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From: phl@drusd.UUCP (LavettePH)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Seat belts
Message-ID: <1308@drusd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Apr-85 15:02:28 EST
Article-I.D.: drusd.1308
Posted: Thu Apr 25 15:02:28 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Apr-85 09:07:36 EST
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 83


>I'm not particularly interested in arguments about seat belt
>laws saving people money.  No one has anything other than
>opinion to support this; at least, nothing else has been posted.
>(Horrors, logic in net.flame!)  I *am* concerned about the
>attitude that says, in effect, "YOU should/shouldn't do x,
>because it's good for you", and wants to pass a law to enforce
>it.  This attitude will eventually erode away our freedom of
>choice.
>Gail Bayley Hanrahan

If you can get away with logic, I'll try some facts.  |-)

As a result of public demand, particularly MADD and SADD, the Colorado State
Patrol initiated a program over the Christmas-New Year holiday that established
a series of checkpoints where they intended to stop cars and check for drunk
drivers.  On the surface the program looked like a great idea.  After all, no 
one but a fool wants to share the road with someone who could kill him. However,
a little deeper analysis pointed out some pitfalls in the program.

1.  The state patrol was required by state law to file a report with the state's
    attorney-general any time they establish a new procedure and obtain written
    confirmation from the attorney-general that the proceedure is legal under
    existing statutes and the constitution.  This approval was quite important
    in this instance because the checkpoints' operation involved the detention
    of citizens without probable cause and could open the state to massive law-
    suits from sober citizens whose civil rights had been violated by being pre-
    vented from going about their lawful business.  Make no mistake about this.
    If you are not free to go, you are being detained.  (Let's not get into a
    silly squabble about traffic cops at accidents or intersections.)

    The state patrol failed to obtain the required permission.  When the head
    of the patrol was interrogated by the local media and an attorney from the
    ACLU he finally admitted that the attorney-general had not as yet issued
    permission (The document has a serial number and he could produce neither
    the document nor provide the number.) but they were going ahead with the
    program because, as Gail says, "It's good for you."  When asked if the
    unlawful implementation of the program could cost the taxpayers an enor-
    mous ammount of legal fees and penalties, he refused to answer any further
    questions and terminated the interview.

2.  When the holidays arrived, the most of the center of the state was subjected
    to a winter storm which caused cancellation of the program so the patrol
    could handle the large volume of traffic accidents.  However, checkpoints
    were operated in the south-west part of the state near the Ute reservation.
    They were not operated in storm-free areas of the state with a predominantly
    anglo population.  The undercurrent of racism was obvious to everyone.

3.  Of the approximately three hundred cars stopped (Those supposedly boozed-
    up indians) the patrol made three arrests.  Media analists claimed that an
    evaluation of previous years' arrest records revealed that the checkpoint
    program was a total failure inasmuch as higher arrest rates were achieved
    in prior years by normal moving patrols.

Now for the FLAME!

I wish some of you would stop and think a minute before you demand another law
to solve all your problems.  It doesn't work!  We have warehouses full of laws
that were passed with the best of intentions.  Nobody pays any attention to 
them.  No matter how good and warm it makes you feel, just passing a law won't
get the job done.  Why not try holding the conniving plea-bargaining wimps and
crooked judges feet to the fire until they enforce the laws we already have on
the books and pay them to enforce?

If the prosecutors seriously prosecuted the drunks and habitual reckless drivers
and the judges saw to it that they either went to jail or lost their licenses
and if the liquor control people seriously went after the bars that illegally
sell to drunks and took their licenses away from them, we probably would save
more lives and prevent more accidents than all the seatbelt and 55mph band-aid
laws you seem to think we need.  We would probably save enough on the insur-
ance to pay the taxes to build the necessary jail capacity.  (I threw that in
for those whose money seems to be more valuable to them than their lives.)

Whatever you do, don't put another law on the books that does nothing more than
give an arrogant, elitist (and sometimes corrupt) police establishment another
way to harass whatever minority they don't like while they look the other way as
their friends do as they damn well please.

Listen to Gail.  She is trying to tell you the same thing that Louis Brandeis
meant when he warned us that free men must be most on guard to defend liberty
when governments alledged purpose is beneficial.

- Phil