Seat belts create safer roadways? How? I better get one of them there belts fur ma motorcycle. yeeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaa!

Well said officerfrendly. The problem I have is a government that can't pay the bills sticking their nose in my business. I buckle up because when I have a grand or great-grandchild riding in the back car seat I try to set a good example.

The way to "save ALL OF US TAXPAYERS millions dollars a year" is not by passing more and more nanny state laws. The way to "save ALL OF US TAXPAYERS millions dollars a year" is by cutting spending from the "multi-billion dollar medical assistance programs". Here is a start. Stop providing taxpayer funded medical coverage for illegal aliens. This would be a far greater savings to the taxpayer than the seat belt law. What about those that die in accidents? They don't cost the government funded medical assistance programs a dime. Less government = More personal FREEDOM!

theshield, are you for real. My comment was sarcastic (on purpose) yet you didn't get it. Then you try to teach others of the importance of "literacy"...nice.

If wearing seatbelts is safer than no seatbelts than banning all cars would be even safer. If those that want everyone to wear seatbelts and wear helmets really wanted everyone to be safe (and to save the govt money) they ought to be proclaiming all transportation be banned...because this would be the safest.

Every year thousands are maimed in auto accidents in Wisconsin, and thousands are permantly disabled for life.
*
Many of those injuries were preventable if accident victims were wearing a seat belt. Who do you think pays for most of their care? The State does through the multi-billion dollar medical assistance programs. Who do you think pays for medical assistance? The taxpayer.
*
Its those darn Libertarians that are were the problem here. They have been road blocking laws that would save ALL OF US TAXPAYERS millions dollars a year. Just because they don't want the nanny state to make laws that would infringe on their right to drive around without seatbelts - and god forbid helmets when on motorcyles!

Once again the federal government dangles the proverbial carrot over our state governments head and says if you want this grant money then you have to pass this law. We no longer have state sovereignty. We have spineless bureaucrats in Madison who can't say no to federal money because they won't do the right thing by cutting spending instead. Hope you all made it out to your local Re-Tea Parties! Less government = More FREEDOM!

Doesn't it seem rather silly to write about a new state law and how it pertains to one county? Yes, Rock is mentioned as well, but the article's headline is about Walworth County.

RetiredAirForce: No kidding, the Federal grant would be tax payer money?!!?!? Never thought of that (sarcasm). Are you for real? This money is already there and will be given to others if we aren't using it. Would you rather see us go deeper and deeper into debt with the taxes the Dems are placing on us every day or would you like 15 million to help us out?

bobwood: Reasonable Suspicion it is. Not "supposition". Literacy is important when you're on a blog and trying to impress people with your knowledge. Way to go to prove your point!

Cops......They're never there when you need them and are always there when you don't want them.......

hardin -- I hardly believe that a police officer would ask such ridiculous questions. Why would he care how long you and your wife were married? And why would he care when and where you work unless he suspected that you were in violation of occupational license restrictions? If you think he was after information to allow him to rob your house...you need to get psychiatric help. Seriously.

Yes everyone knows that if you go to court the Judge is gonna believe a persons word over a cops...and if you are goign to go to court and lie "Yes your honor I had my seat belt on the whole time" well there is something wrong with this world if you have no problems with lying to a judge.
"he was going to rip off my house??" WOW.....

Cookiedough, whoever believes for one second that their word against a cops' is going to fly is tremendously mistaken, to put it lightly.

This is just another step down the slippery slope. I was pulled over by a state patrolman last year on the way to work because he said that he noticed that my seat belt was not buckled. After he interrogated me and my wife(where do you work, when do you work, when were you married, etc..) and I refused to answer his questions, he let me go. I believe that he was trying to gather information that would enable him or his friends to rip off my house while I was at work.

There have been so many accidents showing that taking the 2 seconds to buckle a seat belt can save your life. A young guy died quite a few years back, his name was Benny. He left Lake Geneva, he was driving on Hwy 50 to go home in Delavan. He hit the median, rolled his car and was ejected from the vehicle. The car landed on him and needless to say he did not survive. There were another two young men that just died a few months back. I knew one of them personally. They were on there way home and were racing another car that two girls were in. There ended up crashing, both of them ejected from the vehicle and sorry to be graphic, but neither one of them could be recognized because their faces were completetly mangled. Everyone has always said the bigger vehicle you drive the safer you will be. Not true. Benny was driving a smaller car and Kyle and his friend were driving a Chevy Tahoe. If they would have taken the 2 seconds to buckle their seat belts, they all might be here today. So to you people that are against this law, wake up and look at the big picture. They didn't pass this law to be a pain in behinds, they passed this law to try to save people's lives! But to those people who refuse to take the 2 seconds to buckle a seat belt, I really hope that you will not be in the news about a fatal car accident where driver was not wearing a seat belt.

I have to admit that this was long over due. People are extremely careless when they are driving and it seems like they do not care if someone else gets hurts because they drive reckless. Am I guilty of not wearing my seat belt? You bet your hiney I am. I was young and people expected me to wear a seat belt?? Ugh. What would my friends think if they saw me wearing a seat belt? I would have been a total loser. Now, I am 24 married and I wear my seat belt even if I am only going right down the street. A friend of mine was in a horrible accident the other day and the only thing that saved him was the fact that he is anal about his seat belt. Some woman pulled out in front of him when he was doing 55 and he had no choice but to hit her, he had no time to react. He was wearing his seat belt, it was obvious she was not, she is still in critical condition in Froedtert in Milwaukee. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family but the sad truth is that it could have been avoided if for one she was not so careless when she drove and for two if she was wearing a seat belt. Who cares if it makes you look a complete nerd??? At least if you get into an accident, you have a much greater chance of going home to your family that night.

I dont understand why people are so mad about this? You spend about 15 seconds after you get in the car to hook yoru seatbelt. WOW a WHOLE 15 seconds, are you that busy that you cant handel it??
As far as smoking - the other day I was driving along side another car and when I was stopped at a stop light I finally looked over, she was talkign on her cell phone, smoking and eating. Not wearign a seat belt. At the next redlight she was too busy to notice it had turned red and she blew right through it, luckly there was other peole who stopped for her. But I had my 3 year old with me - just because this person is lazy enough to buckle up and has no respect for others if there had been an acident my 3 year old would have had to see something that would affect him forever.
Grow up and buckle up already! Even if you are a good driver others are not! If you are ever in a accidednt and are not buckled I hope yoru family isnt bothered to much by the "a seat belt could have saved him or her"....

Why no discontent over why this is being done? A 15 million dollar grant? Where does this come from...the same people that will be pulled over for not wearing a seat belt; taxpayers.

Without debating the merits of the nanny state. Why pass a law to get funding...this does not pass the logic test. If you need the funding and don't have it, then, getting it from the fed is THE SAME SOURCE! It still is taxpayer money; only this time you "think" it is free money. Wake up people.

Just like seatbelts, helmets don't save 100% of lives, yet we don't have a law for those.
I'll say it again; completely surrounded in a vehicle by metal you have to wear a seatbelt. Sitting on a bike with nothing between your head and the concrete going 65mph, NOTHING is required.
Stupid? I think so.

Seat belts help save lives most of the time. However, if I am not buckled up and a cop decides to pull me over if they see me with no seat belt buckled supposedly, I would have time to quickly snap my seatbelt on. How can the police enforce this if when he/she comes up to me I have the seat belt buckled after he/she stops me? They have no proof. It is the police officer's word vs. mine and they cannot prove it -agree or not?

Yep, You'll pay alright. The citation is only $10.00. Get over it people.

I think the gov should pay me $10.00. That 15 million is for me to buckle up.

doc0430: Good point about the smoking. They'll institute a law that they can pull us over if we have a cigarette in the car. They get the money, they get to do surveillance on us, and yet they get to be sanctimonious that they're really just "helping" us.

It's obvious to me that many, many people are gratified by the police state. Perhaps they should do a little more contemplating how much that state is costing us. It's shameful that the legislators give these localities more and more power to intrude into our lives.

Oh, I forgot, in Walworth County the property taxpayer funds the public school for the disabled. The taxpayer also pays for your kid's traumatic brain injury because you didn't want no stinkin' government to take away your kids freedom either.

Herein lies the problem peps. You don't wear your seatbelt because it crimps your free style. Ditto the open "sixer" on the way home. Next thing you know, you and your head go through the windshield. If you have insurance, it does not cover the permanent disabilility. Furthermore, your family does not want you anymore because that head trama makes you mean and nasty. Now you are a ward of the ?State. It cost us taxpayers a hundred grand a year to house your broken body and head. It is unfortunate, but you will probably live for twenty or thirty years on the taxpayers $100K/year in a specialized nursing care unit.
*
That is the reason the State fines you if you don't wear a seat belt.

You're absolutely right. Seat belts will not save 100% of lives. Nothing will. There are no guarantees. However, seatbelts save many more lives when worn rather than just leaving them hang there for decoration. I'm not an advocate of the government stepping in and putting more mandates on anything and everything we do. However, the State of Wisconsin will receive a minimum of 15.2 million dollars for making this mandatory. This will offset other expenses in these tough economic times. There won't be an increase in the number of tickets written or traffic stops made. And I can gurantee that this is not a moneymaker for the state. It takes an officer an average of fiteen minutes on a traffic stop to write a ticket. You take his/her salary, along with the processing and court fees and this is a loss to whichever jurisdiction is writing the tickets. Sorry. No money made her other than the 15.2 MILLION dollars that the Fed will give the State!

Seatbelt use has NOT been proven to save 100% of lives. Therein lies the rub. I just don't want to be trapped in my car and suffer a horrible burning death. I'm thinking that if people drove SMARTER, then there would be no need for seatbelts in the first place. It always comes back to the people...

Seat belt use has been proven to same lives

Ninety year old blind men and women can drive when and where ever they want, on multiple medications.
Sixteen year old over confident kids can shoot around in rice burners, and Hummers.
The Government owned General Motors sells cars that go well over 150 miles per hour to whoever wants them.
-all safe enough huh?
But little old me, alone in my car, I have to wear my seat belt, even if it kills me. Sounds like freedom to me.

Coyote~ You are exactally correct just another funding tool, when motocycles and buses still obviously have NO seatbelts, YET! I'm sure the Government will try to figure out some way of wasting money on that study though......Whats next you won't be able to smoke in your own car? I'm sure somewhere there is already A government funded study underway!

Just another funding tool for the state and respective ticketing agencies.