House panel restrains seat-belt measure

A proposal to allow police to stop drivers for not wearing a seat belt has been restrained in the House.

The House Rules Committee refused to forward SB71 Friday, meaning that it will most likely take a majority vote by the full House to bring it to a floor debate. The bill, which passed the Senate last week, would make not wearing a seat belt a primary offense.

Motorists now can only be cited for not wearing a seat belt if they are stopped for another violation.

Rep. Chad Bennion, R-Murray, who sits on the Rules Committee, said he did not expect it to see the light of day this session.

"There hasn't been a lot of voices requesting it," Bennion said. "With all of the bills, people wanting to get their issues heard and the body prioritizing its time, I don't know where this falls."

Last year, the House entered into lengthy debates about seat belt requirements after Bennion substituted a bill revising seat belt laws -- but not changing them -- to not require any seat belt use. The bill eventually died, although the debates made it clear that there was little House support for additional seat belt laws.

"You have the same people as last year, and I don't know that there's been a lot that's changed," he said.

Bill sponsor, Sen. Karen Hale, D-Salt Lake, who acknowledged the Senate's 16-12 vote was a "squeaker" said she didn't know why the House might hold up the bill. It would be shame, she added, if it never got a hearing because she believes there is House support for the bill.

Any debate over the use of seat belts is always tug of war between issues of safety and personal choice.

Wearing a seat belt, she said "is not a choice that effects one person, you're effecting other people around you."

The Utah Highway Patrol support's Hale's effort and long supported a primary efforts to give the state a primary seat belt law, Maj. Neil Porter said. In states enacting those law since 1995 have seen a 15 percent increase in seat belt use and a reduction in fatalities, he said.

"Until you've been out at one of those accidents, you don't understand the carnage," said Porter. "Anything that we can do to prevent injury and death, the Utah Highway Patrol will support."

A December 2003 National Safety Council report of fatal accidents by state showed that between 1995 and 2002, some 12,177 lives were lost in the 30 states that do not have a primary seat belt law.

"Utah's part of that is 172 persons that could have been saved," Porter said, reading from the report. "And seat belts are proven to reduce the risk of serious injury and death in crashes by 45 percent."

Sen. Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, who voted against the bill in the Senate, said that he suspected that the House Rules Committee was reflective of the general feeling within the House.

"I knew it would have more trouble in the House," he said. "They seem to be more adamant about personal rights issues."

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