Gov. Mark Sanford allowed a tougher seat-belt law to take effect because it allows police officers to finally enforce the rules — rules he admitted Thursday he doesn’t like.

Sanford ended months of speculation late Wednesday night by allowing midnight to come and go without taking action on the bill. The governor said Thursday he was considering his options past 11 p.m. before finally making a decision.

“I still would have vetoed this thing, were it not for one argument that I just couldn’t get around,” Sanford said. “That left me in a real conundrum.”

Despite the pleas from doctors, nurses, safety activists and law enforcement officers to sign the bill, Sanford said it was a conversation with Public Safety Director Jim Schweitzer that ultimately swayed him.

Sanford said Schweitzer told him the existing seat-belt law is the only one police are prohibited from enforcing.

The state’s old seat-belt law prohibited police from stopping a motorist for not buckling up. The new law changes that.

But Sanford is still not convinced it will have much impact once it goes into effect Dec. 9.

“I anticipate that this bill will not produce the results that people are hoping for, “ Sanford said.

The $25 fine is too low, he said. The law also says violations cannot be reported to insurance companies and failure to wear a seat belt is not admissible in court. All of that leaves little incentive for buckling up, the governor said.

Ava Pearson is glad about that. Pearson, 45, of Columbia, said she does not wear her seat belt and does not intend to start now.

“This is about government making choices for individuals,” Pearson said. “That’s a choice a person should make.”

Pearson said she does not buckle up because, “I feel a seat belt is a restraint. If I need to get out of my car, I see a lot of people jammed in seat belts.”

But others point to data that show seat belts overwhelmingly save lives.

In a letter to Sanford urging him to sign the seat belt bill, U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said the new law will save an average of 64 lives a year in South Carolina, and prevent 650 serious injuries a year.

It also will save taxpayers $140 million each year, Mineta wrote in the June 6 letter.

Still, Sanford said Mineta’s letter was not persuasive. Sanford agrees more with Pearson, that government should not be in the business of telling people how to live their lives.

“Once you go down this route, to say it’s government’s role to protect individuals from themselves, there are a lot of strange questions to ask,” Sanford said.

“Tobacco smoking produces cancer, which produces death. Should you outlaw smoking? Saturated fat produces coronary heart disease, which causes death. Should we outlaw saturated fat? I don’t think we ought to do any of those things.

“You ought to leave the maximum amount of personal freedom out there.”

Reach Gould Sheinin at (803) 771-8658 or asheinin@thestate.com.