Hunting Forum

Just wondering- I've had this discussion on another thread, and was surprised to find that people are not in favour of these laws. Personally, I'm a supporter.

THESE laws always start out good in theory but always morph to worst case extremes.this is why I would rather have neither of these laws and just expect people to be responsible for their actions. to be clear I  DO NOT  drive if I have been drinking(not because of fear for the law but for fear that I might ,GOD forbid,kill someone. I ALSO WEAR MY SEAT BELT, it's just good sense, but I do NOT beleive I or anyone else has the right to force someone else to do the same.I REALIZE  insurance issues are your concern, again I point to personal responsibility.you and I will never agree on this issue (and not much of anything else)but I do at least understand where your coming from and believe you're intelligent enough to  do the same.

'yote-
I absolutely understand where you're coming from... I just feel that the good FAR outweighs the bad.

Here in Mi it is 60 bucks if you don't wear your seat belt. But you can see not many of our police wear them. Now for drunk drivers, we have some still out and about with 4 to 7 DUI's on them.

With the exception of children in a vehicle, I am not pron to hurting someone else by not having on a seatbelt as with a DUI offender.

Have you ever wondered why they haven't mandated that all new vehicles be equipped with a breathalizer that you have to blow through before it will start? Shurely it wouldn't be because then too many of them would be having to hail a cab to get back to the House or Senate floor following their lunch break or to get home from their fund raisers.

The only reason anyone drives drunk is that in their drunken state they believe they can drive. Since I no longer drink I don't worry about it but anyone who drinks should either have someone thay can call, a designated driver, or call a cab. As for seat belts I always use mine and did back in the days before it was the law. I do know a few had they been wearing theirs they would have not had the kind of injuries they had. I am for a no tolerance DUI law and also think that the seatbelt laws are a good thing as well.

I put seatbelt laws in the same category as helmet laws. The govt has no business telling an adult how he must protect themselves in case of an accident. In all 50 states there are seatbelt laws but some have no helmet laws. Go figure.


As for DUI or DWI zero tolerance. I wonder how many drunken drivers have gotten away because a cop was writing a ticket for a seatbelt, cellphone, ticket?

IMHO seatbelt laws and helmet laws are infringing on Constitutional rights. However I also believe that insurance companies should then be able to charge people a higher rate if they have an accident and are found to not be wearing seatbelts or helmets. The death rate from vehicular accidents was dropping at a faster rate before mandatory seat belt laws and airbags ( both for manufacturers and users ) so this leads me to think that the laws actually impeded safety.

As for DUI/DWI I believe that after a 2nd, 3rd, 7th, etc offense your lic should be yanked for increasing amounts of time and after a certain threshold AA classes or something similar. Driving with out a lic should be more than a warning after the lic is pulled as well.

As for cell phones, IMHO texting should be fined but talking I am inclined to say should not be fined. Police use radios, cell phones, computers, etc and are ok to drive with all of that distraction after all.

Again these are just MHO.

Seat belt laws and DUI laws are for our safty.And good in principle, but grow out of control and unjust. Here it is $150.00 ticket, then a surcharge is charged each year for a couple of years to maintain your DL, and the insurance Co. ups your rates. DUI is much worse, it is a money makeing thing for everybody. Then greed plays a role in legislating safty, while taking more liberty and freedom from the individual. In the name of safty, and security. While they laugh all the way to the Bank.

I do not think seatbelt and helmet laws are just about safety, that might be how they were sold to the public. I believe that part of the reasoning behind those that drafted such laws was increasing government control over citizens as well as the promise of increased revenue for pet projects.

Gota agree there Steel.

Seatbelt laws are just a cash cow for our goverments. I believe the tickets started out here at about $58. Now they are up to anywhere from $138 to $178. Talking on a cell phone is just another cash cow. Speed and red light cameras are being used in the same way. They tried them here and the initial ticket was $128 (that is more than the average worker makes in a day). They have since been voted out by the public. I did notice the last time I was in Sacramento, Ca, they had signs up about red light violations be $436 or something like that.
DUI laws are a different story. They should be strickly enforced, but once again here they are also used as a cash cow for both the courts and attys. Also somehow AA has gotten their hands in the pie by getting judges to order mandatory AA attendence even if you are over 50 and have never had a previous vehicle related offence.

You are right on the ticket for red lights in Sac.Seat belt will cost you 151.00 .cell phone 50 first 100 second 200 for third and loss of license .DUI AND DWI .last I heard was 4985.00 fine then court cost .And every thing they put you through will come out to about 8,500 .Then your insurance doubles .

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority.
It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made
to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.
There are men in all ages who mean to govern well,
but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters
. . . . . but they mean to be masters."- Noah Webster (1758–1843)

"Government's first duty is to protect people,
not to run their lives."- Ronald Reagan

"Can our system of government, our system of justice,
survive if one can be denied a freedom because he might abuse it?"- Harlon B. Carter

"Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups." - Phil Steffen

An Avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. – Thomas Paine

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the law," because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. – Thomas Jefferson

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. -- John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty", 1859

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.

-- C. S. Lewis

Seatbelt laws? You know what I'm going to say. It's all about the government controlling you. As gutpile said, we can make our own decisions as adults if it affects only us. DUI laws? Enforce them, and be strict. If you're driving while intoxicated, you most definetely can do harm to others.

Laws to protect one against their own stupidity is fruitless...stupid people do stupid things.

If they chose to harm themselves, it is their right... to harm others, is another story.

Flak you are way off base as to AA getting judges to send DWI charged/convicted people to meetings. WE DON'T WANT THEM!!!!!! Get so tired of these people moaning that the cops have it in for them etc etc. They are disruptive to people who really want to get sober and a nuisance. No on can MAKE a person sober up you have to want it for yourself. It doesn't work any other way.

When seatbelt laws were mandated and accompanied by fines for not wearing them, I succumbed and started wearing the damn things. I will say that in my younger days, I was involved in two traffic accidents where I would have been killed if I had been wearing a seat belt. We never hear about those type of traffic deaths, but I have witnessed such deaths personally as a wrecker operator back when I was in High School. Why do you think so many cops and highway patrolmen refuse to wear them?????? The problem with the DUI laws, is the zero tolerance provisions. Not all DUI arrests occur when a person is actually drunk; they may have had a drink, go through a traffic check, and be arrested for drinking and driving; but in actuality are not impaired. Common sense has to prevail, and that is impossible with all of the zero tolerance laws.

THAT'S MY BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH DUI LAWS, we  have gotten to the point where we punish people before they do anything wrong. we punish them because they MIGHT have an accident on the way home not because they DID  have an accident. I AM ALL FOR  holding someone responsible for thier actions just not for what they might do

Is there anyone on this board that didn't know drinking and driving and or driving drunk is illegal?

Not sure why there is any debate... if you have to drive while drinking or drunk, you have a problem, but then again stupid people do stupid things!