not wearing one is just stupid in and of itself, just like riding without a helmet.

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There is a seatbelt law and there is no helmet law in Ohio for one reason: the AMA.

 

The AMA exists/fights/lobbies for motorcyclists while there is no equivalent organization for automotive enthusiasts. And that is the only reason one gets you a ticket and one does not.

 

Understand that insurance companies will, can, do, and will continue to lobby to get every safety device mandated as law and every risky activity outlawed unless and only unless there are groups with lawyer and lobbying power to push back.

 

You should wear your seatbelt, you should wear your helmet. Neither should be a law for adults.

 

The only "high risk" activities that still enjoy a relative lack of legislative constricting are the ones with well funded, active organizations that understand the threat. And while I would normally point to the lawyers, the seatbelt helmet thing is not their doing, believe it or not, as such a law is in place to try to give the insurance companies a way out of paying: "Johnny wasn't wearing his seatbelt so we do not have to pay his medical bills". That didn't work, btw, lawyers are smarter that that (more weasel-y?) and so insurance companies have to pay out anyway and often pay out the ass for sums that'd make your head spin. But the law... it still sits on the books. Oh don't for a moment naively beleive it was put there for "your well being".

 

In a way, we all are the unhappy civilian casualties caught in a war between the tort lawyers and the insurance industry.

 

I know this because my wife works for two Vice Presidents at a major Re-Insurance company (these are the guys who insure the insurance companies like Nationwide who insure you and me - ergo, the pull behind the strings). You should hear some of the dinner conversations I've heard.

 

Believe it - all your personal decisions/freedom will go away were these folks given free reign. They use embullient terms like "social burden" but it is really about the actuarial/statistically dictated bottom like. Smoking? Nope. But thats an easy one. Rock climbing? Nope. Scuba diving? Nope. Skydiving? Nope. Personal aircraft? Nope. Motorcycle riding? Forget just a helmet law, they'd wipe the whole activity.

 

These people live and breathe this stuff, they're getting absolutely raped by punative damages awarded to crafty tort lawyers and so their reaction is to come to view chosen risk as stupidity. And they view legislation as a means to lower their feduciary risk because in their eyes its not just their premium-paying customers creating a financial burden on them, its all the other companies' customers, or the uninsured, underinsured or high-risk-activity partaking citizens, who create litigation situations in which they're forced to pay out. They honestly come to equate adventure/risk with stupidity and view the only way to blanket their financial risk is thru social mandates like law. And so they actively and rigorously pursue the tightening of these reigns.

 

Unhealthy food was the dinner topic the last time I recall. As someone who considers himself an adventurous activity partaker, it puts a pit in my stomach not so much to hear how these people view life's pleasures, but to think of them becoming an unchecked influence on public policy.

...

whew...sorry for the tangent...

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You should wear your seatbelt, you should wear your helmet. Neither should be a law for adults.

 

My thoughts exactly. Seatbelt laws are bullshit.

 

I know of a couple people that would have died in their car accidents had they been wearing a seatbelt. Not to start a big argument, but you cannont deny a seatbelt is bad in SOME situations. Leave that choice to the individual.

 

Its always interesting to ask the officer after he hand you a seatbelt ticket.. "You really think a $70 ticket will make me wear this?"

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My thoughts exactly. Seatbelt laws are bullshit.

 

I know of a couple people that would have died in their car accidents had they been wearing a seatbelt. Not to start a big argument, but you cannont deny a seatbelt is bad in SOME situations. Leave that choice to the individual.

 

+1 Two of my friends would be dead if they would have had their seatbelts on, although I know that stats would indicate otherwise. I always wear mine, but you never know if it will save you or kill you.

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Not to "rain on anyone's parade" but the aforementioned reasons for prior helmet and current seatbelt laws are inaccurate. The reason why we have (or had) the laws was/is money (and I do NOT mean the ticket money).

 

If someone is severely injured in an automobile accident (i.e., a vegetable) and must live 20 or so years on ventilators, feeding tubes, etc., this costs the insurance company millions of dollars which it then charges to its other policy holders (i.e., the general public). If one insurance company charges higher rates thhen all others do as well because they know that the "minimum" rate has increased. Statistics show that by wearing your seatbelt you can greatly reduce the chance that a person will be severely injured on average and thus have mandated a law accordingly. The government does not give two shits about whether or not you hurt yourself (except in the case where religion has managed to convince government that suicide is not your right, but that's a whole other story); however, they care very much when you start costing everyone else money.

 

With motorcycles, the helmet law has been repealed under the guise of it being a freedom of choice issue and the AMA etc. when all that really happened was that statistics have shown that a high enough percentage of people die in motorcycle crashes with or without helmets that the law is not necessary. As soon as enough people start living through motorcycle accidents yet are permanently hospitalized, the law will come right back.

 

This is why every "parental law" as people like to claim is bullshit for there is no such thing. The only reason these laws exist is because people do not want to pay for others' mistakes.

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foolish optomism. In 99.9% of accidents, you'd be worse off without a seatbelt.

There have been a few people who've survived failing parachutes, would you jump out of a plane without one? You do realize that you're planning on being lucky, right?

 

While I think your stats are a bit exaggerated, that is not a point I am trying to make.

 

Fact is I wear my seatbelt in a car about 60% of the time, and helmet on my bike 99% of the time. That is how I chooose to ride/drive. However, if someone else chooses not to, who is the law to take away that right? Where should we draw the line? Perhaps governing bodies should decide what you eat every night too, you know, to keep you safe.

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While I think your stats are a bit exaggerated, that is not a point I am trying to make.

 

Fact is I wear my seatbelt in a car about 60% of the time, and helmet on my bike 99% of the time. That is how I chooose to ride/drive. However, if someone else chooses not to, who is the law to take away that right? Where should we draw the line? Perhaps governing bodies should decide what you eat every night too, you know, to keep you safe.

 

 

Like I said, it's not to keep YOU safe. It's to keep others from paying YOUR bills. I am not saying I agree with the policy; it just is the policy.

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Well the AMA right now is working to make the law no longer give people "acting stupidly" the right to sue for damages they recieve from there stupid actions. Its mostly for dirt bikes and quads, but I'm sure it may effect other activities as well. So far the legislation has been doing pretty well and we are hopeful that it will open up new riding areas around the state. And take the fear of law suits off the minds of land owners.

 

Evan

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