(January 25, 2005)  As Team Tyranny lead by Senators Ryberg and Hutto prepares to battle Team Liberty lead by Senators McConnell and Grooms over Senate Bill S-l (primary enforcement of seat belt law), it's time to put the primary enforcement hype to the test; and not just a hypothetical or anecdotal test, but a real where the rubber meets the road type of test.

To gain public support for primary enforcement, Senate Ryberg has been quoted in newspapers across South Carolina as saying, "If you save 300 lives, that's a positive step by government." If this statement of his is true, traffic fatality statistics from states that already have primary enforcement seat belt laws should reflect population proportional reductions in traffic fatalities the year and years after those states passed primary enforcement.

The bottom line - the statistics do not support Ryberg's claim. As of July 2004, 21 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have primary safety belt laws. Here are the fatality facts before and after these states passed primary enforcement seat belt laws. These statistics were obtained and compiled by the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS).¹

Where Senator Ryberg picked up the 300 lives will be saved nonsense is anybody's guess, but he certainly could not have derived it from the actual traffic fatality statistics of states that already have primary enforcement laws.

It is worth noting that New Hampshire, the Live Free or Die state, is the only state that has no seat belt law whatsoever. Yet somehow the good people of New Hampshire have figured out how to hold their own while driving without any seat belt law. Imagine that! Here's a look at New Hampshire's traffic fatalities between 1998 and 2003.

How New Hampshire reduced their traffic fatalities by 10.6 percent between 2001 and 2002, and maintained the reduction in 2003, without their government setting up police roadblocks and issuing tickets in a disguised effort to educate New Hampshire drivers about the frequent advantages of wearing a seat belt, simply must just boggle the minds of Senate Bill S-l and House Bill 3057 supporters.

If politicians need to lie to get a bill passed into law, then it is a bad law, and they're bad lawmakers. Primary enforcement will not save 300 lives a year in South Carolina, period. There is simply no real evidence to support such a claim, and to allow the Tyranny Team to continue making such claims is to help them perpetrate a fraud upon the people of South Carolina.

[1] Please note that California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Puerto Rico passed primary enforcement laws prior to 1994. The FARS report in which the aforementioned statistics were obtained, Fatalities and Fatality Rates by State, 1994 2003, obviously only provides statistics from 1994 to 2003. Consequently, traffic fatality statistics for the years surrounding the passage of primary enforcement in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Puerto Rico were not available for this report. Delaware, Illinois, and Tennessee passed their primary enforcement laws in 2003 - 2004. Statistical information regarding fatalities in these three states is not yet developed.

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