Mandatory seatbelt laws don't work and this is the proof. They don't stop people from driving without them. The governor of NJ was in an SUV with a state trooper and yet he wasn't wearing his seatbelt:
Gov. Jon S. Corzine was apparently not wearing his seat belt as required by law when his official SUV crashed into a guard rail, leaving the governor hospitalized in critical condition, a spokesman said Friday.
A state trooper was driving Corzine to a meeting between Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball team Thursday night when another vehicle, swerving to avoid a pickup truck, hit the governor's SUV and sent it into the guard rail on the Garden State Parkway.
The crash broke the governor's leg, six ribs, his sternum and a vertebrae. Authorities were searching for the pickup truck driver blamed for causing it.
[...]
Seat belts are mandatory for everyone in front seats in New Jersey; the fine for violating the law is $46.
I don't think we could have a better illustration of the futility of the law and of the importance of wearing a seatbelt.
BTW, why bother fining anyone, the consequences of not wearing a seatbelt are pretty severe as the governor demonstrated.
And then there's this weird coincidence:
Corzine was the third straight New Jersey governor to break a leg while in office. James E. McGreevey broke his left leg in 2002 during a nighttime walk on the beach, and Christie Whitman broke her right leg while skiing in the Swiss Alps in 1999.
