To celebrate Easter weekend, police in West Palm Beach dressed up as Easter bunnies.
No, they weren’t volunteering their time to go to hospitals or churches, surprising children with Easter baskets and chocolate eggs. These cops were standing on the side of the road, using their bunny costumes as a disguise to catch unsuspecting motorists whose seat belts were unfastened.
Click it or ticket! Happy Easter!
The absurdity and downright trickery of these police officers calls into question the entire idea behind mandatory seat belt laws.
Does the government have the right to tell adults they must wear their seat belts or else? In other words, does the government have the right to protect people from harming themselves?
Not wearing a seat belt is incredibly stupid, and it would be irresponsible of us to recommend not buckling up each time you drive.
However, if you want to be irresponsible, it should not be any of our business, and it certainly should not be the business of the government.
A Harris Interactive poll showed that 86 percent of the public supports seat belt laws. And on some level, it might make sense. Don’t we want to keep people safe?
But do mandatory seat belt laws keep us safe? The evidence is murky, to say the least.
Police in 32 states and the District of Columbia can stop vehicles to check for seat belt violations. In 17 other states, police can cite occupants of motor vehicles for failing to wear their seat belts if they have pulled the car over for another reason, such as speeding.
The only state without mandatory seat belt laws is New Hampshire.
Most seat belt laws were passed in the 1980s and 1990s, and many were passed in the 2000s. One would expect motor vehicle-related death rates to be declining from year to year.
However, according to the CDC, from 1999 to 2006, motor-vehicle related fatalities remained steady at about 15 percent. It was only in 2007 that fatalities began to decline, reaching 14.45 percent and falling to 11.68 percent in 2009.
It is important that we do not draw conclusions on causation from correlation, but could this decline be due to seat belt laws?
A June 2010 report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that there has been a steady downward trend in motor vehicle crash fatalities since 1972. This downward trend started to occur before most states passed any mandatory seat belt laws.
Fewer fatalities make sense, given that vehicles have been built more efficiently and with more safety features year after year. But to say that seat belt laws have contributed to fewer fatalities seems to be a bit of a stretch.
Regardless of the evidence, we should have the freedom to choose whether we want to wear seat belts. Children are, of course, another story, but for adults the question of whether to buckle or not to buckle should be left to each person to decide.
