House Bill 1237 Motor vehicle restraint systems. Rep. Welch. This is the bill that requires all occupants of a motor vehicle (with certain exceptions) to wear a seat belt. In practical terms, this means that all occupants rather than just the front seat occupants are required to buckle up. Also, occupants of pickup trucks and SUVs are no longer exempt.
Whatever you might think of the seat belt requirement generally, I don’t think a good argument can be made that the distinction between SUVs and pickup trucks on the one hand and other automobiles on the other hand made much sense. I don’t know what the safety studies say, but there was probably a better argument to be made for the distinction between front seat occupants and back seat occupants.
[tags]SB1237-2007, motor vehicles[/tags]
“Nanny government” at its finest…
Mike Sylvester
Naw. Better examples of nanny government include bailing out the Chrysler Corporation, and the airlines…
Or is that drop-dead blowjob government instead?
You all know what I think about the government babysitting me.I will ignore this law and go on about my business.
Indiana forgoes a huge ( I beleive something to the tune of $16 million/year) in federal funding becuaes suv’s/trucks are exempt from seat belt laws. Indiana does NOT have the luxury of saying no to this money.
To that I say as was asked of our local lawmakers recently when do we start getting the excise for these truck plate because we currently do not!Just because the Federal government chooses to blackmail us with our own money(taxes) doesn’t make it right.
Did you know there were 42636 fatalities in the United States in 2006. The estimated 18% of the people that don’t wear seatbelts accounted for 60% of the fatalities. Is this just coincidence? The 2006 safety belt usage rate is 91% which is 9% above the national average. However, truck usage rates for the same period is only 54%. It falls 20% below the national average. 69% of the 110 truck fatalities in 2006 were unrestrained. If these 69% were wearing safety belts then 54 more people would potentially be alive. A poll taken by Indianapolis channel six news on March 13, 2007 asked the question “Should Indiana make seatbelt use in pickup trucks mandatory?” The response that was reported on the Five O’clock news indicated that 83% said yes and 17% said no. Most of the taxpayers in Indiana are tired of paying higher taxes and insurance because some of you are paranoid that Big Brother is trying to take over you life by making you buckle up.
Being a firefighter and responding on several accidents I realize that the statistics are a lie. if you are in an accident and a police officer asks if you had your seatbelt on or not what are you going to say. YES I DID. so the statistics are nothing more than numbers that you can make look any way you want. I do not wear my seat belt and will not wear it. OH by the way I responded on my two sons in an accident. I have always made them weat their seatbelts but for some reason they did not have them on this time. The driver my oldest son was ejected and my youngest son was trapped in the floor board area after being thrown there. The truck landed upside down after going off a bridge. If they had there seat belts on both would have been DEAD. Each year we have more drivers which means more accidents and more deaths. My choice does not effect your choice so do not make your choice of wearing a seat belt affect my choice.