Seatbelt freedom

During today's morning and evening news reads, I found two opposite views on freedom and driving. The State of New Hampshire is the only state in the union that allows freedom in choosing whether or not to wear a seatbelt. I prefer that verbiage to that in the Union Leader's article, "New Hampshire is the last state in the country without a mandatory seatbelt law". It looks like the bill to require seat belt usage will be killed in their legislature. Good for them.

I personally ALWAYS wear a seatbelt and have since I first got behind the wheel of a car. I believe it to be a good idea, but also a personal choice.

Compare New Hampshire to North Carolina. According to the WMPM news site, "Local law enforcement agencies are cracking down on safety belt and child passenger safety violations during the annual Click It or Ticket campaign underway now through June 3. Last year, 16,890 safety belt citations and 1,494 child passenger safety citations were handed out."

I wish that the concept of freedom was the primary consideration here in North Carolina rather than getting federal highway dollars and control of the population.