TUESDAY'S EDITORIAL

By T&D Staff

Seat belts still key issue for S.C. drivers

THE ISSUE: The 2004 highway death toll

OUR OPINION: Death toll in S.C. could be curbed if more would buckle up

The confirmation came Monday. Traffic fatalities in Orangeburg County are among the highest in the state for 2004.

Even as the S.C. Department of Public Safety was saying the numbers for the year offer no surprises in that metropolitan and tourist areas again lead the list of counties with the most fatalities, there was particular note of the increase in deaths in Orangeburg and Aiken counties.

Both were singled out by DPS during the year for escalating numbers of accidents, injuries and deaths.

The final deadly total shows Orangeburg with 50 deaths, behind only Horry and Greenville with 63 each, Charleston with 59 and Richland with 54. Aiken recorded 39 deaths during the year.

Orangeburg County has multiple issues when it comes to safe roads and highways. As the second largest county in the state in land area, we are home to two major interstate highways and a vast network of rural roads. It's a deadly combination, with officials putting heavy emphasis on reducing accidents on both interstates 26 and 95, plus U.S. 301 and U.S. 21.

In the search for how to reduce the toll locally and around the state, which recorded 1,025 traffic deaths in 2004, another ranking is significant.

The Christian Science Monitor reported in Friday editions on seat-belt usage around the nation. U.S. Department of Transportation numbers indicate belt usage in South Carolina is the fourth lowest in the country. With 65.7 percent of people wearing safety belts, South Carolina is ahead of only Mississippi (63.2 percent), Massachusetts (63.3 percent) and Arkansas (64.2 percent).

While two of every three people wearing safety belts once would have been considered exceptional, laws in nearly ever state now mandate their usage. Most people obey the laws of the land.

With nearly every expert analysis and the raw numbers showing belts save lives, it's not hard to see how much better off motorists are in the states with leading belt usage: Arizona (95.3 percent) and Hawaii with 95.1.

The confirmation of the deadly year and the toll locally reinforce the need for South Carolina to increase belt usage. And the best way to ensure that more people wear belts is to mandate it.

South Carolina's current law is passive, meaning that a motorist must be pulled over for another violation before he or she can be ticketed for not wearing a safety belt. It's past time to put more teeth into law that a third of the population clearly does not take seriously.

State lawmakers have been unable to make the change in the face of some determined opposition rooted in arguments over personal freedoms. With the state Highway Patrol reporting that 74 percent of victims in South Carolina fatal crashes are not wearing safety belts, we hope they'll reexamine their position as they consider the 2004 toll and what is already happening in 2005.

Through Jan. 9, the state has already recorded 24 highway deaths.

E-mail this page

Print version

Back to the top