To the editor:

We have allowed the law to pass that will now make not wearing a seat belt in the front or back seat a primary offense. This means that the police can now stop you if they suspect that you or a passenger is not wearing a seat belt.

The fines for a seat belt violation is $30 in most of Florida. The fine for the same violation in Lee County is $93. Why is it triple? Will this save more lives or will it help fill the coffers? Will this pay for new uniforms, cars to drive home off duty, the new police/fire building? Why does Lee County have such difficulty when it comes to tightening their financial belt? Everyone else does. They just continue to find ways to take money from the citizens to support their poor choices.

It is a well known fact that Cape Coral police have a number of feeble reasons they can use to stop someone, for example, illegal lane changing, tailgating, driving too slow, failure to use a turn signal (Even though you are in a turn only lane), failure to come to a complete stop, etc. Many of these laws are good and prevent accidents but we also know that many times, these same laws are used as an excuse to stop someone that the police just want to “check out.” Now they have one more way of extracting money.

Do we need new laws? No. We just need to enforce the ones we have that are significant and fine for violations what most of the state deems as “fair”.

Mary West

Cape Coral