Click It or Ticket

I've been meaning to get this off my chest for some time now. Have you seen those "Click It or Ticket" TV ads which have been everywhere you look these past couple of months? Well those ads completely rub me the wrong way because they combine several things which by themselves I don't like but put together is something that really gets on my last nerve.

First off - let me say that I'm not particularly against seatbelt laws - especially for children. However, in general I am against Nanny-state type laws which presumes the state knows better and legislates laws that tell people to act in a certain way. In this particular case though - the Nanny-state aspect of the advertising campaign is low on the annoyance scale for me. What really gets me is the waste of taxpayer dollars, the disgusting police tactics and the fact that the commercials are juts plain bad.

The "Click It or Ticket" ad campaign is a $30 million effort by the NHTSA (National Highway Travel Safety Administration). That's $30 million of our tax dollars at "work" to pay for these commercials. That's $30 million that easily could have been better spent elsewhere on bridge repair or anything that would leave lasting results. Instead the bulk of this money just disappears into the ether once the commercials air. And don't give me "but the commercials help saves lives" crap. People who don't wear seatbelts aren't going to be influenced by crappy commercials.

The NHTSA admits that one of the largest groups to not wear seatbelts are "Newly arrived immigrant Latino males" (is that the nicest way you've ever seen for saying illegal immigrants?). The NHTSA says, "Hispanic drivers have lower safety belt use rates than non-Hispanic whites, and higher fatality rates." Never mind the racial profiling (I guess its OK when being used for Nanny state policies its like saying "those people just don't know what's good for them - let us caring liberals tell them how to act) - if many of the "Newly arrived immigrant Latino males" are going to completely disregard our immigration laws - what makes anyone think they will see a commercial and suddenly become safety conscious and law-abiding? Sure the car they are driving is unregistered and uninsured and the driver doesn't have a licence but thank God everyone has a seatbelt (except the infants because the newly arrived immigrant Latino infant's parents don't have the money for infant car seats).

The law enforcement end of this campaign is also being paid with federal grant money from the NHTSA. I talked to a couple of cops and they told me that over-time shifts are available for this program but that the guidelines ask for participating officers to write 4 seatbelt tickets per hour worked. That's one every 15 minutes. Never mind the illegal search and seizure aspect of such tactics as the NHTSA wants employed - think about the ticket quotas. Ticket quotas are pure evil. That's a point I will not argue.

That brings us to the commercials themselves. One shows the "invisible man" who suddenly becomes visible under the flashlight of a cop at at roadblock. As if only the biggest moron would say anything but "Hey there's a roadblock up ahead - quick everyone put on their seatbelts" in plenty of time to ask "Is there anything wrong officer?" The other commercial shows people of all walks of life and from all geographic areas who all wind up getting tickets. Excuse me but rural officers will have no chance to make that 4 tickets per hour quota that the NHTSA asks for and besides the chances are greater that the Andy Griffin cop will know everyone in his area and he won't want to be a jerk writing tickets just for some gov'mint program. That means that in actuality - this campaign is aimed at urban areas (no matter what the NHTSA may say) and urban areas have much worse problems that need addressing than whether people are wearing seatbelts or not.

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.