According to the Sun Journal, representatives from the Maine Sheriffs’ Association, LifeFlight of Maine, the Maine Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association, the Maine Chiefs of Police Association, the Maine Department of Public Safety, AAA of Northern New England, and the Maine Medical Association (and two trauma surgeons besides), spent part of the day Feb. 27 in Augusta to testify against a bill to lift Maine’s seatbelt requirement.

The proposed bill has little chance of passing but it concerned those people enough to spend time stating their opposition to it.

That waste of time occurred because state Sen. Eric Brakey and the bill’s other co-sponsors wanted to have a debate about “freedom.”

It is difficult to know which is worse — the shameful waste of the time of people who have important work to do, or the shameless way the proponents of that bill proceeded just two days after the worst traffic pile-up in Maine’s history.

Renee Cote, Auburn