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Click It or Ticket: Crackdown on Seat-Belt Use Kicks Off Today (More Revenue-Generation! - Ed)
• AzFamily.com via Yahoo! NewsPosted on March 1, 2010 at 7:04 AM
Updated today at 7:15 AM
This enforcement wave -- the second in Arizona's special crackdown -- launched Saturday, and will continue all this week, wrapping up on Sunday, March 7. Two more enforcement periods are planned this year -- May 24-June 6, and Sept. 25-Oct. 1.
The operation is funded by the Arizona Governor's Office of Highway Safety, thanks to a $600,000 grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Arizona is one of two states to receive this money.
“Even though Arizona is a secondary law state for seat-belt usage, law enforcement officers will be taking a zero tolerance approach on drivers who are in violation of state law,” said Alberto Gutier, director of the Governor's Office of Highway Safety in a news release.
DPS says when seat belts are properly used, they are 45 percent effect in preventing death in a potentially fatal crash and 50 percent effective when it comes to preventing serious injuries.
"No other safety device has as much potential for immediately preventing deaths and injuries in motor vehicle crashes," said DPS on its Web site.
Nearly 30 law-enforcement agencies in Maricopa and Pima counties have stepped up traffic enforcement, looking specifically at seat-belt use.
Not only will officers be looking at seat belts, they are also targeting child-restraint violations.
According to numbers from the GOHS, 320 people killed in car wrecks in 2008 were not wearing their seat belts.
“The events and enforcement next week will help prevent needless tragedies on our streets and highways,” Gutier said.
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3 Comments in Response to Click It or Ticket: Crackdown on Seat-Belt Use Kicks Off Today (More Revenue-Generation! - Ed)
"Safety".....r i i i i i i ght.....because they love us and want to keep us safe. {{CHOKE}} How about starting an initiative to repeal the seat belt law? Isn't that one of the laws that helped accelerate the slippery slope to all these other "protect us from ourselves" laws?
Thanks for posting the link. On the way home from work today, the local news station indicated Maricopa and Pima County would be conducting checkpoints to look for and cite seatbelt violators.
As Powell indicates above, such checkpoints or traffic stops are illegal under Arizona law. Please report any such illegal activity by so-called 'law' enforcement here and/or CheckpointUSA.
Given the very clear wording of Arizona law, any such citation should be VERY easy to beat and would provide standing for a civil rights lawsuit against the so-called 'law' enforcement agency conducting the stop and the Governor's Office of Highway Safety
The actual AZ law regarding this topic appears below:
"28-909(C): A peace officer shall not stop or issue a citation to a person operating a motor vehicle on a highway in this state for a violation of this section unless the peace officer has reasonable cause to believe there is another alleged violation of a motor vehicle law of this state."
To explain to non-Arizonans, Arizona law permitting the ticketing of vehicle occupants whom choose not to wear seat belts do not authorize police to pull over, inspect or solely cite anyone as the primary cause. There must be some other reason to have law enforcement interaction with a vehicle in order to issue a seat belt violation. This is an enforcement example where those granted the privilege of authority and the powers that come with it, ignore the duties that come with that power to carry out their master's bidding in spite of the law.
The federal government is well aware of Arizona's limited seat belt law. Yet we are "one of two states funded." Law and your Rights be damned. You will be made example of for $600,000! The DPS are Nazis who do their master's bidding too --- under color of law do they sleep well at night! Never forget that.