|
Date Published: February 4, 2005
Seat belt bill passes Senate
By BOBBY BAKER
Item Staff Writer
bbaker@theitem.com
A proposed seat belt law that will allow law enforcement
officers to stop drivers who fail to buckle up got one step closer
to becoming a reality Wednesday after getting state Senate approval.
The bill passed 32-11 after a week of debate and will be another
step closer to allowing primary enforcement of the current seat belt
laws if approved by the South Carolina House of
Representatives.
If Gov. Mark Sanford signs the approved
bill, South Carolina would be the 22nd state to approve such a
measure.
"Hopefully, it will pass the House," said Sen. John
Land, D-Manning, who has been a major proponent of the bill. "I'm
delighted that the seat belt bill has passed the Senate, and I'm
convinced that the usage will jump to 75 percent because of primary
enforcement if it passes the House and the governor signs it into
law."
According to Land, the House approved a similar bill
last year that soon floundered in the Senate amid filibusters and
provision changes.
Dr. James DuRant, a pediatrician with
Sumter Pediatrics, has championed the bill for several years and
believes that it is one of the most important laws that the state
Legislature will pass this year.
"I think it will result in
many lives being kept from injury and death," he said. "I am very
pleased that the Senate passed the seat belt law at this point, and
I hope the House of Representatives will pass it quickly and that
the governor will not veto this law."
If approved, the
proposed law will allow primary enforcement of the current law that
requires all occupants of a motor vehicle to wear a seat belt.
Currently in South Carolina, officers may only ticket drivers for
not using their seat belts if they have been stopped for some other
traffic violation. Violators of the proposed bill will be charged
$25.
Sen. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter, voted yes for the bill
primarily because of one provision change that will not allow local
law enforcement agencies to "profit" from the new law.
"I
voted for it because they changed some of the provisions that raised
concerns (with me)," he said. "They reduced the amount of money that
goes to the local governments for these fines, and they capped the
amount of the fines so that the fees and the additions that we put
on a lot of traffic tickets won't apply here."
During last
year's District 35 Senate campaign, Leventis had said he would not
vote for the bill, but said these changes gave him added comfort to
vote in the bill's favor.
"The fact, of course, is that
everybody ought to wear their seat belts," he said. "I hope that
this bill will have some impact. Even in the best case (scenario),
everybody that's not wearing a seat belt will not be stopped. The
states with the highest compliance rates are around 90
percent."
Sen. W. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken, serves as chairman of
the Senate Transportation Committee and says that allowing primary
enforcement of existing seat belt laws would avoid death and injury
and allow South Carolina to save millions of dollars
annually.
"If South Carolina allows law enforcement to
enforce the seat belt law, we can expect a minimum of 109 people
involved in traffic accidents in the ensuing year to survive and
more than 1,700 to avoid injury," he said.
Land believes that
these figures might translate into reductions of automobile
insurance costs throughout the state.
"This has such an
overriding effect on other issues such as highway safety, but also
the cost of your insurance," he said. "The less one is injured in an
automobile accident, the less liability insurance will have to pay
for medical bills. This will have a big effect on the cost of
medical care and the cost of insurance, I think."
Sanford,
like Leventis, is concerned about certain aspects of the proposed
bill, according to spokesman Will Folks.
"We're talking about
a bill that would charge you $25 for not wearing your seat belt that
does nothing to make seat belt use admissible as evidence in the
courtroom," he said. He added that the new law would not allow for
seat belt offenses to be reported to insurance companies, shared
with juries weighing fault or to be reported on driving
records.
Folks said the governor wonders whether legislators
are dealing with enough of the problem "so that we can say we're
doing something or do we want to advance real reforms that will
actually make a difference in the outcome? I think the outcome, we
can all agree, would be safer roads and fewer
fatalities."
The current administration believes that
allowing juries to factor seat belt use into weighing damages in
lawsuits would "go a lot further in influencing behavior regarding
wearing a seat belt than a nominal fine," Folks said, adding "if
you're getting into the car and thinking about buckling up are you
worried about the $25 out of (your) pocket or the thousands of
dollars that you wouldn't be awarded by a jury because you weren't
wearing your seat belt."
|
|
|
|
|
Previous
Page |
February 4, 2005 
