Indiana's law requiring all riders in a passenger vehicle to wear seat belts could be extended to include vehicles that qualify for a truck license plate.
The current law states that people who drive any vehicle with a truck license plate, such as trucks, sport utility vehicles and minivans, are not obligated to wear seat belts. Drivers pay $9 more for a truck license plate than a car license plate. Senators Thomas Wyss, R-Fort Wayne, Connie Sipes, D-New Albany and John Broden, D-South Bend, authored the bill to change the license plate loophole.
Senate Bill 7, known as Megan's Bill, would force all passengers in any vehicle to wear seat belts.
"We were very concerned when we heard that it [the first seat-belt law] was interpreted to not include trucks," Wyss said.
The bill was named after Megan Minix, a young woman from Kokomo, who chose not to wear her seat belt while riding in a truck with her sorority sisters. The truck flipped over and killed her, according to Sherry Deane, AAA Hoosier Motor Club public affairs specialist.
Requiring seat belt use in trucks and sport utility vehicles will help Indiana's economy, according to an editorial in the Indianapolis Star. Congress provides an extra $33 million a year in federal highway funds for state enforcement of seat-belt use, the editorial said.
"We do receive extra highway construction funding," Wyss said. "But my decision is based on my concern for public safety. The money from the federal government is just icing on the cake."
Indiana is one of two states that exempt trucks, minivans and sport utility vehicles from the seat-belt laws.
The new seat-belt law could save 50 lives in the state and over $25 million in medical expenses, the Indianapolis Star editorial said.
According to Buckle Off, an organization that opposes seat-belt laws, New Hampshire has the greatest reduction in traffic fatalities per 100 million miles driven during the past 20 years, and it is the only state that does not have laws mandating seat-belt use.
"New Hampshire is the live free and die state," Deane said. "Their crash rate is much lower; therefore, the fatality rates are lower. You cannot compare larger states to smaller states."
The bill exempts those who cannot wear a seat belt for medical reasons. Medical reasons include nervous system disorders that create tenderness and pain in areas that the seat belt covers, according to the Buckle Off Web site.
The AAA Hoosier Motor Club, the state chapter of the national automobile association, strongly supports Megan's Bill.
"We're not pushing for a new bill; we're pushing for enhancement of the old bill," Greg Seiter, AAA Hoosier Motor Club public affairs manager, said.
"It's a very old law, originally written with farmers in mind," he said.
The National Motorists Association, an organization that, according to the Web site, was founded to represent and protect the rights and interests of American motorists, opposes the bill. Devices meant to prevent injury and death have probably injured or killed more people than Ford's Pinto gasoline bombs or General Motors' belly-tanked pickup trucks, the Web site said.
The difference between them, according to the article, is that no one was forced by the government to buy a Pinto or GM pickup.
"People do not want to be told what to do," Deane said.
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