New Seatbelt Bill Goes Before Public Safety Committee

BOSTON, MA — Several years ago Mary Maguire's 17-year-old son was driving home from a homecoming dance. He fell asleep at the wheel while on I-495 near Wrentham. He woke up while his pickup truck was taking down highway reflectors and over-corrected course, the truck hurdling across all three lanes before crashing.

He was trapped so tightly he couldn't reach his phone. It took three sets of "jaws of life" to get him out. The emergency crews told Maguire later that it looked like it would be a salvage mission instead of a rescue mission.

But her son made it out alive. All because he was wearing his seatbelt that night.

Now a more strict seatbelt law is being sought by legislators. One bill was presented this week to the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security. If passed, it would essentially require everyone to wear a seatbelt, allow police to pull over a car for anyone who is not wearing one, and double the current fine for not wearing one.

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Part of the problem

As car crash-related deaths in the state are on the upswing, fewer Massachusetts drivers are wearing their seatbelts, according to the National Safety Council, a nonprofit created by Congress.

The chances of being ejected are 30 times greater if you're not wearing a seatbelt, the NSC said. There are something like 32 people ejected a year in the state, said Maguire of AAA Northeast. The organization is pushing for the new seatbelt bill. The data for the most recent year showed that everyone who was ejected from their car during a crash in the state died of those injuries she said.

"You want to remain in your vehicle and a seatbelt restrains you," said Maguire. "If you're the driver of the car and unrestrained it makes it much more difficult to control the vehicle in a crash if you're moving around. If a driver is restrained they can help mitigate some of the impact of the crash by maintaining control of the car."

Almost 25 percent of Massachusetts drivers do not buckle up on a regular basis, according to AAA Northeast. And that's too many, says AAA, And drivers are required to wear a seatbelt by law in Massachusetts, currently, police cannot pull drivers over solely for not wearing a seatbelt.

The bill in the state senate is asking for that change. If the bill passes, anyone who is pulled over and found to not be wearing a seatbelt could be fined $50. The current fine is $25 for those pulled over for something other than a seatbelt.

Data on buckling up

In the 34 states and the District of Columbia that have passed mandatory primary seatbelt laws, the number of people who wore seatbelts increased at least 10 percent, said Maguire.

AAA has been one of the leaders in the campaign to pass a primary seatbelt law in the state for a number of years. "We support a primary seatbelt law for a number of reasons, but mainly because it would save more than 12 lives every year in Massachusetts and prevent almost 500 debilitating injuries," she said.

When it comes to wearing a seatbelt, Massachusetts has one of the lowest rates in the nation, Maguire said. What that translates to is a lot unnecessary ejection, injury, and death. "Wearing your seatbelt cuts your risk [of those three things] in half," said Maguire.

It could also have a monetary impact.

"The cost of rehabbing a brain injured patient is $18 million over the lifetime of that person. If you can prevent a traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury, not only do you save the quality of their life and their family's life, you also save the Commonwealth significant dollars in terms of cost. I think there's a human component as well as a physical component that makes sense," she said.

Rep Roy's bill

Representative Jeffrey N. Roy of the 10th Norfolk district presented the bill to Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security Tuesday.

He said the facts that Massachusetts is 48th in the nation in terms of seatbelt usage and that fatal crashes increased by 20 percent in the last few years jumped out at him.

"Given that in other states primary seatbelt laws have been working, it seemed to me it was a no brainer that we should be doing it," he said.

Although he understands the argument that some may say it's their body and therefore should be able to choose whether to wear a seatbelt or not, he said he doesn't necessarily agree with that line of thought.

"I look at it from the perspective as if you're in a vehicle without a seatbelt you're a danger to others. You can turn a minor crash into a fatal crash if you're not seatbelted because you can become a projectile."

When you become a danger to others then it's appropriate for the government to step in, he said. Roy said wearing a seatbelt should be regulated just as the government does with speed limits and driving under the influence.

"This is not something to do to try to penalize people. This is to try to modify behavior and get more people to wear seatbelts," he said.

More than one bill focused on seatbelts Tuesday. Another was an act to require all schools buses are equipped with seatbelts. Six states require seatbelts on school buses. Massachusetts is not one of them.

Earlier Rep. Alan Silvia filed a bill making May seatbelt awareness month.

“Seatbelts save lives. That is a given,” said State Senator Cindy Friedman, who said she wasn't familiar with the law yet. "In general I agree with mandatory seatbelt laws. We would have to make sure that there are no unintended consequences in terms of how the law would be applied."

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Photo by Jenna Fisher/Patch

[Editor's note: This article has been edited to reflect the correct statistic of folks who don't wear seatbelts in the state]