Enforcement to save teens

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Of the 114 South Carolina teenagers who died in car accidents last year, 94 were not wearing seat belts. A equally compelling statistic is how many teens escaped injury: Among the almost 32,000 teens who were involved in accidents but were not injured, almost all were wearing a seat belt, according to a recent story by Greenville News writer Tim Smith.

The problem, of course, is getting reluctant teens to wear seat belts. Teenagers tend to shun seat-belt use more than adults. Teens also are involved in more car accidents than adults. South Carolina teens make up about 6 percent of all drivers in the state but are involved in about 13 percent of accidents.

In addition, 16-year-old drivers are four times more likely than adults to get in a car wreck and three times as likely to die from one, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Car wrecks, in fact, kill more teens nationwide than any other cause.

In South Carolina, the number of teens who died in auto fatalities rose to 114 last year from 101 in 2003. That increase came at a time when the state has made some strides in trying to improve driving safety among teenagers.

Tougher driver's license requirements, for instance, are steering more students toward driver's education. In seeking to further protect teens, it might be appropriate for the Legislature to consider raising the eligibility age for full driving privileges or tighten laws to push even more teens into driver's education.

An irony is that many teens avoid using seat belts even though state law allows law enforcement officers to stop motorists 17 or younger for not wearing a seat belt. Many teens clearly are not worried about being fined for a seat-belt violation. The Legislature might consider raising the $25 fine. A higher fine might get teens' attention.

Certainly the seat-belt laws affecting teens need to be more aggressively enforced. To do that, South Carolina needs more state troopers for its chronically underfunded Highway Patrol. State leaders, to their credit, are trying to modestly increase the state trooper ranks by 100 next year.

A proposed stronger seat-belt law that would apply to adults also might encourage teens to buckle up. When parents buckle up, teens often follow suit. Likewise, law enforcement officers would no longer have to worry about whether a motorist who's not buckled up is actually a teen or an adult.

A little encouragement on the part of adults might go a long way toward getting more teens to buckle up. But stronger enforcement of seat-belt laws designed to save young lives would be even better.