Which Laws to Pick?

Something has been happening the last few years that I find quite baffling, and listening to a radio report about it today finally got my blood boiling – in part because of the things happening around me as the report was happening.

I reside in Tennessee, and the law enforcement officers here have been set on the noble quest of ensuring driver safety. Great, I thought when the initiative was first put in place a few years ago. I was both right and wrong.

The initiative in Tennessee, laid down to protect us while out on the road, centers around two important safety factors, drink driving and seatbelts. What about the rest?

Other important safety rules – actual rules of the road – are being ignored while the police are dolling out tickets for people not buckling themselves in. “Click it or ticket” has become a monster of its own design. Why? I’ll tell you.

Whilst driving to work this morning I had the radio playing and the newsreader was giving a report about the estimated number of tickets being given out to drivers not wearing their seatbelts. While I was listening to this report I was driving on the Interstate. The speed limit on that particular interstate is 65 mph for cars and 55mph for trucks. I was driving at about 64 miles per hour and both cars and huge juggernaught trucks were passing me and disappearing into the morning light, all failing to signal they were moving into another lane. While this was happening I had an oversized pickup truck so close to the back of my car that I could barely see his or her headlights in the rearview mirror. After leaving the Interstate and proceeding on the rest of my journey to work, I witnessed three cars running traffic lights, four cars changing lanes at intersections without signalling, two cars making U-turns in posted no U-turn zones and a police car driving at at least 50mph in a 30mph zone with no lights flashing.

I ask you this, is it really that important to enforce the safety of wearing seatbelts so vigilantly when the other rules of the road are being flaunted so often and with such reckless abandon? Would police time not be better served preventing rear end collisions by fining tailgaters, preventing side swipes by cautioning those changing lanes without signalling and stopping potential pile ups by reprimanding people running traffic lights? Last time I checked these were actual violations of the road, not mere suggestions.


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