Since a divided S.C. House sent a stronger seat-belt bill back to committee on March 3, supporters have been plotting the bill’s rescue.

During that same time, 23 unbuckled South Carolinians have been killed on state roads — more than one a day. The dead include an unbuckled 4-year-old girl in a car driven by her unbuckled mother in Florence County. The mother died, too.

Only three motorists wearing seat belts died on S.C. roads during the same period, according to the Department of Public Safety.

“This has become an endemic condition — meaning that a high number of fatalities among unbuckled individuals has become the norm,” said Harris Pastides, USC’s vice president of research and an epidemiologist, an expert in fatalities caused by disease and accidents.

Pastides said he was “shocked” at the ratio of unbuckled-to-buckled deaths, adding a tougher seat-belt law — proven, in other states, to increase seat-belt use and reduce deaths — would save S.C. lives. “There’s no other legislation that could save as many lives as this — period.”

House members who agree with Pastides, including Rep. Ron Townsend, R-Anderson, say they are trying to persuade more lawmakers to support a stronger seat-belt law.

“To be safe on bringing the bill back out of committee, we need at least 20 more votes,” said Townsend, chairman of the Education and Public Works Committee, where the bill is now.

Currently, S.C. police are prevented from citing adult drivers for seat-belt violations unless officers see the driver first committing a moving traffic violation. The stronger belt law now in committee would allow police to cite drivers and passengers for not wearing seat belts without observing another violation. The Senate passed the bill earlier this year.

The bill would increase seat-belt usage and, as a result, save 100 lives or more a year, according to studies.

Behind the scenes, lobbyists for health, business, citizens and law enforcement groups are working lawmakers to support the tougher law.

Numerous groups — from AAA to MADD to the S.C. Medical Association to the S.C. Chamber of Commerce to the S.C. Coroners’ Association — support the bill. The opposition comes from anti-government regulation libertarians and anti-helmet motorcycle groups.

However, House Majority Leader Rep. Jim Merrill, R-Charleston, said he remains opposed to a tougher law. Such a law would restrict personal freedoms, he said, adding he resents the federal government saying it will withhold money from states that don’t pass stronger seat-belt laws. That is “blackmail,” Merrill said.

Merrill said it is “tragic” so many unbuckled people are dying on S.C. roads. But the best way to address those deaths is through a public awareness program, he said.

Since March 3, seat-belt bill supporters have won two victories:

• A majority of the 25-member House Black Caucus now appears likely to support a stronger law, said caucus member Rep. Joe Neal, D-Richland.

Black representatives long have been concerned about “rogue police” using a stronger seat-belt bill to harass minorities, Neal said. But the death toll among unbuckled minorities and others is so high that many caucus members will vote for the stronger law, Neal predicted.

• S.C. Department of Transportation executive director Elizabeth Mabry also has endorsed a tougher law.

Normally, Mabry doesn’t take positions on bills before the Legislature. But, because so many unbuckled motorists are being killed, Mabry said this week that she now favors a tougher law. Mabry said she was speaking for herself, not DOT’s seven-member governing board.

South Carolina has one of the lowest seat-belt usage rates in the nation — about 65 percent, she said. “If it takes a law, that’s what I’m in favor of.”

House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, who says he supports a tougher law, is theoretically the most powerful House member. But on March 3, Wilkins was outflanked by libertarians who sidelined the bill.

Wilkins predicted Thursday the bill would get out of committee and have a “reasonable” chance of passing.

Knowing the House passed the bill twice last year, supporters may have been too confident during the March 3 debate, Wilkins said. Since the November elections, about 12 strong seat-belt bill supporters — including Joel Lourie, now a state senator — have left the House. Those losses hurt seat-belt supporters. “Lourie was the biggest advocate,” Wilkins said.

Now, Wilkins said, House passage of the bill depends, in large part, on how good a job lobbyists do in mobilizing citizens to contact their legislators.

Another unknown — assuming the bill passes the House — is whether Gov. Mark Sanford will veto it.

In a Feb. 11 column in The State, the libertarian Sanford raised questions about a stronger law. Sanford did not discuss the death rate. Instead, he said individuals, in general, should suffer the consequences of their own actions. People “should be able to do things that are both stupid and inherently self-destructive provided the harm only comes to them — and they are not directly harming another person,” Sanford wrote.

Sanford’s spokesman, Will Folks, said Thursday the governor does care about the deaths. “Everybody’s goal in this process is to reduce the number of fatalities on the roads and make people safer. The question is: How do we get there?”