Seatbelt law in effect in Fla. today....with enforcement ability.

[John Schmidt]

Up until now, the cops "supposedly" couldn't stop you for not wearing a seatbelt, they would write you up in conjunction with another infraction. Now they can stop you for just not wearing the seatbelt, and the TV news is showing them writing tickets like crazy. You should hear the people holler over this, saying they thought the cop needed "probable cause" to stop you.

What they don't realize is...you could have been pulled over in the past quite easily. If they saw you without a seatbelt on, all they have to do is follow you a few blocks and watch for a moving infraction. Then you get pulled over for the moving infraction and get hit with the seatbelt thing as well. A couple years ago I warned my stepsons about this and they took it as a joke...took only three days for the oldest one to learn the hard way. The cop stopped him for not signaling a lane change and he also was hit with the seatbelt thing. When he asked the cop about it, he actually told him exactly the same thing I had said the previous weekend.

It's been that way since the seatbelt law went into effect some years ago. Before retirement, I worked with four retired cops in our investigation section and they told me the same thing. Try following someone and just watch how many tickets you could write if you were a cop. My favorite is the jerk that cuts through a parking lot to avoid a red light, usually at a pretty good speed. Next is the clown that parks his motorcycle in the striped area adjacent to a handicapped slot. Just those two would fill my monthly quota in a couple days. OOOOhhh...cops don't have ticket quotas?? Right...and God doesn't make little green apples.

[BudMan]

One of my cop buddies replied to charges of ticket quotas by saying, “Oh no, we don’t have any quotas, they let me write as many as I want to.”   

[John Schmidt]

One of my cop buddies replied to charges of ticket quotas by saying, “Oh no, we don’t have any quotas, they let me write as many as I want to.”   

Yes, the guys I used to work with said the same thing...strictly as a joke. Then they added that if you fell below a certain number for the month, it was noted. A local paper a few years back had an article re. the current police dept. members, their union, and their contract negotiations. One of the biggest sticking points was the number of tickets required to be written. You should have seen the editorial comments that followed that days issue.

[BudMan]

Yeah, I can see the issue.  But in defense of the numbers; if on average most officers write 50 a month and one guy is writing 5, you have to wonder what he is doing out there.  I would expect the opposite of that situation to apply as well, but tend to question it happening.