Ga. pickup drivers don’t have to buckle up
A House Consumer Affairs subcommittee voted 4-3 against a proposal that would require adults in pickup trucks to buckle up.
It was the first time in at least three years a House panel has considered the issue.
Georgia is the only state that exempts adults in pickups from wearing seat belts. It’s cost the state millions of dollars in federal highway funds. The Senate has supported the measure in the past, but opponents fear it will hurt rural residents.
Should Georgia require adults to buckle up? What do you think?
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158 comments Add your comment
fer
March 24th, 2009
12:26 pm
Of course they should. Ignorance reigns in the GA legislature!
GA/FL
March 24th, 2009
12:29 pm
Yes wearing seat belts should be required in trucks as well as cars. What idiots to vote this down again. Do you think going thru the windshield on a truck is a softer blow than going thru a car windshield. Again, what an idiot would vote this down again.
C tha 1
March 24th, 2009
12:31 pm
Are you kidding?!?! My brother drives a Ford 150 and I always wondered why he never got a ticket for not wearing a seat belt. I was born and raised in this great state, but the people who run it are azz bakwards!!
cowrkr
March 24th, 2009
12:31 pm
I drive and truck and wear my seatbelt where ever I go. I think it should be a law, I know everyone should be able to make their own decision, but too many people have lost their lives not wearing seat belts.
J Buffa
March 24th, 2009
12:34 pm
I am unable to understand the scope of the stupidity involved to vote against this law.
Jeff
March 24th, 2009
12:34 pm
No, it is NOT the job of government to protect someone from their own stupidity.
This bill passed the Senate 49/4/1/2, meaning both Democrats and Republicans want to restrict the freedom of Georgians and further propagate the Nanny State. The four nays were Senators Heath (R-Bremen), Seabaugh (R-Sharpsburg), Smith (R-Rome), and Wiles (R-Kennesaw), while Senator Curt Thompson (D-Norcross) did not vote on the bill and Senators Buckner (D-Morrow) and Jones (D-Decatur) were excused.
If you are interested in Freedom and the government staying out of your life, please check out http://www.lpgeorgia.com or feel free to email me at southwestgalibertarian@gmail.com.
Please note I am simply a concerned citizen and in no way, shape, or form speak for the Libertarian Party of Georgia. Just don’t want anyone getting any crazy ideas!
Atlanta resident
March 24th, 2009
12:37 pm
The idea that opponents fear the law will “hurt rural residents” is absolutely insane. What will “hurt rural residents” is hitting the windwhield. This constant pandering to south Georgia is huring the state. If we are missing Federal Highway Funds because of this appeasment, the legislators should be removed from office for their stupidity.
Paul
March 24th, 2009
12:38 pm
Make it the law so we can get the federal funding and tell the rural cops not to enforce the law so the farmers can do whatever they want.
bushwacker
March 24th, 2009
12:38 pm
How many stories have you heard where accident victims were told they survived because they were not waering a seat belt and were thrown from the vehicle.
Seats belts do not always save lives.
Besides, if I do not want to wear one and go thru the windshield who is that hurting besides me?
It may be stupid not to wear one, but this is a free country and if do not want to wear one which I don’t, then I should be the one to make that decision, not the govt.
If the govt is going to make that decision, they should also make it illegal to eat in your car, to listen to the radio and to have passengers, all of those are big distractions and cause accidents every day, should they be illegal as well?
LK
March 24th, 2009
12:40 pm
Absolutely. Long gone are the days when pickup trucks were rarely used off the farm. Today they are a daily vehicle just like a car. I’m not sure how you can justify voting this down. I, too, am a lifelong Georgian – but am baffled by the logic here.
bushwacker
March 24th, 2009
12:40 pm
Besides seat bely laws are not in place to safe lives, lets be real about this, they are there so the govt can write you a ticket for not waering one, its all about collecting revenue, just like the HOV lane, it does not help with traffic, its there to collect revenue!!
Sam
March 24th, 2009
12:41 pm
“It’s cost the state millions of dollars in federal highway funds” — so let me get this straight, first lawmakers propose several tax increase bills such as the one on your grocery bill or the one that will be a law soon – the 7% person to person used car sales tax. Second, lets pass tax credits/cuts for big businesses that equal over $750,000 million in loss revenue from the State budget with only a promise of maybe creating a few part time jobs.
Well now that I listed just those two actions…being the ONLY state that allows no seat belt use in pickup trucks makes perfect sense. Let keep finding ways to drive up the cost on working families while skipping the easy/tax increase free ways to bring in more funds for State usage. Brilliant!
Gordon Maxson
March 24th, 2009
12:43 pm
Of course they should be wearing seat belts. It was the long reigning Speaker of the House Tom Murphy who stood fast against pickup truck drivers not wearing seatbelts due to a vast majority of his area was farm land and the farmers were in and out of their trucks so much it was a henderance to them. Therfore he stood behind them and kept it voted down.
LK
March 24th, 2009
12:44 pm
To those who are concerned about the restrictions to our liberties. I might agree if 1)care were also exempt from the seat belt law AND 2) any injuries occurring from an accident where you didn’t wear your seatbelt was paid for without funds from any public source (taxpayers, health insurance etc). In other words, if you’re foolish enough to take part in risky behavior – you’re on your own. I’m onboard with no helmet law also, if these two caveats are in place.
Gordon Maxson
March 24th, 2009
12:45 pm
Enter your comments here
Silence Dogood
March 24th, 2009
12:45 pm
Legislature running in reverse. Too much of a burden on rural Georgians? Is the burden on urban Georgians, or suburban Georgians, any less? Come on people, we can do better than this. Let’s get with the program. Buckle up, please.
Mark
March 24th, 2009
12:46 pm
The very idea that the government should write laws to protect a mentally capable adult from his or her own behavior is absurd. I understand the reasoning behind seatbelts and usually use mine, but if I decide, for whatever reason, to not fasten my seatbelt, it shouldn’t be the government’s business.
Mike
March 24th, 2009
12:47 pm
No. Nobody should be “required” to wear one. It should be an individual choice.
gg
March 24th, 2009
12:47 pm
Absolutely! I cannot understand why there is a problem understanding this law. If there is language in the law that is causing a “no vote” then do away with the certain word causing the problem, but not the law. No wonder our kids have problems with double standards. You have to wear a seatbelt when driving an automobile and rightfully so but, you do not when driving a truck. Since trucks are now cheaper because of the economy, you are going to have more people driving them. More people driving them with no seatbelts will be an increase in fatalities. This makes no sense since the seatbelt law was put forth to reduce fatalities and keep drivers safe.
Richard Bronosky
March 24th, 2009
12:49 pm
@bushwacker,
This is not a “free country”. I don’t know where you got that idea. We are a country with limited freedoms. EMTs don’t have the freedom to let you die on the side of the road because you chose not to wear your seat belt. Hospitals don’t have the freedom to deny you life saving care because you can’t afford to pay for it. I don’t have the freedom to not pay taxes because they go toward covering medical expenses that result from the stupid decisions of others. This is not a “free country”.
This is not even a democracy. When 2 boys want to have sex with a girl against her will, they don’t get to vote on it. This is a republic. On that is under the rule of law. We appoint representatives to create those laws. In this case they have proven themselves to be fools.
Just My View
March 24th, 2009
12:50 pm
YES, pick-up trucks should be required to use seat belts!! Police use them and they are in and out of the vehicle all the time. They save lives – use them!
SafetyGuy
March 24th, 2009
12:51 pm
Bottom line, if you wanna risk killing yourself go right ahead, but because Georgia don’t not require all vehicles on its roads to wear seatbelts, Georgia leaves MILLIONS of dollars on the table from Federal funding for highways, roads, and infrastructures… That means if we can’t get the money from normal Federal funding, Georgia will get the money from Georgians…
Make it a law and Georgia gets way more budgetary funds (not necessarily grant funds) money from DC and anyone who breaks the law, well, there’s more revenue coming in from violators. It’s a win-win if you ask me… If Georgia doesn’t take the funds, another state will so why not?! That’s just asinine to me…
DLink
March 24th, 2009
12:53 pm
This is NOT “soccer mom” SUVs. This is work trucks… The kind where people are in and out of constantly to do WORK? If this were made law, I’d give every county worker a ticket tomorrow, as I saw 10 violations yesterday. Laws to buckle up with a $15 Nanny state fine? People need to buckle to save their own A@@, not because of some Federal law prompting them to do so. Child endangerment is a $300 fine in Ga for people who drive trucks w/out a seatbelt for kids. Let the adults decide for themselves.
Shadow 7071
March 24th, 2009
12:53 pm
Have you idiots forgotten. This is America – Home of the FREE and the BRAVE. I don’t need the government or any overly sensitive concerned citizen telling me when to buckle up or anything else. All of you duds have been brainwashed and neutered into thinking that the Government knows best.
Stewie
March 24th, 2009
12:53 pm
Hey AJC, Representatives Carl Epps, Lynmore James, and Billy Maddox serve on both the panel that voted down the seat belt requirement for trucks and the proposal to allow voters to determine the Sunday alcohol sales issue.
I’d be very interested to hear how these three gentlemen voted on both issues.
Jeff
March 24th, 2009
12:54 pm
SafetyGuy:
And DC has a good track record of protecting our Freedom?
Tom
March 24th, 2009
12:55 pm
If you are going to require cars to use belts, you should require trucks. I find it hard to believe there are members of the legislature who would lose office due to voting for seat belts in trucks.
Wondering
March 24th, 2009
12:56 pm
I am one of those South Georgia “rural residents” mentioned in the article. I drive a pickup truck everywhere I go and never fail to fasten my seatbelt. I now feel naked without it. Oh, and Atlanta Resident, please don’t blame South Georgia for the stupidity of the Georgia legislature. Only an idiot would turn away free money so as not to pass a law that would save lives.
PoliceDontHavetoWear
March 24th, 2009
12:56 pm
Police dont have to wear seat belts, why should anyone else?
Seriously
March 24th, 2009
12:57 pm
This is the most poorly run state in the country.
Obey ALL Laws
March 24th, 2009
12:57 pm
I don’t think they should be required, but ONLY if they are used agriculturally…i.e. on a farm, etc. But driver of ANY vehicle on public roads should be required to wear seatbelts. Some old vehicles that originally came from the factory with no seatbelts should also be required to have them installed and USED. NO ONE on public roadways should be exempt. If there is a law for one, it should be for ALL. NO EXCEPTIONS.
David
March 24th, 2009
1:00 pm
Richard, all the examples you used involve one person’s decision affecting the outcome of another’s life. How does someone not wearing a seatbelt in their truck affect another? Why can’t we, as adults, be able to decide for ourselves if we should wear a seatbelt? Do you wish to live under government rule where you can’t decide or act for yourself? Remember, those that willingly sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.
Jeff
March 24th, 2009
1:03 pm
They shouldn’t be REQUIRED. (PERIOD). But people SHOULD use them.
The Government simply shouldn’t FORCE them to use them.
I completely concur that not using your seatbelt is stupid. Where I disagree with the majority of the posters so far here is that I do not feel the Government should protect you from that stupidity.
Oh, and for the poster above who mentioned taxpayer subsidized healthcare, I also don’t believe the government has ANY legitimate interest AT ALL in healthcare, and that each person should choose their care freely and pay for it completely on their own. That is where my more minimist tendencies shine through though, I honestly don’t know the official LP-Ga position on the issue, but you can check it out at lpgeorgia.com
Mike Adams
March 24th, 2009
1:05 pm
Yes we should us our heads…not for checking the toughness of the windshield. We will continue to leave money on the table and continue to pay higher insurance prems because we have to take care of the injured or bury the dead. There was no law that requied the wearing of a seat belt when I started driving many years ago as there is mabe no law about standing on top of a moving car…but don’t be stupid.
PR
March 24th, 2009
1:10 pm
Just shows how stupid the GA legistlure is. They don’t care about peoples lives. Our elected officals are just a bunch of ignorant redneck hicks!
Huh?
March 24th, 2009
1:11 pm
I agree with the above. I have no problem with this law as long as the rest of us don’t have to foot the bill when one of these rednecks goes flying through his windshield. Contrary to what you believe rednecks, you do not live in a bubble. Your stupid choices like refusing to wear a seatbelt, among many others, affect us all in the way of higher taxes and higher insurance costs. So, if you are prepared to pay 100% of the medical costs that come when you predictably injure yourself because you did not wear a seatbelt that is fine with me. Otherwise, please shut the hell up. This is a dumb law and I am absolutely embarassed to be from the state of Georgia sometimes.
roge
March 24th, 2009
1:11 pm
I have an old 82 chevy truck that has a new bench seat in it which
the old seat belts will not fit. You can not go down to the local parts store on the corner and buy seat belts off the shelf. I am goin to get lap belts sooner or later, but I would like to do it on my own time.
Not when the state orders me to. I drive the truck maybe twice a month on short trips around town. Never on the interstate. Georgia tells me I can not go to the grocery store on Sunday and buy a bottle of wine but they are able to tell me to buckle up?? come on!
Which legislators voted against it?
March 24th, 2009
1:12 pm
I say you put these morons on TV to show the world what real stupidity looks like.
Notice that no news organization is naming names? (chickens)
Steve
March 24th, 2009
1:12 pm
So if I am involved in an accident that is my fault and the driver of the pickup I hit is injured (due to not wearing a seat belt); do I have legal grounds to sue the State of GA to pay for the other drivers injuries? I and my insurance company would like to know.
null
March 24th, 2009
1:14 pm
I’m all for people not wearing seatbelts if they don’t want to but ONLY if they waive the right to have their health and car insurance pay them if they get into an accident that injures, maims, or kills them. Those idiots make the rest of our premiums go up and I’m not about to pay more so Billy Bob can go paralyze himself when he drops his Busch Light on the way to the gun show and hits a telephone pole.
Greg from Marietta
March 24th, 2009
1:15 pm
I am a native born Georgian and have had to live down some of the backwards “Redneck” ways of a small group of fellow Georgians all of my life. Here again our esteem legislature demonstrates its ignorance and total disregard for the welfare of the people of this great state because some “Good-Old-Boys” find it inconvenient wearing a seat belt. It would be only fitting if a picture of each and every life that is lost due to their failure to take action was sent to each one of these politicians so they could “see” what their inaction causes.
Citizen
March 24th, 2009
1:16 pm
If it was NOT a law, and people were getting killed right and left because of non-use of a seat belt, people would be griping that it needed to be a law…but that would be too little too late. I’d rather have the laws tell me to do something to protect myself than have them not give a darn.
Georgia Proud
March 24th, 2009
1:17 pm
The last bastion of the Old South. I thank God every day that I live in Georgia. Who cares what the rest of the nation does – we’ll do it the way we please, thank you. Keep up the old ways!
David S
March 24th, 2009
1:19 pm
We have become so compliant to the state and its totalitarian control of our lives that virtually every post does not question the authority of the current law, but agrees that it should be extended to trucks as well. Yes, a windshield is a very hard thing to hit in an accident. Freedom is also something that is impossible to get back once it is gone.
Shame on all of you for endorcing the government’s authority to tell others how to live their lives.
Don’t get me wrong. The only group who should be dictating anything here are the insurance companies. It is certainly within their right to require seatbelt wearing for full payout following an accident, etc. but there is a big difference between a private company placing conditions that I can voluntarily choose to agree to or not, and an authoritarian government telling me I must comply or face financial penalty or jail time.
As for the argument about paying for others, that is socialism and also has no place in a free america. Let others be responsible for their actions or beg for charitable contributions.
Remember, these are the same folks that care so little about your safety that they poorly designed the offramp that killed so many on that bus from out of state, and the same folks that continue to let convicted drunk drivers back out on the road with little more than a warning. This has never been about safety. It is only about control. And you have all happily bought into their argument in deference to your own freedom. Ben Franklin would be proud.
Jeff
March 24th, 2009
1:19 pm
which legislators:
I know from personal experience that committee votes – much less subcomittee votes – are not publicly available online. Whether you can get them from the Legislative Information Office or some such similar place I do not know, but I think you would have to contact an actual person regardless.
I plan on doing a Freedom of Information Act request for all records of all General Assembly committee proceedings, including all committee and subcommittee vote records with names as to who voted what way, within 2 weeks of the General Assembly Sine Dieing out. (I leave for Spring Break the day they Sine Die out, and won’t be available for the entire week following.)
I Care
March 24th, 2009
1:19 pm
If you would read the law and find out WHY it is only pick-ups, it’s because it is inconvenient and unnecessary for farmers, etc. (who drive on back roads, etc.) to use them. HOWEVER, it SHOULD be a law that EVERYONE driving on public thoroughfares be required to use belts. If you are on private property, such as a farm, then that’s a different story. I’ve heard more than one EMT say they never removed a dead person from a seatbelt in wrecks.
PW
March 24th, 2009
1:19 pm
Let them die. Who cares. When I see a flipped truck and a couple people ejected from their trucks unconscious, scraped down to their pink muscle tissue and white, broken bones sticking out of the middle of their thighs in the middle of the road, I’ll just glance and keep on driving. After all, less people = less traffic. More dead, ignorant fools means a better rush hour for me. Good riddance.
Huh?
March 24th, 2009
1:20 pm
I believe there is also evidence that failure to wear a seatbelt endangers others that are involved in an accident. A human body flying around at high speeds could do some serious damage to anything it comes in contact with, particularly a redneck human body that is fattened with years of Waffle House and Krystal consumption. Again rednecks, you don’t live in a bubble where you can do whatever you want. With freedom comes responsiblity. If you don’t like it perhaps you should move to a remote cave or something. I won’t stop you. You can do all the stupid crap you want.
Jeff
March 24th, 2009
1:22 pm
David S,
Do I know you? With the information I’ve already put out here, I’m sure you know exactly who I am if we know each other.
Regardless, I completely concur with what you are saying
David S
March 24th, 2009
1:22 pm
In reviewing all the posts currently up, I change my mind. I had only been looking at the first ones when I began writing. There appears to still be plenty of freedom spirit left in a bunch of you. Good job. Remember that and keep it alive. It will likely be tested a whole bunch more in the coming years.