Click It or Ticket? Do I or Don't I?

The entire world has been after me on this one - but I'll give credit to my gym buddy, Gym-buddy, for goading me into bringing the ruling in on this issue. Gym-buddy and I have known each other for 33 years. I'd say that it is 50/50 on our agreement on subjects...

...this one, however, we are in line - here in California, some lawmaker got some job justification by writing this one into the books a couple of years back. The law is this....

Click it or Ticket - that's right. Fasten your seat belt or you are getting pulled over. I have been informed that the second offense is going to knock you back over $150. The interesting thing is all of the mindless people that have jumped on the bandwagon thinking this is a great thing.

I don't see it that way - I am all for keeping the roadways safe. When I fire up the Nutmobile, I want to know that law enforcement is out there making sure that the path to where I need to go is as free of law busters as possible.

At first, most police would not pull you over for this violation - it was more of a "rider to the bill" after they pulled you over for something else. California just went through a major campaign....advertising...marketing....the whole schmeer.

Now, I am no idiot - the gendarmes had to be getting rated during this campaign for how many tickets they wrote. The entire marketing was, "clickit or ticket," so if there is no ticket, there is no campaign. It only makes sense.

I have two problems with this - 1)the taxes that I pay to keep the roadways safe for my drive are being squandered. Sure, I guess the risk of a body flying into my convertible from an accident that just happened next to me was decreased. Quite frankly, I am willing to absorb that risk to keep our peace officers out there ticketing people who run red lights. 2)I am not a civil libertarian but we do have to keep an eye on our rights. If I want to increase the risk of damaging me and me alone, that is my call.

I know...I know - "what about the people that don't have insurance? We have to pay for them." First, in California, everyone is SUPPOSED to have insurance. Second, if we are heading down this slippery slope, when is someone going to start handing out tickets at McDonalds and Cold Stone to people that are killing themselves with what they are ingesting. We don't even have to talk about citations for people smoking. Sorry, this argument doesn't hold water.

People need to be responsible - and make their own decisions and suffer the consequences...particularly when their decision doesn't effect anyone else.

In the meantime - I'll be buckling up. I drive a convertible. I don't want you to be inconvenienced by my body flying into your car if I have a wreck with a guy that ran a red light. You know, the guy that would have been pulled over two streets back if the policeman wouldn't have been busy ticketing a guy that didn't have his seat belt on.