No one has to tell Rachel Hursey how important it is to wear a seat belt. She's always worn hers, and that choice saved her life last summer when a car smashed into hers. "If I didn't have it on, I would not be here today," she says. "I'd probably have gone through the windshield and been gone."

As it was, she broke her wrist, her ankle in three places and had a deep gash in her knee and several bruises.

It's stories like hers that have state lawmakers continuing to push for a tougher seat belt law in South Carolina. Right now, the state has what's called secondary enforcement. The law requires you to buckle up, but a police officer or trooper can't stop you if you're not. They can write a ticket for not wearing a seat belt only if they stop you for another violation.

There is primary enforcement for drivers 17 and younger, but police say that law is all but useless, since they can't easily tell whether a driver in a moving vehicle is 16 or 18.

Joel Lourie was the main sponsor in the House during the last session of the bill to allow primary enforcement. The bill died in the Senate. Now, Lourie has just been elected to the Senate, and is one of 22 co-sponsors of the bill pre-filed in the Senate.

"We will save a minimum the first year--what the statistics tell us--we would save a hundred lives. We would prevent several thousand critical injuries. And it would be the most significant thing we've done to improve highway safety for some time, perhaps in my lifetime," he says.

Senate president pro tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, was the main reason the bill did not pass this year. He's against it because he thinks wearing a seat belt should be a personal choice and police shouldn't be able to stop you just for not buckling up.  

When the bill was being debated in February, Sen. McConnell told News Channel 7, "Where does it stop? Are they going to now claim you can't eat in your car? You can't listen to the radio? You can't use the cell phone because it might be a danger? Where does it stop?"

But the seat belt bill was one of several that a small minority of senators, or sometimes just one, blocked by using Senate rules. It caused the Senate to get very little accomplished and has led to even McConnell calling for rules changes. 

That gives Sen. Lourie hope that the bill has a much better chance of passing this time.

"I've talked to Sen. McConnell about this and I think he's very open to having some meaningful dialogue and debate about the bill," Sen. Lourie says. "Certainly he hasn't given me his commitment that he'll vote for it. But, you know, I don't think you'll see a 3- or 4-month stalemate on the bill in the Senate this year like you did last year." 

Sen. Lourie says if the bill comes up for a vote, he has the votes to pass it. There are 22 co-sponsors and several other senators who say they'll vote for it. Only 24 votes are needed for passage.

Statistics from last year show why the tougher seat belt bill is needed. Two-thirds of the people killed in car wrecks in South Carolina were not wearing a seat belt. Of all the people in the state involved in a car wreck, 1 percent of those buckled up were killed or seriously injured. Nearly 13 percent of those not wearing a seat belt were killed or seriously injured.