COLUMBIA - Gov. Mark Sanford has until midnight today to either sign a new seat belt enforcement law, veto it, or let it take effect without his signature.

From the way the governor was talking Tuesday, a veto looks like a good bet.

"I don't think it's good to pass any legislation if the odds of your getting caught, and of there being some sort of real penalty, are minimal," he said in an interview with The Charlotte Observer.

To pass the bill, which would allow police to stop and ticket adult drivers and passengers for not wearing seat belts, supporters had to make numerous concessions. Unlike North Carolina, where court costs drive the cost of being caught unbuckled to $100 a ticket, South Carolina would charge only $25. Also unlike North Carolina, no points would be assessed against a person's driving record.

But the biggest difference between the proposed S.C. seat belt law and those in North Carolina and 20 other states is that S.C. law enforcement officers would not be able to use "Click It or Ticket" checkpoints or similar tactics.

National highway safety experts, who credit seat belt enforcement laws with saving thousands of lives and millions of dollars in medical costs, say that checkpoints are what make the laws effective.

"There will never be enough police to detect every violator of traffic laws, but once drivers think there's a good chance violators will be detected, the number of offenders decreases," said Alan Williams, former chief scientist for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Va.

Williams said Tuesday he thinks the proposed S.C. seat belt law would have only limited effectiveness in getting people to buckle up.

"If you simultaneously pass a primary enforcement law and say we're not going to enforce it, that certainly is a kind of mixed message," he said.

South Carolina has one of the nation's lowest seat belt use rates, about 58 percent. It also has one of the highest highway death rates; about three-fourths of the people killed in wrecks weren't wearing seat belts.

The state currently has a secondary seat belt law. It prevents police from ticketing unbuckled adult motorists unless they are stopped for another offense. Police can stop drivers 18 or under for not wearing seat belts. In 2004, S.C. state troopers wrote 39,000 tickets for seat belt violations.

A statewide Click It or Ticket campaign in autumn 2000 saw troopers and local police write about 20,000 seat belt tickets in just two weeks at checkpoints designed to check for driver's licenses.

However, then-Attorney General Charlie Condon said the checkpoints were illegal because they were primarily set up to enforce the seat belt law. The following year, lawmakers banned further Click It or Ticket campaigns, saying they violated individuals' personal freedom.

North Carolina launched the nation's first "Click It or Ticket" campaign in October 1993 after eight years of primary seat belt enforcement had failed to significantly raise the usage rate. Seat belt use in North Carolina rose immediately from 64 percent to 80 percent. The current N.C. usage rate of 84 percent is one of the highest in the U.S.

Safety experts say the most important thing about checkpoints is the publicity they create. "Even if you're writing a lot of tickets, if people don't see it as visible enforcement, they're not likely to change their behavior," said Russ Rader, spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Sanford said he feels the same way and is reluctant to sign a bill he considers empty symbolism.

"What we've said is this is a very big issue and we need to do something about it," he said. But instead, he said, lawmakers removed "all these things that have been proven to make some degree of impact in people's propensity to use seat belts."

If Sanford vetoes the bill, lawmakers can still vote it into law with a two-thirds majority of members present and voting in each chamber. The legislature, which wrapped up its regular session last week, returns for two days June 14 and 15.