At 9 a.m. on the 17th of this month, I will appear before the
august Monroe Court Circuit Court in the case of The People v.
Christopher Orlet. My diabolical crime: not wearing a
seatbelt.
Had this been a speeding ticket, or had I run a stop sign, I
would have paid the fine without protest. But there is something
about the illegalization of failing to buckle up, something about
the government supposedly protecting me from my half-witted self
that stuck in my craw.
I recognize this is a minor issue. It’s not like I am crusading
for the life of an innocent man on death row. I am no Dreyfus
accused of treason. I am not even a Scopes, indicted for teaching
the heathen Darwin. Indeed, the whole matter seems silly from start
to finish. Silly that such an act was passed. Silly that I refuse
to simply pay the fine like the other sheep, and even sillier that
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s columnist Bill McClellan (my
Zola, my Mencken) has arranged to cover my trial.
Before I am deluged with emails charging that seatbelts save
lives and lower insurance rates (so does smoking, let’s outlaw that
while we’re at it) allow me to say that I wholeheartedly agree. I
am a seatbelt booster. I wear mine 99.9 percent of the time and
recommend you wear your belt and your helmet every minute of the
day, particularly in the bath (two out of five accidents in the
home occur in the bath). I am all for educating the public about
safety, but here I draw the line.
If it could, the State would doubtless ban everything
potentially harmful. And in time it very well may. The clear and
present threat to public safety is the cigarette. However the State
is well aware that there would be a wholesale rebellion among what
we once called the “nicotine fiends,” to say nothing of the tobacco
lobby. Therefore the State is slowly and masterly whittling away at
smokers’ rights until the smoker is too weak to resist. After
cigarettes, the State will doubtless go after Big Macs or
skydiving.
I AM NOW BUSILY preparing my case. (I am no lawyer and my brother,
the intellectual property attorney, has advised me to throw myself
on the mercy of the court. Fat chance!) I suspect the judge will
prevent me from raising the constitutional issue. After all, I am
to appear before a rural county circuit court (think Dayton, Tenn.)
and not the U.S. Supreme Court. This is unfortunate because the
Supremes have yet to address this issue properly, though several
state courts have taken on the somewhat similar motorcycle helmet
laws. In State v. Solomon, the Vermont Supreme Court
concluded that helmet laws were constitutional because they
“directly related to highway safety: because an unprotected
motorcycle operator could be affected by roadway hazards,
temporarily lose control and become a menace to other motorists.”
Obviously the same doesn’t apply to seatbelts. The court also
concluded that the “self-injury may be of such a nature to also
invoke a general public concern.” Again, I’m still not sure why we
have to outlaw everything that causes the public “concern.”
Otherwise precedent seems to be on the side of the pro-choice
seatbelt faction. To wit: (1) The U.S. Supreme Court, in
International Union, et al. v. Johnson Controls, Inc.,
confirmed a person’s right to determine his or her own individual
personal health care standards (it is no crime not to take your
meds). (2) Laws must be applied consistently or they violate the
14th amendment’s equal protection clause. (A good example is the
apparent exemption is Illinois and Florida for motorcycle helmets.
I’d rather take my chances unbuckled in a car with airbags than on
a Harley without a helmet.) (3) The 4th Amendment guarantees the
right of persons to be secure in one’s own “persons…papers and
effects.” But that one has been trimmed back so many times
(roadblocks and such) that it is pointless to bring it up. And
speaking of rights, how often does one hear the idiotic: “Driving
is a privilege, not a right”? The courts abandoned that distinction
in the early '60s.
Equally insulting is how our tax dollars are wasted on the
enforcement of this asinine law. California recently received $1.5
million for billboards and commercials promoting its “Click-it”
campaign. This largess might have gone to build safer highways,
increase traffic police presence, or to fix falling-down bridges.
Anyway, don’t our troopers have better things to do?
Like Scopes, I expect to be found guilty, not least because in
some states a portion of the fine goes to the county judge pension
fund (can you say “conflict of interest”?). I do not intend to
dispute the charges (although that would seem to be the best
strategy). Scopes did not deny that he broke the law; he simply
thought the law unconstitutional. Eventually he was proven right.
And later he was portrayed heroically on stage and on screen, and
lauded in the history books.
That said, if this thing makes it to Broadway, Brad Pitt would
be my choice to play me.
Christopher Orlet, a frequent contributor, runs
the Existential Journalism
blog.
