I spent my day at the Massachusetts State House of Representatives yesterday. They were debating whether or not to have a “primary seatbelt law,” which would mean a police officer could pull you over solely for not wearing a seatbelt. Right now, MA has a “secondary seatbelt law – so you can only get a ticket for not wearing your seatbelt if you get pulled over for some other reason. 22 states have primary seatbelt laws. I was there for 6 hours, so I really ended up with an understanding of the arguments on both sides. And I didn’t like either. The side that wanted the bill railed on and on about it being a “public safety measure” and that it would “save lives.” The side against seemed to being saying, mostly, “you can’t tell me what to do.” They spoke of Big Brother, and of personal responsibility. I disagreed with the public safety/saves lives side b/c I felt that those little catch phrases could be used to pass ANY piece of legislation. No matter what infringement it puts on people’s daily lives. As one Rep said, we should outlaw, along these lines, smoking and fast food, as well. I have a problem with “public safety” being a phrase that can be thrown out to quell all debate or argument over an issue. The saving lives question – I again felt like it was a catch phrase used to win people over, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s true. One of the Reps putting this argument forth said, “everybody knows that they’re not going to speed right past a state police cruiser with his radar gun on. When you see a cruiser, you slow down. Well, that’s what we want to do with this bill.” What? Make everyone put on their seatbelts as soon as they see a police cruiser? They also had a lot of stories of gory deaths and unfortunate events. They had some parents in the peanut gallery (with me) who got to stand and look sad while a picture of their daughter who died in an accident at age 18 was held up for all to see. It was said that if this law were in force back then, this girl would be alive today. Huh? I didn’t hear anything in the story of her car accident where there was a police officer ready to stop the girl and issue her a ticket – or even scare her into putting the belt on while passing by his car.
Another story was …. Odd. The Representative telling the story had been a claims adjuster prior to convincing people to vote for her. She told a story of a woman who was “an up and coming professional” who had her 2 year old daughter in a car seat – securely fastened – in the backseat, but no seatbelt for herself. While driving her daughter to daycare before going to work herself, she went across an intersection and was “t-boned” by a man who ran a stop sign. Because of the lack of a seatbelt, she was somehow pushed OUT of the driver’s door, and was hit and killed by an oncoming car. The Insurance Adjuster said, “of course it was the man who hit her’s fault” (the one who “t-boned” her – that was the Claim’s Adjuster’s word) but the story of tragedy was not the death – not the 2 year old in the back seat who was there for this – who knows what she saw, and what she went through with no caregiver present – The tragedy was that the man who t-boned her was sued, and because this woman was sthe primary bread-winner in her family, and because of all the promotions she would have had, and all the money she would have earned, HE was forced to sell his business, to mortgage his home, and was even forced into bankruptcy!!! Horror of horrors!!! There were more, but they were gross. Stories told by Cops-Gone-Representatives, and Funeral-Directors-Gone-Representatives (the goriest by far). But the other side was no more convincing. I wanted to get up. I felt like raising my hand. But alas, I stayed in my seat up in the peanut gallery (good thing, I was being paid to observe, and getting thrown out of the peanut gallery would probably have made it onto my evaluation). The opposition to the bill kept talking about the fact that they have the right to do whatever they want in their own car. And that if these other people want to protect their own families, then fine – but I’ll protect my family!!! The problem I have with this (as is obvious to me) is that there is already a law stating you must wear your seatbelt. One representative came close – he gave an awesome speech, and the best part was (oh wait, there’s more than one) 1) clearly at least someone knew what this guy was capable of, and they called for a quorum right before he spoke, so the House was full. 2) for the first time all day – once everyone was there -- no one spoke during his speech. During all other presentations, the other representatives on the floor were obnoxious. They were having raucous conversations, loud laughter, little cliques of people rambling on and on about clearly unrelated topics. But while Mr. Engaging was at the podium – the entire House was silent. Except when they were laughing at his jokes. He was the closest to my own opinion. I bet you’re just *dying* to know my own opinion. My opinion is as follows: It may very well be that we already have 345 traffic laws that allow you to be pulled over by a police officer. But very few – if ANY – require the police officer to be peering into your car. One of the many laws that were brought up as so very insignificant was the “license plate light” or “expired registration” – but those are things that are on the OUTSIDE of your car. We have a lot of laws that govern what you do inside your home. For example – smoking marijuana, giving your kids alcohol, neglecting to have a smoke detector in your home, and of course tons more things. But that doesn’t mean that the police can go peering into windows to be sure that these laws aren’t being broken. Some Representatives put forth amendments to the bill that shifted the effort from punishment to education – billboard campaigns, television ads, etc. I’m all for that. Education is great. But I really have a problem with what *I* see as a (albeit slow and small) infringement on privacy for the sake of this ill-defined, and often mis-cited “saving lives” or “public safety.” Perhaps part of what makes it sit poorly with me is that I had a professor this past quarter for Advanced Crim who taught about the shift from criminal procedure to “regulation” and how “public safety” claims are what Congress uses to take things out of the court, and put into Congress as regulatory instead of judicial. And the instances where this infringes upon due process rights in criminal proceedings. Preventative Detentions being the thing that first comes to mind. It’s not about punishment, it’s about PUBLIC SAFETY. So I was upset when the bill was passed, 77-74. My organization had worked with one progressive representative to get an amendment that required data collection pertaining to racial profiling, but that got gutted in some fashion up at the podium during the chaos that is the consideration of amendments to bills. It passed, but it was gutted. And I still don’t know what the substance of the amendment ended up being. |
