Gov. Mark Sanford is taking his time making a decision on what to do with the primary enforcement seat belt bill because he's wrestling with whether the bill's potential to save lives outweighs its flaws. He has until midnight to take action or the bill becomes law without his signature.

Right now, South Carolina has secondary enforcement of its seat belt law. That means police cannot pull over someone they see breaking the law. They can write a ticket for not buckling up only if they stop someone for another violation first.

Gov. Sanford says he's troubled by the loss of personal freedom in letting police pull someone over just for not wearing a seat belt, since he says buckling up is a matter of personal responsibility.

He also doesn't like the fact that the bill specifically prohibits the use of "Click It or Ticket" safety belt checkpoints, which have proven effective in other states at getting more people to buckle up. And the bill does not allow seat belt use to be admissible in court in a civil lawsuit over injuries caused in a wreck.

The governor says those go against the goal of increasing seat belt usage rates. "In this case, there are specific moratoriums to a whole number of things that would actually increase seat belt usage," he says.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in 2004, seat belt usage rates averaged 84 percent in states with primary enforcement. In states with secondary enforcement, 73 percent of people buckled up. In South Carolina, it's only about 67 percent.

South Carolina used to have "Click It or Ticket" checkpoints. But on the final day of the legislative session in 2001, state lawmakers passed a bill specifically banning the road blocks. Their reasoning was that the checkpoints were illegal, since the main goal was to check to see if people were buckled up but the state had only secondary enforcement.

When lawmakers passed a bill to move to primary enforcement, they included an amendment to continue the ban on "Click It or Ticket".