from the myrmidons here. It never changes, many of the bloggers here go negative at the drop of a hat. In their world, nothing is ever positive.

Fayetteville Police have announced a three-pronged initiative aimed at increasing revenue from motor vehicle drivers. The new Cash Management Team (CMT) has been designed to provide funds though increased citations, higher officer quotas and harassment of motorists.

The CMT program will use four officers with specialized expertise, equipment and materials to provide the county with an increase in confiscated tax-payer funds, serve as collection agents for county issues related to traffic and to target enforcement efforts where there are easy speed trap locations and areas conducive to visual inspection of drivers sitting in traffic, according to Maj. Kevin Gooding.

Gooding said one of the first CMT initiatives will be to improve the speed in which tax payers will be forced to pay for citations. Officers will now carry cell-phone enabled credit card machines in their police cruisers to dramatically impact the county revenue shortfall without the inconvenience of the court system. A survey conducted by the Fayette County Health Department in May showed that law enforcement could more that triple county revenue by targeting pick up truck drivers who were not wearing seat belts or drivers with any type of window tinting.

Gooding said that though Fayetteville in 2008 saw a decrease in traffic-related funds, police view the further increase of fines and selective enforcement one of their prime responsibilities.

The CMT program will employ new Dodge Charger traffic enforcement vehicles because officers think they "make them look cool."

So the Fayette County Health Department conducted a survey last May allegedly showing 16 percent of “passenger and pick up truck drivers” not wearing seat belts.

Isn’t the Fayette County Health Department an odd agency to conduct a survey about seat belts? Is this within their sphere of competence? Is that what they are paid for?

It is well known that the Georgia law requiring the use of seat belts exempts people in pick up trucks and passengers who are not in the front seat. (You only have to read the law to find out. Look up Official Code of Georgia section 40-8-76.)

So why does the survey refer to pick up truck drivers? If our Georgia legislature could not be persuaded to apply the seat belt law to pick up truck drivers and passengers, why try to pressure pick up truck drivers and passengers to wear seat belts? Shouldn’t the Health Department be talking to state Rep. Matt Ramsey and Senator Ronnie Chance? Shouldn't the Fayetteville police talk to them also?

When the law does not require people to do something, you’ll obviously have fewer people doing it. So lumping together people who are required to wear seat belts with people who are not will produce weird, distorted statistics.

You’ve also got to ask how the survey was conducted. Was it just from taking a look at cars from outside? The possibility of error there is great, as window reflections and seat belt colors blending in with clothing can lead to erroneous conclusions. Were road blocks set up? That would be odd, especially for a Health Department.

The media are responsible for the slew of phony statistics with which we, the public, are bombarded. The people who design these alleged surveys have no clue about the science behind the preparation of valid surveys and the presentation of statistics.

My hope is that we continue to have teachers in our schools and colleges who teach the subject of Statistics responsibly so we may have a discerning public who knows phony baloney made-up statistics when they see them. Which is most of the time these days.

None of this will work unless they have a machine that detects people acting stupidly. Yes you know who you are, speeders, women putting on makeup, men shaving, eating whoppers while driving, being on the telephone, texting, and the best DWI, (driving while illegal.)