COLUMBIA - Thursday's session of the S.C. Senate showed just how solidly deadlocked efforts to pass a strong seat-belt law have become.

A few minutes after the Senate convened at 11 a.m., Sen. John Kuhn, R-Charleston, got up to continue the tag-team filibuster that has kept the chamber tied up for the last two weeks.

He spoke for about an hour on how authorizing police to stop and ticket adults not wearing seat belts would be an unwarranted intrusion on individual liberties. Then the Senate adjourned for the weekend.

"We didn't get anything else done," said Sen. Wes Hayes, R-Rock Hill, who, like the majority of senators, is ready to pass the bill but can't muster the necessary 28 votes to cut off debate.

They took a shot at it earlier this week, but fell two votes short. Hayes said he's losing faith in the bill's chances of passage. "I think we've lost a couple of votes, to where I just don't think we're going to be able to get to 28. There are some people who are on our side, but who, for philosophical reasons, don't like to vote to sit other senators down."

Hayes said, "I don't see anything else on the calendar that's going to save lives like the seat-belt bill, but if we don't have a reasonable shot, then I'm not sure what we're doing."

But Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, one of the bill's principal backers, said Thursday that it's too soon to give up the fight.

"I agree with Senator Hayes; it is frustrating," Hutto said. "But I don't see it as insurmountable. I think we've just got to continue to exhibit some patience here. Nobody ever said that breaking a filibuster was easy."

The bill already passed the House, and Gov. Mark Sanford has said he will sign it if it reaches his desk.

But five senators -- Kuhn; Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston; Robert Ford, D-Charleston; Phil Leventis, D-Sumter; and Jake Knotts, R-Lexington -- have so far been effective in blocking it.

McConnell, the Senate president pro tempore, said the battle is nearly over.

"I sense in the Senate now that this bill is dead," he said. "It's just a question of how it's going to be disposed of."

South Carolina's existing seat belt law requires drivers and passengers 17 and under to wear seat belts, and authorizes police to issue tickets for failing to do so. Adult drivers are also required to wear seat belts, but police can't ticket them unless the officer sees them commit another traffic violation.

According to national traffic safety experts, South Carolina has one of the nation's lowest rates of seat-belt usage, approximately 66 percent. According to the experts, a strong seat-belt law would save an estimated 100 lives a year in the state.

Opponents dispute those figures, and say that a strong seat-belt law would only cause police to harass motorists.

Advocates of mandatory seat-belt enforcement include the S.C. Law Enforcement Association, the S.C. Medical Association, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, AAA Carolinas and the S.C. Chamber of Commerce.

Hutto said he thinks the weekend will aid the chances of getting the necessary votes to break the filibuster.

"We'll have the opportunity for people to go back home to their districts, where I'm sure they're going to get calls from their local law enforcement, hospitals, emergency medical technicians and others about how important this bill is and how many lives it will save," he said.