INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indiana Senate committee endorsed legislation Tuesday that would require drivers of pickups and sport-utility vehicles to buckle up along with other motorists.
The Senate Transportation Committee, following testimony that the bill would save lives, approved it 9-1 and advanced it to the full Senate. Jeffrey Runge, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, was among those urging its passage.
He noted the argument some make about having a right not to wear a seat belt in their own vehicle. But he said driving on public roads was a public exercise, and those drivers could end up costing society through hospital stays and higher insurance rates.
''We do not believe people should be sacrificed at the altar of political philosophy,'' Runge said.
Indiana's seat-belt law requires that a driver and any front-seat passengers in a car buckle up. It exempts trucks from the requirement, and the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled in September that any vehicle with a truck license plate is viewed legally as a truck.
Attorney General Steve Carter has appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court.
Minivans and SUVs make up an estimated 550,000 of the 1.3 million vehicles with truck plates. Some officials believe the vehicles' owners choose to pay $9 more for a truck plate so they can avoid the seat-belt law.
The bill would apply the law to all seating positions in cars, trucks, minivans and SUVs that originally came equipped with belts. It would exclude people in commercial vehicles that make frequent stops, trucks involved in farm activity, and those in living-quarter areas of recreational vehicles.
It would require children ages 4 to 12 to wear belts when riding in trucks. Current law only requires truck passengers younger than 4 to be in a child safety seat.
Seat-belt violations are an infraction carrying a $25 fine.
The Legislative Services Agency estimates that under the bill, the number of vehicles subject to the seat-belt law in Indiana would increase by 40 percent.
Runge said there were 623 traffic fatalities in Indiana in 2002, and 302 of those killed were not wearing seat belts. About half could have been saved if they were buckled up, he said.
He said 15 people aged 16 or 17 were killed in pickups in Indiana in 2002, and none was wearing a seat belt.
Sen. Robert Jackman, R-Milroy, was the only committee member who voted against the bill. He said everyone should buckle up, ''but at the same time I don't think government should be telling people what to do.''
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