As I look back on the past legislative session, one of the greatest disappointments for me is the failure to pass a primary seat belt law. The S.C. House of Representatives, with strong bipartisan support, passed this measure in early April. Unfortunately, the Senate, through its deliberations on the budget and reapportionment, was not able to entertain any real debate before adjournment. The bill is now scheduled on the Senate calendar, and I hope it will get serious consideration next January.

Why does South Carolina need a primary seat belt law? The answer is simple: because it will save at least 100 lives a year, prevent more than 1,700 critical injuries and save millions of dollars in health care and job loss-related costs.

By definition, a primary seat belt law means a law enforcement officer can pull over a car if there are individuals not wearing a seat belt. In our state, we have secondary enforcement for people age 18 and older, which prohibits an officer from ticketing someone for not wearing a seat belt unless that person has been pulled over and is being charged with another offense such as speeding.

For teenagers under 18, we do have primary enforcement, but you can imagine the burden of guessing we place on our law enforcement in deciding whether someone is 18 or older before pulling them over.

I think it is important for our citizens to know the facts before they decide how to weigh in. South Carolina ranks third in the nation when it comes to our highway fatalities per mile traveled, thereby making our highways some of the most dangerous in the United States. Each year, we experience about 1,000 highway fatalities (an average of three deaths a day), and of those related to traffic crashes, 66 percent of those killed are not wearing seat belts.

Our seat belt usage (the number of people actually buckled) is at 67 percent. North Carolina and Georgia, which both have primary seat belt laws, have respective rates of 84 percent and 79 percent. Both of these states experienced significant increases in their seat belt usage rates after the primary enforcement laws were passed.

National and state transportation experts estimate that within the first 18 months after the passage of a primary seat belt law, South Carolina would increase its seat belt usage between 8 to 12 percentage points and save at least 100 lives a year.

The success and the statistics of a primary seat belt law are indisputable.

Another statistic that I find of striking importance is the impact this law had on fatalities in Alabama. This state had a similar number of fatalities as South Carolina, and the fatality rate went down by 104 deaths the first year after the primary seat belt law was passed.

Highway experts there can point to no other single initative other than the seat belt law for this improvement.

How would this law affect the safety of our children? This one is a no-brainer. National statistics show that when a driver is buckled up, the children are buckled as well 94 percent of the time. This number plummets to 30 percent when the driver is unbuckled.

Who pays the cost when someone unbuckled is injured? We, the taxpayers, are footing the bill. For the year 2000, there were 6251 crash records of unbuckled occupants linked to hospital billing system records in South Carolina. The total hospital charges for those injured were over $35 million. More than 70 percent of these costs are paid through higher automobile and health insurance rates, as well as public assistance programs.

The opponents of this bill claim that we don't need big brother government babysitting our citizens. They believe that each driver and passenger should have the right to buckle or not. But remember, our law currently says you must buckle; all we are trying to do is make it enforceable, and to save 100 lives.