You will respect ma awthorawtie!
Posted on 06/03/2011 1:02:23 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
Mission accomplished.
This happened in Round Rock, TX, which is a suburb of Austin.
As any Texan can tell you, Austin has always been left leaning.
You know you live in “The Greatest Country in the World” when a “municipal court judge” thinks a proper use for law enforcement officers is making traffic stops to ticket 10 year olds for seat belt violations.
I had a similar journey.
“I would agree with this as long as it means no insurance company would be held responsible for any injuries sustained by this person. “
I’ve said from the beginning that the free market should take care of the seat belt issue. I believe insurance companies are within their rights to not pay for injuries sustained in an accident if seat belts weren’t worn.
It is a major factor in my decision to use seat belts.
Chill out, people!
My guess it that this was not about police brutality, left leaning governments or anything else.
Like it or not, seat belts save lives. Anyone who works the highways has seen folks killed in an accident which they probably would have walked away from if they’d had their belt on. They cop was probably just trying to get the kids attention.
He doesn’t have a license, so no “points” to hurt his record. That’s probably why the aunt didn’t get the ticket. Both learned (hopefully) a lesson, no one ‘harmed’.
My kids didn’t need a cop, they had the fear of dad if they didn’t wear their belts. They are all over 30 now and still won’t drive unless all passengers are belted up.
Start young, teach them to look three times before crossing the street, buckle their belts, don’t vote for liberals, etc. ;-)
I agree with you. I do.
And along those lines, that same insurance company should decline to insure some 300 plus pound flop-sweating lard-butt.
If you’re too stupid to wear a seat belt, you’re too stupid to put down that fork.
So yes. The state should enact laws against obese people.
(Is a sarc tag really necessary?)
We got involved in one of those heading out to North Padre Island on a Memorial day weekend some years ago.
The road was backed up for miles so, they posted cops under the overpass for people exiting to get out of the traffic,looking at every car.
Pretty chicken chit if you ask me.
I saw one in Roud Rock a couple of months ago on old Settlers drive in the middle of a workday. (not just for seatbelts)
And people wonder why so many of us don’t like the cops.
He was wearing a seat belt though. He just leaned over.
Next thing you know, there will be strait jackets integrated into the car seats.
“And before anybody tells me this is a freedom issue, if you’re that jacked up about it, get your representative to change the law. Until then, it’s the law.”
[Bleep]
I have to have some sympathy for the officer here.
If we are going to keep passing stupid, pointless nanny laws at an ever-increasing rate, how is the cop on the beat supposed to remember it all?
The APD crotch rocket cops like to sit under the 183A overpass where the last free exit from 183 is at Lakeline. They catch a lot of drivers coming from 620 turning left onto Lakeline - from the straight ahead only lane. I almost had a lady turn into the right side of my pickup there.
You will respect ma awthorawtie!
“... there will be strait jackets integrated into the car seats”.
Or the ones that snap you in like in Nascar. They sure do look comfortable?!
“I would agree with this as long as it means no insurance company would be held responsible for any injuries sustained by this person.”
1. That’s up to the person’s insurance company, whether or not they want to stipulate that in their policy. The law should not automatically relieve the insurer of their need to make such a stipulation, and certainly should not require an insurer to make it.
2. I have personally known two incidents in which the ONLY major injuries suffered were injuries caused by a seat belt; where the force and direction of force on the person was met by the constraint of the seat belt at the waist and, because of the seat belt, caused destruction of one or more internal organs in the lower end of the abdomen. In one case the man ended up on dialysis and waiting for a spare kidney.
3. I personally know a case where a young father died (a young and brilliant employee of mine) and in the same accident his wife and infant daughter ONLY survived BECAUSE, without the wife wearing a seat belt, the wife and daughter were thrown out of the car before it plunged, tipping head over heals, down a seven hundred foot cliff to a road pavement below, killing the husband immediately on impact. Try telling that woman now that the law should command her to always wear a seat belt, and you will never win that argument with her. Every day she looks at her daughter she is reminded where they would be had she done so.
Yes, seat belt’s CAN, I repeat CAN (meaning “possible), save lives.
Yes, taking the responsibility to put them on “unattended” young children should be legally enforced.
Independent adult use should be a matter of choice, as far as the law goes.
Insurers can certainly place their own bets and make their own stipulations in their policies. The law’s only concern about that should be that such stipulations are clearly spelled out to the policy holder; who then knows what their insurer thinks about the use of seat belts.
so what if “seat belts save lives” ..
it is a lot safer in a jail cell in solitary confinement than in south central LA... so can the govt lock me up because I will be “safer”.
safety in exchange for my liberty... no thanks.
Travis County has always leaned to the left.
It's infested with old hippies, granola girls, flaming liberals and other varieties of useless Democrats.
Yeah, but Round Rock isnt left leaning. Michael McCaul (R) won 76-22, and John Carter (R) was unopposed. Plus, most of the conservative small towns in Texas adorn their traffic cops with jackboots and armbands. Cant blame over-zealous cops on the liberals, its the “law and order” conservatives who want to give every ability to cops for the feeling of security.
Uh, sorry, Colonel, not so.
FYI, I'm a Texas attorney - though I'm a transactional guy (estate planning and related areas), not a litigator, and most definitely NOT from the People's Republic of Austin. Our police in Bexar County wouldn't issue such an idiotic ticket.
Laws that are contrary to the Constitution are void ab initio. That means that they are void from the beginning, meaning void as if never passed and signed into law. Now, arguably, this particular law is a state law, and states have a police power, so perhaps this particular law is constitutional. But don't tell me "Until then, it’s the law" as a be-all-and-end-all principle because that dog simply doesn't hunt.
Note also that it is "the law" that if you are found with "too much" cash (i.e. $10,000 or more) then the cash itself can be charged with a crime, and taken from you. Then you are in the position of having to proving the innocence of the cash (interesting concept, no?) in order to get it back. Oh, and you cannot use said cash in order to hire an attorney or pay the court costs. So much for innocent until proven guilty - but who needs that, we've got a drug war to fight (disclosure: I don't and never have used drugs, and don't defend those who do).
Saying "its the law" is a mindless phrase that indicates no thought as to what "the law" really should be. I would expect better from another attorney, and particularly one who has sworn to uphold the Constitution.
"Until then, it’s the law." Nice way to increase the contempt for the law that overbearing governmental actions have been doing for decades. Nice way to make sure that people don't cooperate with the police. Nice way to separate the governed from the governing class. Sorry, Colonel, you're dead wrong on this issue.
Oh, and if the correct person wasn't ticketed, then the case is dismissed. Under the law here, a 10-year-old CANNOT be charged with such a crime. Were I the judge here, I'd dismiss and give the officer in question a nice, long tongue-lashing about his lack of common sense, his lack of decency and the role of the police in our society. I couldn't give a rat's ass if the kid lied about sticking his head out the window, etc. - this was not a legal ticket, period (though I would also give the kid a lecture about lying to the police, providing that it seemed likely that he did, indeed, do so).
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