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1.
Defendant was charged for violation of VTL 1229-C(3)A
No Seat Belt - Driver
2. A state mandatory seat belt harness law infringes on a person’s individual personal rights as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. The law is an unwarranted intrusion by government into the personal lives of citizens; denies the right to determine a person’s own individual personal safety and health standards for one’s own body, the ultimate private property, and forcefully mandates the personal safety and health opinion of those in government, under threat of a fine or jail, if not paid.
3. The state has no authority to mandate by law how a person must live or die in a traffic accident. Since a traffic accident is unpredictable; the outcome determined by chance which cannot be legislated, a seat belt law confiscates through prior restraint, individual rights to due process based on a showing of probable cause.
4. Defendant was not wearing a seat belt due to a fear of not being able to quickly exit the vehicle in a emergency. Some examples of emergencies are as follows:
A. Fire
B. Bad people hiding in the vehicle
C. Insects or wild animals in the vehicle
D. Any type of emergency requiring a quick exit from the vehicle
5. Not using a seat belt does not hurt anyone; is not a threat to anyone. However, while the government is hoping to save some people, the use of a seat belt in certain kinds of traffic accidents can also be the cause of more serious injuries and even death. Politicians, therefore, have no authority to willingly and knowingly force some people to maim or kill themselves, using a device chosen arbitrarily by politicians, just because they hope other people will be saved merely by chance. The Bill of Rights forbids the government from taking chances with our bodies, unless due process is first initiated. Forced seat belt use, therefore, in some cases, is a wrongful injury or death by the state, which is a crime in the private sector.
6. Safety engineers have recognized that the benefit of a safety device that is suppose to protect an individual from a danger might actually increase the risk a person might be willing to take, thus defeat the very purpose of the safety device. Studies have shown that when a state passes a mandatory seat belt law, the number of accidents have increased. Critics of seat belt laws have contended that the reason is that they alter driver behavior in ways that increase the hazards for other users of the streets and highways. In particular, some drivers wearing seat belts may feel more assured of surviving an accident, and hence tend to drive more aggressively, thus raising the risk of collisions with other vehicles and pedestrians. This is known as risk homeostasis, or risk compensation.
If there is even the slightest chance that this is true. The defendant feels that the best way to prevent injuries in accidents, is to do every thing possible to prevent accidents.
CONCLUSION:
In a free society, if a person is injured or killed because he/she freely chooses to use or not to use a seat belt, that is a personal tragedy, as it is with all other risks in life. That is freedom working.
WHEREFORE, Because the defendant was not a threat to others by driving recklessly, failing to obey traffic control devices, or speeding, the right to conduct oneself in their own car is their prerogative. Since the defendant was driving safely at all times, the defendant asks the court to have the summons dismissed.
Dated this 16th day of August 2001
Respectfully Submitted,
LES ISMORE
pro se
Defendant
157 Drive Safe Avenue
Buffalo, New York 14223
Telephone 716-832-XXXX
Facsimile 703-940-4879 |