Senator Wyss continues his efforts to keep our roads safe. He introduced SB 88 which requires every occupant of a motor vehicle to wear a safety belt. It makes exceptions for farm trucks used on a farm for agricultural pursuits, vehicles being used in a parade, the living quarters of an RV, the treatment area of an ambulance, and the sleeping area of a tractor.
The biggest thing this law would do is to eliminate the disparity in Indiana between occupants of cars and occupants of pickup trucks. Occupants of trucks currently are not required to wear seat belts whereas occupants of cars are. That distinction is awfully silly. Either it’s a good idea to require seat belts for people in motor vehicles on the public roads or not. There is not enough difference between the structure of a car and the structure of a pickup truck to justify treating the occupants differently. I happen to think that requiring safety belts save us all a ton of money in the form of not paying for additional medical treatment for underinsured motorists who are seriously injured in motor vehicle accidents. The benefits far outweigh the infringement of any perceived liberty interests.
(As an aside, I’d like to see whether there is substantial overlap between those who think manadatory seat belts are an unacceptable infringement of our liberties and those who think that George Bush is justified in engaging in warrantless wiretap searches because he claims to only be snooping on terrorists.)
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