Perhaps you saw my name in the Court News section of the newspaper recently.

You see, I got pinched for a seat belt violation.

I was rolling down Center Street, just having left Ace Hardware and headed for the Times-Union.

I saw an officer - who will remain nameless - pull up to Center from a side street. I smiled and waved as I drove by. (I always smile and wave at cops. I don't know why. It just seems like the right thing to do. They're public servants. It's a bit of a thankless task, being a cop.)

Anyway, imagine my surprise when the officer pulls out, falls in behind me and flips on the blinky lights.

I immediately came to the conclusion that he probably wasn't pulling me over to wave back.

I wasn't sure right away why I was being pulled over, but as he was walking up to my car it dawned on me - I wasn't wearing my seat belt.

So as I was pre-emptively handing him my driver's license and registration, I inquired, "Seat belt?"

"Yeah," he said, asking, "have you ever had a ticket for not wearing your seat belt?"

"Nope," I said.

"I'll be right back," he said.

Then he went to his car and wrote me the ticket.

When he came back, he explained that it would only cost 20 bucks and would put no points on my license.

We exchanged pleasant good-byes and I went merrily on my way.

I went to the Justice Building a few days later to pay the fine and, oops, too early. Didn't have the info filed yet. Had to make another trip.

I finally got the fine paid and I started thinking about the whole seat belt thing.

OK, first of all I want to be clear. Only a moron would argue that seat belts can't save wearers from death or injury.

And I fully believe it's a good idea to wear them.

The question is whether the government should require us to wear them.

A couple things strike me here.

First, even though we can all agree wearing seat belts is good for our health and well-being, aren't there myriad other things that are bad for us?

Should the government require that we stop doing things that might injure us?

Things like mountain biking, snow skiing, water skiing, motorcycling, etc., are all quite dangerous.

Should the government protect us from ourselves in those instances?

(By the way, does it seem bizarre to anybody but me that the state has a primary seat belt law yet doesn't require motorcyclists to wear helmets?)

Government likes to argue about health insurance costs and how much money can be saved because of seat belt laws.

You know, fewer and less severe injuries equals fewer and lower hospital bills equals lower insurance costs.

OK, I'll buy that. But if you use that rationale, think of the money we'd save if we fined people for fatty food.

Everybody knows that artery-clogging burgers and fries are the No. 1 contributor to obesity and heart disease in the country.

Heart disease is the No. 1 health problem in the country.

How much would health insurance costs fall if the government forced everybody to eat right?

We could have the food pyramid cops making sure you were getting the right number of servings of fruits and vegetables, whole grains and dairy.

If you didn't, there would be a small fine, but no points against your eating license.

But if they caught you with a huge hunk of cheesecake drizzled with raspberry and chocolate syrup - look out.

Fact is, people choose to do dangerous things. People choose to eat things that are bad for them. They know it's dangerous. They know they're clogging their arteries. They don't care.

It's a little thing called freedom.

Frankly, I think as long as you're not harming anybody else, have at it.

Another thing that concerns me is that any time the government passes a law, there are unintended consequences.

What could the unintended consequence of seat belt laws possibly be, you might ask?

A 1992 article by John Semmens, an economist for the Laissez Faire Institute in Chandler, Arizona, notes that early on in the seat belt debate there was concern that mandated safety devices could lead to more aggressive driving.

In a 1970 issue of Applied Economics, L. B. Lave and W.W. Weber suggested that seat belts, better bumpers, collapsible steering wheels, etc., might lead to faster driving that could offset the safety gains.

Later, in 1975, Sam Peltzman's "The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulations" in the Journal of Political Economy also theorized that safer autos would lead to more aggressive driving.

A statistical study of states with and without seat belt laws was undertaken by Professor Christopher Garbacz of the University of Missouri-Rolla in the '90s.

This study seems to show an altered driver behavior phenomenon.

Dr. Garbacz found that states with seat belt laws saw decreases in traffic fatalities for those covered by the laws - drivers and front-seat passengers - but increases in fatalities for rear-seat passengers, cyclists and pedestrians.

Plus, the patterns of changes in total traffic fatalities among the states showed no consistent relationship with the existence of a seat belt law in the state.

Semmens points out that Hawaii, the state with the most rigorously enforced seat belt law and the highest compliance rate in the nation, has experienced an increase in traffic fatalities and fatality rates since its law went into effect in December 1985.

Further, according to more recent statistics from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, an arm of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there are these little gems.

New Hampshire, the only state with no seat belt law, has consistently ranked second or third since 1994 in lowest percentage of fatalities per 100 million miles traveled.

And Massachusetts, ranked first every year since 1994, but second since 2002, has consistently been in the bottom five states in terms of percentages of seat belt users.

I think it's great that cops bust people for putting other people at risk by speeding, driving left of center, drinking and driving or running stop signs.

But I think it's a stretch for cops to stop and ticket an otherwise law-abiding driver whose only crime was not buckling up. [[In-content Ad]]