This has all been very interesting.

One point that's not been mentioned is that maybe, just maybe, some of these police officers have not only worked check points, traffic stops, race tracks and county fairs, but also the traffic accidents with serious injury or death where if someone had used a seatbelt it could have made a dramatic difference. As a newspaper reporter and photographer for 22 years, I have. It's nothing pretty.

For the most part, police officers do their job, follow their orders from their superiors on enforcement and do their best to protect and serve. On rare occasions, individual police officers abuse their power. There's an occasional bad egg in every profession.

On the targeted enforcement, complaining about the police officers carrying out their instructions will not change anything. Lobbying your elected officials -- like the mayor, county council, state legislators and state senators -- just could make a difference. After all, it was people complaining to them about druggies, drunk drivers and people without seatbelts that prompted them to enact the legislation authorizing the actions.

Few elected officials have the balls to tell the federal government to keep their federal grant money for fear of appearing soft on crime and costing themselves votes in November. One who did was Sheriff George Ballard in Gibson County, Indiana. The good sheriff conducted one of those traffic stops and heard so many complaints from the people who put him in office that he announced in the Princeton paper that he would not do it again, and would notify the appropriate state and federal officials to keep their money. For those unfamiliar, Princeton is just up the road from Haubstadt.

Finally, I am certain Dave Rudisell appreciates all of this pubicity about nazi cops searching cars at the races. I hope it does not discourage people from attending his big race this weekend.


One final thing, to the person who tried to pay a fine in pennies, your elected officials in Washington passed a law four or five years ago that allows someone to refuse payment of a debt with a large quantity of coins. Personally, I think that's wrong, but no one asked me. Maybe you should have tried dollar coins. That's still a lot of weight to deal with.
So, what did you do with all of your pennies? Donate them to the Ronald McDonald House.

Jim Morrison, who is smart enough to buckle up after stopping at the ATM a quarter mile from my destination.