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Posted on 05/23/2007 7:50:43 PM PDT by elkfersupper
More than $30 million in federal gas tax funding is being spent setting up roadblocks to ticket motorists who neglect or choose not to wear a seatbelt.
More than $30 million in federal gas tax dollars will be spent between now and June 3 to encourage local and state police to set up ticketing roadblocks under a program called "Click it or Ticket." Orchestrated by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, Click it or Ticket offers local law enforcement officers overtime pay to stop and search motorists at random locations. Officers will then issue an expensive citation to anyone who neglects or chooses not to wear a seatbelt. Often, officers are also able to issue secondary tickets for other violations, such as driving with expired paperwork.
The ticketing program's kick-off met with a rough start when reporters filmed President George W. Bush driving his truck on his private property in Texas without a seatbelt. While legal, reporters questioned White House Press Secretary Tony Snow about the policy implications yesterday.
"Well, it's always important to wear seatbelts, especially when driving slowly on the ranch," Snow said jokingly.
States have embraced the program with enthusiasm. In New Jersey, for example, $824,000 in federal gas tax money is distributed in the form of $4000 grants to 206 New Jersey police agencies across the state. Each will use the money to pay officers extra to operate the roadblocks. In Michigan, state police announced that they intend to conduct 800 roadblocks, as the successful program last year raised $1,499,030 in revenue from 23,062 tickets. Since the Michigan Supreme Court held that roadblocks violated the state constitution's protection against unreasonable searches, police look into cars as they wait at stop lights and stop signs without technically forcing them to pull over, as is the practice in other states.
Since Monday, thousands of seatbelt tickets have been issued across the country.
And you all thought that revenue-enhancement programs were self-funding!!
Ping.
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I was already in a bad mood. Then I read this article...
Ah! I can still remember like yesterday the huge lie they told us when they said seat belt compliance would never be enforced by itself, but only if you were stopped as a result of some other infraction.
That policy lasted all of one or two years before they started stopping people and checking for seat belt use specifically.
Kind of reminds you how they promised that your Social Security number would never be used for anything but Social Security. That was the Mother of all lies, that one.
The 4th Amendment continues to die a rapid death. Are freedoms are falling by the wayside at a breath-taking pace. The Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves at the modern treatment of American citizens.
Oh well... You get the government you deserve. I don’t feel I deserve to have lost all these freedoms, but it is obvious that the collective, ignorant, apathetic electorate just doesn’t give a damn how fast we lose more freedom, as long as they get their burgers and porn and cheap Chinese goods and cheap illegal immigrant labor.
Stop the USA, I want to get off. Can I please go back about 155 years in time. Please?
There is no good ,constitutional reason for most of these roadblocks;they are simply a way to allow police to fish without a license(warrant).
I forgot to add my ongoing outrage over the ever increasing consolidation of federal power. Those are STATE gas taxes the feds are stealing and spending on this program.
But hey... They have been stealing, diverting and wasting our money with impunity for so long, can anyone blame the federal government for getting bolder and more transparent in their theft and fraud and waste. It is not like the states ever fight them on it.
Just for one month I would like to be governor of a big state like California and tell the feds, “I’m done. No more gas money for you. We are keeping it. Now just what are you going to do about it?”
Just connect the dots. There’s no money for highways now, as the fuel tax isn’t high enough, (their words, not mine) so we need to make them all toll-roads, to help fund roadblocks. Got it.
This is why I have NO respect for police today. Un- Constitutional infringement? They embrace it wholeheartedly because it makes their job ‘easier’. Every one I’ve seen post has pretty much declared their badge to be a roving Constitution-free zone. I have been told multiple times that I must OBEY, because laws conceived by the likes of Chucky Schumer and Ted Kennedy and signed by Carter and Clinton (upheld by Ginsberg and Stevens) are what they enforce.
OBEY? I think not. I will not OBEY an ally of a Kennedy.
Yet another highly profitable form of highway robbery administered by the boys in blue.
Because there is money to be made?
Effing assholes, all of them!
"Chief says if we bring in enough money this month, we'll get extra large cuts of T-Bones and imported beer for the big cookout this summer"!!
The 2007 seatbelt revenue campaign is underway!!
If you find a way, would you please tell me before you leave? I'm sick of all of this police state sh1t!
Only 3% of the populace made us free in 1776.
Elizabeth Dole got this ball rolling during the Reagan administration.
Now what?
Whatever happened to “Officer Friendly”?
Our Founders had the answer. But when is it time?
The current parties are the same coin, same side. All they want is to stay in power. There is no viable third option at this time (note that Washington wanted political patries banned) that can garner enough votes to change this slide to totalitarianism.
And even if they could, what good would it do, as they would have to promise so much of the Treasury in order to gain traction? We are at a crossroads. It could go either way right now, but the momentum is all in the wrong direction.
He obviously retired or was 'whacked' for not looking the other way when they decided to turn against us.
Just tell them you are here illegally, and you won’t get a ticket, hell the cops will apologize for even stopping you!
How about simply requiring driving classes like the German government does. Classroom time to learn basic laws, like staying in the right lane except when passing and using a blinker when changing lanes or turning. Then, driving time to learn how to actually drive- at night, in the daytime, heavy traffic times, rain and snow, etc.
That alone would prevent thousands of deaths across the nation.
Now, now, why this suggestion when you did not learn to drive in Germany, unless you were a Military Brat over there when you learned to drive?
Constitution? We don’t need no steenking Constitution!
I thought these types of roadblocks were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court?
Immigration Bill Could Outlaw Gun Shops
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1838810/posts
THE SAFETY CHOICE COALITION
http://www.fiberpipe.net/~tiktin/
Stick It to Click It or Ticket
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/stickittoclickit/
Motion
http://www.dangoebel.com/incourt.html
Ummmm, that's what Driver's Education is, and does, and you have to pass a driving test, both written and on the road, at the DMV.
You say you're "Proudly serving in the US Army" yet you don't know this basic thing about America? What gives?
Threads like this are why I love FR.
Roadblocks were declared unconstitutional by the USSC, but not checkpoints.
State police are nothing more than another group of unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats, politically motivated to harass citizens and act as tax collectors for the marxists in the state capitals.
State police should be disbanded and their members attached to elected county sheriffs who are accountable to the citizenry. My county sheriff actually assigns his men to stakeouts in order to catch burglars breaking into remote camps and houses. In other words, they harass and fight criminals, not law-abiding citizens.
Peace officers, not tax collectors. What a concept.
In the past, I wouldn’t have thought too much about it. Recently though, I have inquired to a local station about buying air time to advertise my company.
A 30sec spot cost ~$450 (if I remember correctly). I have heard these ads on multiple stations many times a day. It could easily be $10,000+ a day here in Atlanta.
My first thoughts now are:
Where does this money come from?
Don’t the cops have more important things to do in Atlanta, like round up real criminals???
Why hell YES!!
When the Feds say they'll withhold YOUR gas taxes from you if you do NOT go along with THEIR plans!!!
In the real world, these tactics are known as
Ok...
Ah but the push for a seat belt law wasn't introduced by a Democrat was it? Neither was air bags, third brake lights, a rise in the drinking age, or maintenance of 55 mph speed limit.
Sorry bud, It's not us. It's THEM.
Everyone I know would just as soon leave people alone.
Indeed. All the political posturing and noise you hear in washington (and most state capitals) is just THEM arguing over who gets to control the loot.
I believe we've become a kleptocracy. Not as bad as mexico yet, but they are working on it.
Real criminals are dangerous. You and I are not. We're just a source of revenue. Catching actual criminals can be dangerous work, and more importantly, costs them money.
Here is a prime example of the waste of money on something that isn’t even a crime. Meanwhile we have perverts roaming the land, illegals pouring over the border, some commiting crimes, employers violating our laws, crooked Congress critters, etc.
The people in government are the biggest waste of our money.
Using taxes to collect taxes. Revooooonnnneeeers!
Great words from great men.
But I’ve been told by police officers that those words aren’t legally binding, because the courts haven’t recognized them. The Declaration of Independence founded this nation, but aren’t legally binding? So I guess our intrepid officers work for the Crown then?
“Ummmm, that’s what Driver’s Education is, and does, and you have to pass a driving test, both written and on the road, at the DMV.”
In most places driver’s education is purely optional, and driving tests are generally a bit of a joke. They may have been suitable for a time when traffic was much lighter and speeds generally lower, but they’re out of date. Doesn’t matter, though - our society is built around motorized mobility and nothing’s going to be done that will keep any but the most severely mentally retarded, or literally blind, people off the road. The powers that be have decided to create safety instead by imposing ever more rules and regulations and requirements for safety equipment.
Let's see. Just a wild eyed guess, but it must have cost the taxpayers something to have all the grant paperwork written up. Say, $1000.00 a grant proposal?
Add in processing the grant requests, maybe another $1000.00 per proposal.
That would be $412, 000.00
Now process the 23,062 tickets at a nominal cost of only $10.00 each ($230,620.00) and the cost of the 1,499,030 in revenue is $1,466,620.00 for a whopping profit of $32,410.00, not counting the donut fund.
Methinks this is a verry expensive circle jerk, financially, and another feelgood excuse to not be chasing illegal aliens, and other assorted criminal types.
That used to be the other half of the school year, coupled with 'health' class to round the year out.
Now it is all about putting condoms on vegetables and Heather's two mommies and other 'important stuff'. /sarc
I think the time would have been better spent teaching them all to drive, not just a car but a semi-truck as well. At least they wouldn't be slipping inside of a long rig making a turn (and getting squashed).
It’s not a warning—it’s an armed constitutional scholar...
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