The current seatbelt law is a waste of a police officer’s time and tax payer’s dollars.

In the event you were not wearing your seatbelt and one of Salina’s finest sees you, then this is how it breaks down:

– Just to pull someone over for not wearing a seatbelt is a $5.00 fine in the city of Salina.

– An officer spends about 30 minutes writing the ticket, explaining to the driver why they received the ticket and filing the ticket once they are back at the police station.

– The average wage of a police office could be between 15 and 20 dollars an hour or more!

– Then you add in the gas wasted chasing the driver down and gas used while the office writes the ticket, well you can do the math and see that it cost the tax payers more money to have the officer write the ticket than its worth.

Not wearing a seat belt is not an endangerment to other drivers or pedestrians. Traffic laws were written to protect pedestrians and other drivers from inattentive drivers. If someone is caught breaking these laws and they are not wearing a seatbelt, then and only then should they be cited for not wearing a seatbelt. If you are going to break driving rules then you had better be wearing a seatbelt.

The current seatbelt law should be repealed.

~Helm