Starting Tuesday 30 June 2009, you may find that you won't have to be speeding or swerving for that matter to be pulled over by a Law Enforsement Officer in Florida. Thats right, drivers can now be stopped for failing to wear a seat belt and be receive a ticked for $93 as part of the new primary seatbelt law. Before June 30, failing to buckle up wasn't reason enough for an officer to pull a car over, but now you can be pulled over for that if for no other reason.
Did you even know that there were two seatbelt laws? Apparently, seat belt laws are divided into two categories: primary and secondary.
**Primary seat belt laws allow law enforcement officers to ticket a driver for not wearing a seat belt, without any other traffic offense taking place.
**Secondary seat belt laws state that law enforcement officers may issue a ticket for not wearing a seat belt only when there is another citable traffic infraction.
- 29 States, the District of Columbia, (and for those that vacation regularly), Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have primary seat belt laws.
While I wholeheartedly believe in seat belts, they saved my life when I was hit by an 18-wheeler. This concerns me for a couple of reasons. First, the opportunity for increased racial profiling (that's really scary), and if you are reading this part and you don't catch your breath or close your eyes, you've never had the priviledge of being a part of one. ... It looked like you weren't wearing a seat belt, step out of the car... But I will save that for another blog.
Secondly, Florida is a tourist area. People have been coming here for years how are they going to know? Are we going to send them notices? Or set up at the State line and wait for them to drive across and yell surprise? Post it in the welcome packages? How about the people who've been having a ball here for the last week? How will they know that when they leave the beach tomorrow without thier seat belts on, they will be looking at almost $100 in fines!? Fort Walton Beach for example, is a little sleepy hollow that doesn't have the huge Interstate signs letting you know like major cities.
The interesting thing is children riding their bicycles are required to wear helmets yet grown men on motorcycles with no other protection are not.
The federal government has provided financial incentives for States to pass primary seatbelt laws as part of the 2005 Highway Bill known as the Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Act. Legislation had to be passed and signed into law by June 30, 2009 to qualify for the federal money. Florida has met the deadline and should receive $35 million in funding.
If you don't know what the seatbelt laws in your state, which I doubt many do, I've got a link for you to check them out:
http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/seatbelt_laws.html
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