DescentBB

Apparently the police up here in Washington have been standing on street corners with cardboard signs that say "buckle up" and writing tickets to people they see without seatbelts on.

Some idiot, thinking one of the officers was a panhandler, threw a half-full can of pop at him and yelled some obscenities. End result? $1050 ticket for littering. HA HA!

linky.

lol

Way to go stupid.

hahaha, u are teh win have some cake.

Only in seattle.

++

a guy i know got pulled over for speeding once, when the cop walked up to the car he asked for his i.d. and all... he dropped his cigarette out the window, and started going for his wallet... he handed it to the cop who then said, "are you going to pick that up, or am i gonna have to cite you for littering?"

being a windy day, he of course had no idea where the cigarette went. cop said, "i am only giving you a warning for the traffic violation, but i will be citing you for the littering."

my friend thought, 'whew, got out of that easy,' 'til he discovered that the littering violation was something like three times that of the moving violation.

i laughed at him... quite a bit actually.

In four hours, 41 cars were stopped and 30 seat-belt tickets, costing violators $101 per infraction, were handed out...

Nice cash cow.

Testiculese wrote:

In four hours, 41 cars were stopped and 30 seat-belt tickets, costing violators $101 per infraction, were handed out...

Nice cash cow.

Everyone needs a revenue stream.

oops

Haha

Litter Nazi cops ...

Testiculese wrote:

In four hours, 41 cars were stopped and 30 seat-belt tickets, costing violators $101 per infraction, were handed out...

Nice cash cow.

No - everyone needs to wear seatbelts. Failing to wear one kills you at any impact over 15 mph - or injures you so severely you wish you were dead. Airbags are merely an ADDITIONAL safety device, and do not save lives like seatbelts. Dying in a car crash costs your country around $200,000 (if the costs in the US are similar to here in NZ). Wearing a seatbelt costs nothing, takes less than a second to deploy, and saves you even in the most horrendous car crashes. There is almost never a situation where wearing one is detrimental to you. The stats are around 10,000 to one: for every 10,000 people saved, a seatbelt kills one person.

I always thought Americans were insanely stupid about seatbelt laws, and helmet laws too for that matter. Yeah, you're free to not wear one, but you are also free to have your brains splattered all over the place. And I have seen a lot of brains splattered.

i was instilled at a very young age ... i put one on the second i sit down... i feel wierd in a car without one on (if i am just installing a car stereo for example).

i have my kids trained quite well as well... they get theirs on right away the second they get in the car. if i start the car before they get it buckled... they yell and scream as if the world is coming to an end.

i still can't beleive people don't wear them....

Airbags are great at preventing you from slamming into the steering wheel, which can even happen when you're wearing your seatbelt.

Airbags are not entirely effective against you going facefirst through the windshield or smacking your head on the side window as you flail about helplessly from side to side in the car. Seatbelts are.

w000t! GO SEATBELTS!!!!

and someone wondered why the cops were holding up the signs... yeah they are making money off the stupid people, but hopefully at least some of them think to put on the belt next time.

About 30 years ago, I was in a car accident WITH my seatbelt on... If I didn't have the seatbelt on, would have probably died because the impact of an accident that most likely would have thrown me most of the way through the windshield.

My brother was driving in the left front seat, My only sister was in the back seat behind him without her seat belt on. I was in the right front seat on the opposite side of where the car was struck.

At impact, my sister hit the back of the seat causing some lower back pains that my brother still has from time to time. Even with my seatbelt on, I knocked the mirror off of the windshield somewhere around my left eye socket but somehow missed my left eye completely. My head hit the windshield and left quite a bulge in it.

We had just hit third gear in a used Volkswagen Beetle that we had just purchased less than a week before. (Our speed was a mere 30 Miles Per Hour or so.) My brother didn't have time to do much before the impact... He did his best to stop the car before hitting the other car.

We had just left our home to take a short trip across our city and had traveled less than 3 blocks when the accident occurred. Less than 2 or 3 minutes from getting in the car.

The guy that caused the accident was traveling south across the road where he had a stop sign but the east/west street was the major street without a stop sign. He had looked left (east) but forgot to look the right (west) which is where we were coming from... BAMM... Accident and it happened so quickly that we had almost no time to react.

I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. It was very odd looking up at the sky when they put me in the ambulance for the short trip to the hospital.

The emergency room did a poor job it seemed... I still had a fair amount of glass in my face we had to deal with later on after we got home.

I had a major concussion and for several weeks did little more than wake up, stay in bed most of the time when awake, getting up only to eat and use the restroom, and sleep.

Saw the car several weeks later before the repair work was done. My head had left a major headprint in the windshield.

I've always worn a seatbelt and can assure you that even though a seatbelt is annoying at times, that it is well worth the minor time it takes to use them.

My buddy sat in the back seat of a car in the middle.
They crashed into a wall. The only thing that stopped him was the wall infront of the car; his skull got crushed.

RIP buddy.

Hrm... apparently, littering isn't a big deal where I'm from. There are plenty of areas that have signs clearly posted - "Fine for Littering".

As for seatbelts, driving is the single most dangerous thing most people do on a daily basis, and I'll never understand why anyone wouldn't want to wear their seatbelt. I just think it's a shame that we need to have laws for it. I agree with Testi - it's a convenient cash cow.

Mobius wrote:

Testiculese wrote:

In four hours, 41 cars were stopped and 30 seat-belt tickets, costing violators $101 per infraction, were handed out...

Nice cash cow.

No - everyone needs to wear seatbelts. Failing to wear one kills you at any impact over 15 mph - or injures you so severely you wish you were dead. Airbags are merely an ADDITIONAL safety device, and do not save lives like seatbelts. Dying in a car crash costs your country around $200,000 (if the costs in the US are similar to here in NZ). Wearing a seatbelt costs nothing, takes less than a second to deploy, and saves you even in the most horrendous car crashes. There is almost never a situation where wearing one is detrimental to you. The stats are around 10,000 to one: for every 10,000 people saved, a seatbelt kills one person.

I always thought Americans were insanely stupid about seatbelt laws, and helmet laws too for that matter. Yeah, you're free to not wear one, but you are also free to have your brains splattered all over the place. And I have seen a lot of brains splattered.

And what business is it of anyone elses if I do not? The government? No.. My neighbor? No.. Oh yea, I know..the INSURANCE COMPANY.

Why is it a law? The 'law' is completely unconstitutional. It's not even a law, it's a regulation imposed upon a contract you signed, giving away your freedom of choice to a handful of criminal corporations who's bottom line dictates how you live. Now we have the police cashing in. As if people don't pay enough in taxes as it is, now it's stolen straight from the wallet.

I wear mine anyway...nowadays. I never used to bother, since I was under 30 and that made me invincible (right?). But in this 'free' (yea right) country, I would think one could choose for themselves.

Next car accident you get in, if you're not wearing your seatbelt, good luck getting anything paid for. Thanks to the wonders of no-fault insurance, if you were to get one red cent from me I'd sue you for theft.

Mobius wrote:I always thought Americans were insanely stupid about seatbelt laws, and helmet laws too for that matter. Yeah, you're free to not wear one, but you are also free to have your brains splattered all over the place. And I have seen a lot of brains splattered.

I've wondered about the helmet laws myself (or lack thereof), given that cops have the authority to pull people over solely for not wearing their seatbelt. In my state recently there was a big battle over helmet laws and it ended up that we still dont have any.

i see your point Test, but the point is to fine the fools who don't wear their belt, to try and "persuade" them to START wearing it.

Testiculese wrote:

Mobius wrote:

Testiculese wrote:

In four hours, 41 cars were stopped and 30 seat-belt tickets, costing violators $101 per infraction, were handed out...

Nice cash cow.

No - everyone needs to wear seatbelts. Failing to wear one kills you at any impact over 15 mph - or injures you so severely you wish you were dead. Airbags are merely an ADDITIONAL safety device, and do not save lives like seatbelts. Dying in a car crash costs your country around $200,000 (if the costs in the US are similar to here in NZ). Wearing a seatbelt costs nothing, takes less than a second to deploy, and saves you even in the most horrendous car crashes. There is almost never a situation where wearing one is detrimental to you. The stats are around 10,000 to one: for every 10,000 people saved, a seatbelt kills one person.

I always thought Americans were insanely stupid about seatbelt laws, and helmet laws too for that matter. Yeah, you're free to not wear one, but you are also free to have your brains splattered all over the place. And I have seen a lot of brains splattered.

And what business is it of anyone elses if I do not? The government? No.. My neighbor? No.. Oh yea, I know..the INSURANCE COMPANY.

Why is it a law? The 'law' is completely unconstitutional. It's not even a law, it's a regulation imposed upon a contract you signed, giving away your freedom of choice to a handful of criminal corporations who's bottom line dictates how you live. Now we have the police cashing in. As if people don't pay enough in taxes as it is, now it's stolen straight from the wallet.

I wear mine anyway...nowadays. I never used to bother, since I was under 30 and that made me invincible (right?). But in this 'free' (yea right) country, I would think one could choose for themselves.

the reason it is a law is that it is plain and simple that it saves lives, and that it causes less damage to you in an impact.

what you don't seem to understand is what mobius [read: occasionaly he says something right, even in a post that is all wrong. which i hereby dub selctive mobiusing] pointed out. you get hurt, taxes pay for it. insurance pays for it. you pay for it. MORE time and money is wasted on you, cause you just 'don't care'. you can at least agree that seatbelts are good right?

so, its a free country, right? does that mean that if i decided to go into your home without your permission, and perhaps just borrow some of your property indefinately, would that be ok? i mean, your home owner's insurance would take care of it, right? and does it seem fair that there should be a law regarding this? would it be the same if i chose to drive on the other side of the road, since that is my choice, if i cause an accident, wouldn't INSURANCE take care of them? who cares right? obviously these things aren't the same. but we shouldn't get to pick and choose what laws and regulations we like, but we do, and people have this tendancy to think, its my car, my choice. but its not, driving is not a 'right' of citizens, which is why it is regulated and monitored. it's not like killing hobos, because hobos aren't real people and we know it.

then again i may be known to pirate certain media... that is wrong too. but i do it anyway.

I just want to point out one thing:
Mobius, STFU if you don't know wtf you are talking about. Impacts over 15mph do not nessicarily kill you or injure you severly making you wish you were dead. I slammed my 88 Taurus into a concrete culvert at 40mph, bent the steering column with my nose, and it *barely* broke my nose.

Granted, I should have been wearing a seatbelt (as well as the 5 other people in the car..), but thats not my point. 15+ isn't automaticly fatal.

is it really that hard to put on your friggin seat belt guys?

seems to me people here are moaning about it like it's a big problem.

I'm with most of you in failing to understand why people DON'T wear their seatbelts. I also was properly taught to always wear my seatbelt, and I also feel nekkid without the seatbelt on when I am not even driving. Anyone that is a Kansas City Chiefs fan will remember their great linebacker Derrick Thomas, and that he was unneccessarily killed in an auto accident because he wasn't wearing his seatbelt. Just because you think you're invincible doesn't mean you really are....

Capm wrote:15+ isn't automaticly fatal.

They measure speed different.

mobi wrote:No - everyone needs to wear seatbelts. Failing to wear one kills you at any impact over 15 mph

yeah in NZ 15 mph equals 24.2 kph x (.999~^.999~) PLUS infinity

15 mph here is 15 mph anywhere else.

It's just that below that you have relatively little chance of permanent or serious injury.

Once you go above it, you start getting lucky.