The Indy Star’s Michele McNeil has an article entitled Senate OKs bill mandating use of seat belts in pickups
According to the article:
Motorists in pickups and passengers in the back seats of cars would have to buckle up under legislation approved 34-16 Thursday by the Indiana Senate. This expansion of the state’s mandatory seat belt law would mean that Indiana would join 48 other states that don’t exempt pickups.
. . .
This year, House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, thinks it’s probably a good idea to make occupants of pickups buckle up. But he’s not sure which committee he’ll assign the bill to. If it goes to Roads and Transportation, Chairman Cleo Duncan, R-Greensburg, has said she doesn’t know if she’ll hear it.
Rep. Bob Alderman, R-Fort Wayne, said he wasn’t inclined to hear the bill in his Public Policy and Veterans Affairs Committee. “I’m not a believer in birth-to-grave legislation. I don’t want to live your life for you.”
Rep. Alderman’s comment is a good reason not to have seat belt legislation at all. I’d like to hear a cogent explanation for requiring seat belts in cars but not in pickups.
Sen. Dillon makes another excellent point:
But Sen. Gary Dillon, R-Columbia City, a doctor, said the state forks over about $66 million a year on health care for those injured in accidents because they weren’t buckled up.
“When we’re paying that kind of money, it does become our business.”
Maybe, as tbailey says in one of the comments to an earlier post, “Make it an implied consent situation. If you don’t wear a seatbelt you consent to waive any medicare/medicaid/disability payments from the government and agree to pay cash for any longterm nursing home care you may require.”
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