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Editorial

Put teeth in seat-belt law, but ban racial profiling, too

  April 06, 2012

Seat belt laws save lives, but Massachusetts is falling behind. The Commonwealth is one of a shrinking number of states that don’t give police officers permission to pull over drivers for failing to buckle up, a policy linked to dramatically higher seat belt usage rates. Right now, police can only write a citation if they pull over a driver for some other offense and notice an unfastened buckle. Only 74 percent of vehicle occupants in Massachusetts use seatbelts, worse than any state except New Hampshire - where seat belt use is optional.

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