Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger

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Some drivers won’t buckle to survival sense

No one wants a fellow human being to abruptly and unpleasantly cease to live but some people apparently have such a blithe disregard for their own mortality that it's almost pointless to try to help them to muddle through yet another day on this planet.

I say this in light of the much-ballyhooed and increasingly annoying "Click It or Ticket" national campaign to force clueless imbeciles to use seat belts in moving vehicles. Any enterprise that comes to be described by such an archaic word as "ballyhooed" is bound to be irksome. And the "Click It or Ticket" project is irksome and then some. Not because it is not a good idea for people to wear seat belts, but because there cannot be anyone who doesn't understand that the mere act of using a seat belt might save their life in a crash.

Those souls who do not wish to employ this rather simple form of self-preservation are really beyond help. I mean, at some point, you have to consider that you might be setting back evolution or lowering the intelligence quotient of the gene pool by forcing people without the most basic survival instinct to continue to draw a breath and, more alarming, create offspring.

Yet, on a drive from Honolulu to Pearlridge, I saw no fewer than five huge flashing highway signs announcing "Click It or Ticket" and threatening a $90 fine for those not buckled up. I suspect that anyone with such disdain for life is not going to be swayed by a $90 fine. Intentional and flagrant ignorance knows no bounds and recognizes no currency.

WHY THE government feels compelled to address just this one narrow example of human stupidity, I don't know. People can be stupid on so many levels. Failing to wear a seat belt is just one of many dangerous activities stupid people engage in. Is government to protect them from every dumb thing they do? If so, we're going to need a lot more of those big flashing signs.

Not wearing a seat belt isn't even the most stupid motor vehicle-related thing those lacking a zest for life do. At least half of the people on the roads shouldn't even be allowed to drive cars at all. You've seen these geniuses. They can't even tell the difference between a car and their office or bathroom. I was stuck behind a SUV stopped at a GREEN light by a driver who apparently was discussing her stock options with a broker on a cellular phone and scribbling on a note pad. She thought she was sitting in her office, not behind the wheel of a 5,000 pound, gas-propelled, metal-sheathed, 250 horsepower instrument of death.

Where's the national "Hang Up or Lockup" anti-cellphone campaign? Or the Yammer and Slammer" effort? For those who don't realize that putting on makeup while driving is not just stupid but suicidal, how about the "Lip Gloss and License Loss" program?

I jest. We can't bribe or threaten people to want to scratch out a few more days on this globe. When it comes to life it's not "Click It or Ticket," it's "Live It or Lose It."