Glad I'm not in FL anymore. Shortly before we left I got pulled over for no seat belt. $116.00 ticket. It's $10.00 here in MO and they won't pull you over just for that. You only get the no seat belt ticket when they pull you over for something else and you're not wearing one. Most people here drive around without one. I wear one when I'm doing 55 on these hilly curvy two lane highways but pop it off when I get into town and am doing 25-35 mph. I wear it on the interstate too.
In some jurisdictions, any probable cause will do. They’re angling for other offenses...driving without insurance, DUIi, or drug possession. A lot of big drug busts are made because someone fails to use a turn signal, or has a brake light out.
Go talk to an EMT some time. You should really wear it all the time, but UBU.
Do what you want, but maybe have a look at the statistics sometime. The majority of fatal accidents are within a 5 mile radius of home. Ugly things can and do happen at 25-35 as well.
Used to be the same seatbelt law in Florida. The politicians “let” us vote to allow tickets for no seatbelt IF you were pulled over for a different issue. Within a year or two they changed it to getting pulled over just for no belt. Government ALWAYS leans toward more control of the people.
“. Most people here drive around without one”
That’s best, so you’ll be thrown clear in a roll over. /s
Been driving for 46 years, I never put a vehicle into gear without my seat belt and any passengers belts' secure. Laws or no laws, just feels awkward.
Probably why your state and the south in general have the higher traffic fatality rates.
Seatbelts not only save lives and reduce injury severity, but they also reduce accidents by keeping the driver’s ass in place when shit goes sideways so that they can maintain steering control instead of using the wheel as a stabilizer.
Wearing a seatbelt literally improves your driving skills and reaction time. Ask any professional racer.
My dad was driving down I-95 when some idiot in a Porsche not only cut him off, but clipped his right front fender, sending him spinning across the median into oncoming traffic. A Greyhound bus hit him on the driver’s side. The State Trooper who arrived on the scene saw the car - bent into a “U” shape - and knew the driver was dead. They found Dad still buckled into his driver’s seat, very much alive. His seat was on top of the passenger seat.
Dad hated seat belts. Rarely used them. I remember him being happy that his 1965 VW Bug didn’t have them. This accident was in his Ford Probe. While he almost never wore seatbelts, that morning - for some reason - he put it on. He NEVER drove without a seat belt after that.
As for around town - a few years later Mom and Dad were coming home from a night out. They were close to home, residential streets and light retail. Speed limit was 35, so knowing Dad he was doing 37 or 38. The light had been green a while. Cars in front of them were going through the intersection. As they entered the intersection they were t-boned by a drunk in a conversion van doing about 70. They were both wearing seat belts. He hit the passenger side where Mom was sitting. When I picked them up at the hospital later that night Dad was physically fine, Mom had bruises on her right side. Dad told me what happened. I said I hope you sue the crap out of him. Dad said he didn’t think so. Exiting the car, he had to step over the very mangled, bloody body of the man who hit them. He hadn’t been wearing his seat belt and went through the wind shield.
Needless to say, I always wear my seat belt. It has saved my life - the story involves my Mini Cooper spinning through the air - and I will not drive until everyone in the car has buckled up.
There is a problem though creating laws that are selectively enforced. There should never have been a law about such a petty thing. Make acknowledging the death and injury rate to the belted vs the unbelted part of license renewal and let people make their own call. But it is an easy item for the police to use to harass anyone that annoys them or a reason to pull over women to intimidate them to go “out” with them. Even if wearing your belt, easy for them to say they didn’t see it, just to harass the citizen. Stop making every decision a police action.
There is a quote around of an officer stating that he has never had to unbuckle a dead person.
Not wearing a seat belt in the era of air bags is just STUPID!