Tougher seat belt law would protect taxpayers, drivers

MOST PEOPLE AGREE that individuals should be left alone to make unhealthy choices, as long as they don’t harm anyone except themselves.

But what does that mean? Is it limited to physical harm? What about choices that cost others money?

These questions usually don’t get asked when we embrace the libertarian notion that we must put “freedom of choice” above all other values. So it is no surprise that they’re being glossed over in the debate over whether to let police freely enforce the state law that already requires every one of us to wear a seat belt.

There’s no question that in the majority of cases, the greatest direct harm is done to the person who does not wear a seat belt — he dies; she has to be hospitalized.

But the rest of us also suffer, directly and indirectly.

When the unbelted driver is knocked unconscious or thrown around in the vehicle, he can’t exert any control over a massive projectile careening into other vehicles. With a seat belt, he’s held in place after the initial collision or swerve, and better able to steer clear of others.

The indirect suffering is financial. And significant.

In 2001, the taxpayer-funded Medicaid program paid $6.5 million in hospital bills for South Carolinians who were injured when they were not wearing seat belts; Medicare paid $4 million. Another $23 million was spent to treat unbuckled victims covered by private insurance — payments that increased insurance rates for the rest of us. On top of that, we paid higher insurance rates to cover patients without any insurance.

Some of those people would have been injured even if they had been wearing seat belts. But their injuries would have been much less severe, and much less expensive. In 2001, the average emergency room charge for unbelted crash victims in South Carolina was nearly twice that for belted victims: $1,333 vs. $736. Inpatient charges were a third higher: $30,470 vs. $23,216. And that doesn’t account for the fact that fewer people who wear seat belts are injured to begin with.

Perhaps this wouldn’t affect us so much if we made it a crime for doctors to treat unbelted motorists. But of course we can’t do that. So we have to pay the tab for their irresponsibility — or else we have to pass laws we know will influence people to be more responsible.

When police are allowed to freely enforce the seat belt law, as a bill before the state Senate would allow, the number of people who use seat belts goes up by 10 to 15 percentage points. When people use seat belts, their chance of surviving a wreck increases by 45 percent to 60 percent. Their chance of avoiding serious injuries increases by 50 percent to 65 percent. Their chance of not being thrown from the vehicle — and thus of staying in control well enough to avoid running into other people — increases by as much as 70 percent.

Critics argue that real seat belt laws inevitably lead to prohibitions on smoking and drinking and overeating. That’s absurd.

It’s true that you could use the same logic to promote such policies. But those policies won’t be implemented unless our elected leaders vote to implement them. And as our Legislature demonstrates time after time after time, it is not bound by logic or consistency. The chance of our Legislature outlawing smoking or passing a cheesecake tax is neither increased nor decreased by our Legislature allowing police to enforce our seat belt law. The chance of more of our friends and neighbors and relatives and co-workers living through wrecks, however, is greatly enhanced. This isn’t a tough choice. We need a real, enforceable seat belt law in this state.