It was big news earlier this month when the full Senate passed a primary enforcement seat belt bill. That's because the House had passed the bill before, only to see it die in the Senate without it even coming up for a vote. And since the House has passed the bill before, getting it through the Senate would seem to mean it will become law.

But Gov. Mark Sanford says that if there aren't major changes to the bill, "I will not be able to support this bill." He says that's because the bill doesn't do enough to get people to buckle up.

South Carolina already has a law requiring drivers and passengers to wear seat belts. But it has only secondary enforcement. If a trooper or police officer sees someone not buckled up, he can't pull the vehicle over to write a ticket. He can issue a citation only if the driver commits another violation.

Primary enforcement allows officers to enforce the law if they see that it's being broken.

Gov. Sanford says one of his main problems with the bill is that it would not allow seat belt use to be admitted as evidence in court in a civil trial. "That doesn't make common sense to me--if you don't wear your seat belt and are hurt in an accident--that strikes me as the kind of thing a jury ought to know," he  says.

And the fine in the Senate version is only $12. "If someone knew that juries were factoring seat belt use in determining damages in civil lawsuits, we could go a lot further in influencing behavior than with a nominal fine," the governor says.

Court costs and fees would be allowed to be added to the fine under the Senate plan, so the total fine would be $49.90. But a House subcommittee changed the bill to a $25 fine, which is what it is under current law, and no court costs or fees could be added.

A House committee passed the amended bill Tuesday, but did not make changes to address the governor's other concerns. The governor's spokesman says the House's $25 fine versus the Senate's $12 isn't enough of a change for the governor to be able to support the bill.

Rep. Ronnie Townsend, R-Anderson, chairs the Education and Public Works committee that passed the bill Tuesday. He says he thinks the $25 fine is enough to get people to buckle up. "The primary thing that I'm interested in is people being educated they ought to be wearing their seat belt. I'm more interested in people buckling up on their own and realizing on their own that they need to be buckled up than I am about fining people," he says.

Columbia driver Cindy Paul agrees, saying the governor should sign the bill into law if it does pass the House and the Senate agrees to the different fine. "I think something's better than nothing because so many people have lost lives because of not having worn their seat belts," she says.

But Matthew Goff agrees with the governor that the bill wouldn't do much to get people to buckle up, especially because of the low fine. "I think it needs to be a hundred bucks or so," he says. Otherwise, he says, driver wouldn't pay attention to it.

And he said that after coming out of traffic court, where he just paid a fine for a speeding ticket.

The bill now goes to the full House, which is expected to pass it. Rep. Townsend says if the House and Senate both agree to a final version and send it to the governor, the governor has every right to veto it. "We've always got the choice of overriding the veto with a two-thirds majority vote," he says. "If it's important enough for the General Assembly to do it, then they'll override the veto." 

The Senate did pass the bill with more than a two-thirds majority, so it would have the votes to override. And when the House passed the bill last year, it also did so with more than enough votes to override a veto.