Recently in PA and NJ there has been a big push on the mandatory seat belt laws. Around where I live and where I work, police officers have set up “checkpoints” where they can pull cars over to check for seatbelts and issue tickets for anyone who is not wearing one.
My question is this: Is this constitutional? I don’t doubt that seat belts can save lives, and that PA and NJ had the best interest of their residents at heart when they passed and starting enforcing these laws. But do states really have the right to basically tell people that they are not allowed to make stupid choices regarding their own personal safety? They sell cigarettes to adults - why not allow adults to make other risky choices?
Also, if someone gets a ticket for not wearing their seat belt, can they appeal the ticket in court, claiming that it violates their civil rights? Does anyone know?
(Maybe this question belongs in GD instead of GQ - in which case I apologize in advance for being a big dumb dork and hope the Mods can find it in their hearts to forgive me and move this thread accordingly without incident. I really am looking for FACTS on this matter, but I think there is inevitably going to be some opinion involved too.)
Offhand, I can’t think of any provision of the U.S. Constitution that would be violated by such laws. They’re not prohibiting free exercise of speech, religion, or assembly, they’re not taking your guns away, they’re not conducting an illegal search or seizure, they’re not compelling you to testify against yourself, etc. (See Bill of Rights).
There isn’t any specific constitutional right to be left to your own devices, though the courts have inferred some privacy rights that aren’t literally laid out in the Constitution (but not in cases like this - more in cases like those involving women’s rights to control their own reproductive systems).
Roads are state property and the state has the right to regulate your behavior on them. As far as I can tell, none of the usual constitutional restrictions on state power apply to a seatbelt law. Of course there’s always room for specious arguments, but seatbelt laws have been in effect in most states for a very long time, and I don’t think there have been any succesful challenges on constitutional grounds.
Since the States can license your ability to drive, and revoke it for any number of reasons, why do you think they wouldn’t be able to legislate wearing a seatbelt, or a helmet while riding a motorcycle?
The states have a general “police power” that allows states to pass laws to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens.
Seat belt laws promote the safety of the citizens of a state.
Does this unduly interfere with a person’s right to liberty (14th Amendment)?
Does the seat belt law interfere with a person’s “fundamental rights” (e.g., the right to vote, tavel, go to court, etc.)? No. The right to drive without a seat belt is not a “fundamental” right.
Unless a law interferes with a fundamental right, the courts will look to see if the law is rationally related to a legitimate government purpose. It’s a pretty easy test to pass. Here, the courts would likely say that a law mandating seat belt use is rationally related to the legitimate government purpose of promoting the safety of motorists. Thus, the seat belt law law is constitutional.
A state could prohibit cigarette use if it wanted to. On one level, the fact that the legislature does not prohibit cigarette smoking but mandates seat belts doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense, but that’s the perogative of the legislature, as there is no constitutional provision madating the legislature to make sense.
I don’t have a cite right now, but the courts have rejected the argument that a state cannot regulate your behavior if you’re only harming yourself. The rationale for rejecting that legal argument is that it is the realm of the legislature, not the court, to determine what social harm is for purposes of legislating.
It makes perfect sense, in that the potential hazards stemming from not wearing a seatbelt are much larger than those from smoking. Smoking incurs a small percentage increase in health care costs, but those costs are largely borne by the smoker himself. Granted, there is a debateably an increased risk that applies to inhalers of second-hand smoke, but even if true, the effects are minute.
Contrast this with the hazards - and costs - associated with not wearing a seatbelt. Not counting the medical costs (which, again, are largely paid for by the individual silly enough to not buckle up), there are the costs associated with the emergency crews that need to spend extra resources in cleaning up the mess, at taxpayer expense. You have emergency crews tied up caring for your dumb ass, when they could be helping others. You also delay the clean-up of the accident site, creating longer traffic delays. All in all, the added costs, both direct and indirect, are substantial.
Jeff
Also, it’s perfectly constitutional for the cops to set up checkpoints to issue citations for not wearing seatbelts (though they can’t do this to check for general violations of the criminal law). Compare Sitz (sobriety checkpoints don’t violate 4th amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches/seizures), with Edmond (checkpoints to nab drug couriers violates 4th amendment).
Thank you all for answering, although I am afraid I still have questions. You have all made good points, some of which I had already thought about, and others which I hadn’t. (Maybe I am having my “authority problems” again …)
For the record, I wear my seat belt almost religiously. I once survived a serious accident because I had my seat belt on. In general, I think that seat belt laws are a good idea - but only as a secondary offense. What really bothers me here is that I am being told that even if I am doing NOTHING ELSE wrong, I can be pulled over and ticketed simply for not wearing a seat belt. That sort of REEKS of jackbooted thugginess to me.
Why wouldn’t intentionally choosing NOT to wear a seat belt be protected under the First Amendment as free speech? Certainly it could be considered an act of civil disobedience, right? Albeit a stupid one, and not one that is necessarily for a good cause, but still …
Also, in response to what friedo said: ARE roads really state property? I pay taxes in the state of PA, so doesn’t that make PA roads, at least in part, MY property too? Don’t I have the right to be stupid on my own property if I want to, provided that I am not doing anything that is intentionally dangerous to others (e.g., driving under the influence, or on the wrong side of the road)? Am I intentionally endangering others by not wearing MY seat belt?
Seriously - if people are willing to take the Darwinian risk of deliberately doing something they know could result in death, do we REALLY want to MAKE them keep themselves in the gene pool? (Oh dear, I am again afraid we are trespassing into GD territory here - sorry Mods.)
The state possesses police powers to regulate to promote health, safety, and morals. It may be paternalistic, but even the most paternalistic of these regulations won’t be unconstitutional because of it.
I also highly doubt that not wearing your seat belt would be considered “speech.” How are the cops supposed to tell apart people who are not wearing their seat belts to “say” something from people who are not wearing their seat belts for other reasons (e.g., they forgot, etc.)? One thing you can say for flag burning as “speech”: no one’s going to mistake burning a flag in public as anything other than a big F.U. to the u.s.a…
rockle, you have a right to “be stupid” on your property at your sole expense and risk, if it’s private, yours and yours alone. The moment you have co-owners, you have at least one (1) vote on how the common property is managed, sometimes as many votes as shares you own. The public roads have from thousands to millions of co-owners, and are managed by a government in trust for them.
You seem to be laboring under the misconception that civil disobedience is constitutionally protected, when the quite opposite is true. By definition, civil disobedience is breaking the law in order to protest it. Part of the protest is gettiing arrested and prosecuted, giving you the opportunity to argue in court the injustice of the law.
Wow, that’s original, you are probably the first person to think of that. Why don’t you tell the Army you want to take one of “your” tanks for a spin?
The more people who wear seatbelts, the more lives that are saved. Doesn’t that help to keep our insurance rates down?
Also, if you are the driver who is unintentionally the cause of any accident that severly injures a person not wearing a seat belt, why should the driver have to pay for the additional injuries that could have been prevented?
Another way to phrase a constitutional attack on mandatory seat belt laws is to say that it violates the Due Process clause, in that it infringes on your protected “liberty” interest in not wearing your seat belt without according you due process of law. But because not wearing a seat belt isn’t a fundamental right,* the courts will apply scant scrutiny to the law: if they can find some rational basis for the law, it’s constitutional. Zoe’s insurance explanation would be such a rational basis.
*“Fundamental right” is kind of a term of art. Think really, really important and historically recognized rights.
Seems to me that our money would be better spent by the authorities looking for those breaking the
driving laws,like passing on yellow lines-no passing zones. Failure to dim headlights when approaching
another car at night.
Just 2 dangerous,hazerdous,life threatening driving laws I’ve seen broken more and more often.
Instead they are helping make me safe by punishing the victim.
The no passing zone problem is so bad that my father in law who lives on a curve on US61 can even tell you which county in Iowa the
cars are from without even seeing the licence plate.
justwannano, perhaps you’re not surprised, but that general principle is often articulated in a Due Process challenge to laws: “this law is stupid because it overlooks X, Y, and Z, which are much more important aspects of the problem to be prevented – and since the law is stupid, it does not provide the constitutionally required due process of law before infringing on my liberty.”
But unfortunately for seat belt eschewing libertarians, this line of argument does not cut the mustard when challenging economic or health/safety regulations subject only to rational basis scrutiny. The Supreme Court has explained that, when it comes to these types of laws, the legislature is free to regulate “one step at a time.” See, e.g., Williams v Lee Optical. So just because the legislature is focusing on seat belts and ignoring the failure to dim headlights when approaching another car at night, that doesn’t meant that the legislature shouldn’t be permitted to tackle the various roadway hazards as it gets to them. Today, seat belts; tomorrow, dimming head lights; next week, cell phones.
That’s right, I’m determined to prevent this from being dragged down into a GD.
California is also starting to set up checkpoints. I have no problem with seatbelt laws, but IMHO the cops have their hands full already with drunk/reckless drivers. I really don’t like the idea of setting up checkpoints just to check for seatbelts.
Why doesn’t “Illegal Search and Seizure” figure into this?
It seems to me the potential for police to pull people over bsaed on seatbelt laws is extreme. Essentially the police could pull anyone over simply based upon their ‘belief’ that they weren’t wearing their seatbelt.
(Oh dear, I am again afraid we are trespassing into GD territory here - sorry Mods.)