Is seat belt a primary offense?

[runderwo]

I was pulled over and ticketed for not having a seat belt, with no other reason for the stop admitted.  Is this really a primary offense in Tulsa?

[TUalum0982]

quote:Originally posted by runderwo

I was pulled over and ticketed for not having a seat belt, with no other reason for the stop admitted.  Is this really a primary offense in Tulsa?

It's the same as if you were speeding 85mph in a 65mph zone.  It won't go on your driving record and I don't believe there are any points involved as well.  But to answer your question, yes you can get pulled over simply for not wearing your seatbelt, if thats what you mean as "primary offense"

[Friendly Bear]

quote:Originally posted by TUalum0982

quote:Originally posted by runderwo

I was pulled over and ticketed for not having a seat belt, with no other reason for the stop admitted.  Is this really a primary offense in Tulsa?

It's the same as if you were speeding 85mph in a 65mph zone.  It won't go on your driving record and I don't believe there are any points involved as well.  But to answer your question, yes you can get pulled over simply for not wearing your seatbelt, if thats what you mean as "primary offense"

Yes.  It is a Primary Offense now, due to the wisdom of our state legislature, trying as they might to "protect" us from ourselves.

Police love it.  

It gives the police the pretext to pull you over for any reason, whether you were wearing a seat belt or not.

It used to be a $20.00 ticket.

How much was your fine?

[cannon_fodder]

Seatbelt violations for adults are one of the biggest excuses a cop can use to pull over someone suspected of other crimes.  Same with "failure to use a turn signal during a lane change,"  "not turning into the near lane" and other minor infractions they usually do not enforce and often commit.  My guess is the cop thought you were up to something else or you otherwise irritated him so he pulled you over (did you have a kid in the car he might have thought wasnt restrained either?).  Maybe they were having a safety day or something.

How much is the ticket and how much time did he spend and will the city spend to collect, process and record it?  Generally it isn't worth their time to give seat belt tickets.

[NellieBly]

It's a simple fix -- wear your seatbelt. What's so hard about that?

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by NellieBly

It's a simple fix -- wear your seatbelt. What's so hard about that?

+1

Compare whatever they charge you to the blossoming suburb of Frisco TX:

No Seat Belt - Driver/Passenger 148.00

No Seat Belt - Driver/Passenger - School Zone 173.00

No Seatbelt - Child (4-14) 213.00

No Seatbelt - Child (4-14) - School Zone 213.00

Unrestrained Child Under Four 213.00

Unrestrained Child Under Four - School Zone 213.00

[runderwo]

quote:Originally posted by NellieBly

It's a simple fix -- wear your seatbelt. What's so hard about that?

I don't need a babysitter.

It's none of your business whether I wear my seat belt or not.  If my status as an adult in a free country isn't sufficient to drive you to outrage on my own behalf, you ought to at least be outraged that city resources are being wasted on such a textbook example of a victimless crime.

I have never ever before lived in a place where I could be pulled over for not wearing a seat belt, and no harm has come to anyone of it yet.

In fact, no harm could possibly come to anyone, except to myself and to my insurance company, which is a private matter.

It's ironic that when I really need help from TPD, summoning this level of attention would be impossible until someone had a hole in them.

[runderwo]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Seatbelt violations for adults are one of the biggest excuses a cop can use to pull over someone suspected of other crimes.

If that's the case, then no fine should be necessary.  They can run my license, plates, and insurance, and let me go.  The fine is an insult on top of the inconvenience.

quote:How much is the ticket

20.00

quote:and how much time did he spend and will the city spend to collect, process and record it?

The officer spent 15 minutes, dispatch spent a few minutes, paper pushers will spend several minutes each updating my "file", etc.

quote:Generally it isn't worth their time to give seat belt tickets.

After he ticketed me, I asked him flat out if he really had nothing better to do.  He replied with some law-and-order bluster before departing.  I can only hope he remembers my stop was a waste of resources, and an insult to a constituent who pays his salary.  (Fat chance.)

[patric]

Oklahoma seat belt legislation was originally "Secondary Enforcement" under which police cannot stop motorists for failing to wear seat belts unless they have committed another driving offense.  

Once we were accustomed to the idea of mandatory seat belts, it was changed to "Primary Enforcement" where a traffic stop can be initiated with only the suspicion that a vehicle occupant might not be wearing a seat belt.  Needless to say, it's become one of the most abused laws on the books.  

Having said that, wearing seat belts seems to be a "lesser evil" than not in most crashes, despite the argument that (in some cases) they trade one injury for another.

Some recent high-profile offenders nationwide include New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, who was seriously injured while failing to wear a seat belt on his way to a "Jena 6" photo-op as a passenger in his official SUV.  The state trooper chauffeuring Corzine had been traveling 91 miles per hour with his emergency lights flashing at the time of the accident.

Often times there are federal grants that pay police departments to have enforcement "events" or set up roadblocks to make certain types of arrests (like seatbelt violations).  The departments then report back disproportionately high and inflated numbers of violations, which are then used to justify pork-barreling funding for the grants, and the cycle repeats.

[hoodlum]

every so often you will see a story on the news where Cops set up at intersections and wave motorists without their seat belts over into parking lots and issue them citations. The most recent one I remember on the news was at 41st and Yale. I think they do the same thing around the holidays down around 71st and Memorial, with so much traffic they can just walk around and issue tickets for seat belt violations as well as issue tickets for blocking intersections.

[EricP]

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

quote:Originally posted by NellieBly

It's a simple fix -- wear your seatbelt. What's so hard about that?

+1

Compare whatever they charge you to the blossoming suburb of Frisco TX:

No Seat Belt - Driver/Passenger 148.00

No Seat Belt - Driver/Passenger - School Zone 173.00

No Seatbelt - Child (4-14) 213.00

No Seatbelt - Child (4-14) - School Zone 213.00

Unrestrained Child Under Four 213.00

Unrestrained Child Under Four - School Zone 213.00

If you think about it, letting people drive their cars around without seat belts on is like letting a family ride a roller coaster without the harness. For a system with this many people and this much danger, I don't see why it is such a big deal to just put the damn belt on.

[bokworker]

Patric.... I believe NJ Governor Corzine was injured on a trip to meet with the Rutgers women's basketball team after Don Imus' infamous "nappy headed hos" comment... your comments are on point.

[NellieBly]

Apparently you do need a babysitter. In the form of Tulsa Police. It is also my business because my tax dollars are being used to pull a dum**ss lawbreaker like you over for something that is totally avoidable. My insurance also goes up when they have to pay someone to scrape your body off the highway, repair the windsheild of the car you flew threw, and so on, and so on, and so on.

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by runderwo

quote:Originally posted by NellieBly

It's a simple fix -- wear your seatbelt. What's so hard about that?

I don't need a babysitter.

It's none of your business whether I wear my seat belt or not.  If my status as an adult in a free country isn't sufficient to drive you to outrage on my own behalf, you ought to at least be outraged that city resources are being wasted on such a textbook example of a victimless crime.

Yes, while not being legal, you are perfectly capable of not wearing your seatbelt. You are also perfectly capable of juggling loaded firearms, flossing hungry alligators and giving wedgies to 300lb bikers named Tiny. It doesn't mean it's not illegal or stupid. While those around you would be no worse off if you decided to go hood-surfing, there is still a victim, albeit an apathetic one. There are several officers on here, feel free to provide a vehicle description so we can get you at least a half dozen or so matching tickets.

[Friendly Bear]

quote:Originally posted by NellieBly

Apparently you do need a babysitter. In the form of Tulsa Police. It is also my business because my tax dollars are being used to pull a dum**ss lawbreaker like you over for something that is totally avoidable. My insurance also goes up when they have to pay someone to scrape your body off the highway, repair the windsheild of the car you flew threw, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Once upon a time, passenger cars had NO seat belts.

In the 1960's, seat belts became available first as OPTIONAL equipment.

Then, with the advent of various extra safety features such as padded dashboards, seat belts became standard equipment.

Usage was recommended by the Goobermint and insurance companies, but not a law.

In the 1970's, not wearing a seat belt became a Secondary Offense.  

The Goobermint even tried mandating seat-belt starter interlocks in the mid-70's to prevent a car from being started with buckling the seatbelt.  

That lasted a couple of years before the Peasants revolted.

In the 1990's, Gov. Frank Keating, a man who never met a private prison he didn't like, signed into law the Seat Belt Primary Offense law.

There are three main constituencies forcing seatbelt usage:

1)  The police:  They love pretext stops.  Stopping a driver for "seat belt usage" gives them the opportunity to make additional citations or even arrests for other offenses.  Kind of like Cross-Selling customers at McDonald's.  

2)  The Insurance companies.  They make more profits if they have lower claims for bodily injury.

3). The Do-Gooders, like MADD:  They do such a wonderful job of running their own perfect lives, that they think they should run OUR lives, too.

Seat belt usage is a victimless crime.  

No matter what happens to the passenger, it has virtually no affect on the rest of the population.

It is the Goobermint Nanny State at its best.