Third ticket's the charm for reformed seat belt holdout

I call it stubbornness.

My wife, mother, mother-in-law, several co-workers and cop brother all call it stupidity.

After three tickets from three different police agencies for not wearing my seat belt, I am finally obeying Illinois law.

I don't agree with it, but I'll do it. Wearing a seat belt may or may not save my life someday, but it's certainly going to save me some time now that I won't be pulled over anymore for not "clicking it."

My third, most recent and theoretically final seat belt citation came from the Illinois State Police on a dreary Wednesday afternoon.

I'm exiting I-355 at North Avenue going through the I-Pass lane at just a bit more than the posted 15 mph limit when all of the sudden a trooper steps into the lane and begins waving his arms frantically. Thinking the trooper was in trouble I begin to pull over. But it's when I hear him tell me to pull all the way into the grass that it sinks in that I'm in trouble.

"Why aren't you wearing your seat belt?" He asks.

I lie and say I had just taken it off to retrieve my cell phone, which in hindsight probably compounded the trooper's low opinion of me.

I can almost hear him thinking, "So, you were disobeying the law so you could become distracted while operating your vehicle?"

But I had some questions of my own, chief among them, "Which is less safe: Me driving without a seat belt or a state trooper jumping into a lane of moving traffic to ticket me for said offense?"

I had never heard of or seen such a method for seat belt enforcement either. But a properly secured co-worker traveling with me convinced me to save my questions.

So I did, and a few phone calls later I found out a few things.

While some will continue to argue toll plazas were never intended to be used for petty traffic offense stakeouts, the process is pretty fair and legal. It turns out troopers commonly stake out toll plazas for seat belt scofflaws and have been doing it for years. They claim seat belt use saves lives and helps keep insurance costs down. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in believing that besides the altruistic benefits of seat belt enforcement there is the financial benefit to the state.

Troopers also commonly catch drunken drivers or even more dangerous criminals during these campaigns.

And the occasional stubborn reporter.