Posted on Fri, May. 05, 2006

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Car-seat-fine veto draws ire

Sanford said bill increasing penalty from $25 to $150 should've had a lawsuit clause

JIM DAVENPORT

Associated Press

FOREST ACRES - Gov. Mark Sanford vetoed tougher penalties for parents who don't strap their children into car seats late Wednesday and was facing a backlash Thursday that could be heard from grocery stores to the gubernatorial campaign trail.

The legislation Sanford vetoed would have increased fines to $150 from $25, but required judges to drop that if drivers showed they had acquired child safety seats. Sanford vetoed the bill, saying it was a government intrusion into parental responsibility and that it failed to include a clause that would allow juries in lawsuits to learn that accident victims weren't properly restrained. Sanford earlier had warned legislators that he would veto any seat-belt law that didn't let juries know people weren't buckled up in accidents.

"What's the stronger disincentive? A nominal fine or the knowledge that you literally lose out on thousands and thousands of dollars in a court of law?" Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer asked.

Jenna Elliott, a Columbia physical therapist, heard about the veto as she unstrapped her two sons, 2-year-old Joshua, and 1-year-old Micah, from her minivan's car seats in a grocery store parking lot here, just a few miles from the State House.

"I see enough head injuries in adults that I don't think you can be too tough," Elliott, 34, said.

"I think $25 is a slap on the wrist versus $150," which would cause people to rearrange budgets, she said. There's no doubt, she said, that children are more likely to be harmed in an accident if they aren't restrained. "It's a pretty cut and dried issue."

Melissa Rowland was shopping with her 9-month-old daughter, Emma. "I don't understand why he would have done that," Rowland said of Sanford's veto. "I cannot comprehend why people would not restrain their children," she said.

In his veto message to the Senate, the Republican governor said those decisions should be left up to parents and they should bear the responsibility for their decision.

"Small children should be secured in safety seats, but making sure they do so is the primary responsibility of parents, not the government," Sanford wrote. Some parents have different views of acceptable risks, he said. "It has been proven that it is more dangerous to drive at night or in the rain -- are those times when parents should be penalized for taking additional risks with the lives of their children?" Sanford said.

But "the state has an historical and age-old responsibility to protect the children within its border," said Sen. Vincent Sheheen, a Camden Democrat and the bill's lead sponsor. That's why the state has agencies set up to look after the welfare of children and laws limiting what children can do, including when they can get married, drive cars or legally drink, he said.

"Parents don't have any right to allow their children to ride in a car unbuckled," he said.

The National Transportation Safety Board has encouraged states to pass tougher child safety laws, including those that keep children in booster seats until age 8. But the NTSB has taken no position on fines.

Child restraint laws around the nation have penalties as low as $10 in Michigan and as high as $200 in Texas, NTSB board member Debbie Hersman said.

In accidents, "children are the most vulnerable and they don't have the ability to make safety decisions for themselves and they are relying on parents to make those decisions," Hersman said by phone from her Washington, D.C., office.

"Ultimately it is the parent's responsibility, but they do look to the laws for guidance," she said.

On the campaign trail, Sanford's political opponents seized on the veto.

Sanford is "telling the people of South Carolina again that his philosophy and his will is more important than anyone else's," said Sen. Tommy Moore, a Clearwater Democrat running for governor. "How many children have got to die in the name of exercising personal responsibility, in the name of exercising personal liberty?"

"The issue here is the safety of a child and that's what the legislation is trying to do," Florence Mayor Frank Willis, one of Moore's primary opponents, said.

Oscar Lovelace, the Prosperity family practice doctor facing Sanford in the June 13 Republican primary, said the veto reflects a knack for melding with legislators. "He would choose not to take a position in favor of the safety of a child because he did not get everything he wanted in legislation," Lovelace said.

Sanford's campaign referred questions to Sawyer, who wouldn't directly respond to criticism from political opponents.

"Political insiders are going to try and deflect attention from the fact that they are all about protecting lawyer-legislators who make money off of the system that doesn't punish illegal behavior in a court of law," Sawyer said.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said an attempt to override the veto could come today, if the Senate extends its session.