| 6/8/2009 1:38:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Primary seatbelt violation clicks in June 9
Danielle Cabot
Review Staff
The state's new primary seatbelt law goes into effect June 9, and law enforcement is ready to buckle down on unbelted drivers.
Once the law is in effect, a police officer can pull over a vehicle if anyone in the car is not wearing a seatbelt, even if no other traffic violation is observed. Previously, it was still illegal to drive without a seatbelt on, but law enforcement could not pull anyone over if the seatbelt violation was the only offense.
A seat-belt violation in Dakota County costs $105, the $25 base fee plus a surcharge, according to the district court in Hastings.
Seatbelt compliance varies from city to city. In Inver Grove Heights, officers just completed a "May Mobilization" where they tally seatbelt usage at three locations, then focus 32 hours of overtime specifically on traffic enforcement, then measure seatbelt usage again. The overtime is funded by a county grant.
The "before" survey measured 66 percent of drivers wearing their seatbelt, according to Lt. Larry Stanger, patrol commander, and the tally after the enforcement push was 67 percent.
Police Chief Mike Aschenbrener of Mendota Heights said that issuance of a seatbelt ticket in Mendota Heights will be rare. During his city's surveys, he said the department has determined about 15 percent of local motorists don't wear their seat belt.
In West St. Paul, Police Chief Bud Shaver said seatbelt use is on par with county numbers, somewhere between 80 to 85 percent like Mendota Heights. He said West St. Paul is a busy city, but patrol officers may choose to pull over drivers without seatbelts. He said they will probably hand out plenty of warnings at first to get the word out.
South St. Paul completed its own May Mobilization June 3. In the beginning of May, seatbelt use was measured to be 66 percent, and after the period of increased traffic patrol, those observed buckling up rose to 74 percent.
"They [officers] will enforce it just as they do all the other traffic laws," said South St. Paul police Chief Dan Vujovitch of the new law. "We're hoping that word gets out about the law and people do comply."
Vujovitch said seatbelt use is increasing as younger generations grow up wearing them as standard practice.
In response to those who think police have better things to do than pull over unbuckled drivers, Stanger said that statistics about fatalities and seatbelt use speak for themselves. In May, the Office of Traffic Safety announced that Minnesota had surpassed 100 road deaths so far in 2009. Eight people died in April alone. Five were not wearing seatbelts, and of another four people seriously injured, all four were not wearing their seatbelts and were thrown from a vehicle.
Across the state, the average seatbelt usage is 87 percent, according to the Minnesota Safety Council. However, in 2007, 50 percent of those who died in car accidents were not wearing a seatbelt, and in 2008, that number rose to 55 percent. That means 13 percent of drivers are contributing to over half of the state's driving fatalities, according to Bob O'Brien, law enforcement liaison for the Dept. of Public Safety and a former Minneapolis police officer.
"I'm not going to say that seatbelts are going to save every person, but in most of the accidents it would save them," he said, adding that "fatalities are only the tip of the iceberg." Spinal cord and brain injuries can rack up devastating bills that are often passed on to the taxpayer.
The theme hits close to home for O'Brien. The son of a former enforcement partner rolled his vehicle on a gravel road in October of 2006. When responders arrived, they thought he had climbed out and walked home, only to discover 20 minutes later that the boy had not been wearing his seatbelt and was thrown from the vehicle into a fence post yards away. Months of intensive care cost the family $1.5 million in medical costs and exhausted both parents insurance' and benefits.
He said the goal of the law is to get people to buckle up and change behavior, not to issue more citations. "We would like to never, ever issue another citation."
Opponents of the new law would prefer to not see any primary seatbelt citations either.
The Minnesota American Civil Liberties Union argued against the provision, claiming it would result in the targeting of minorities and racial profiling. State Rep. Joe Atkins, DFL-Inver Grove Heights, voted against it. He said the vast majority of people already wear their seatbelt. "It's very simple. I think you don't need to legislate common sense. The current law seems to be working fine."
Other area legislators favored the new law. "I voted for it. I haven't in the past, but I was convinced this time," said Sen. James Metzen, DFL-South St. Paul. "I fought it as a privacy, or a rights thing." This year, Metzen said committee testimony convinced him that lives would be saved.
Police Chief Bud Shaver said he understands the thinking by people who don't want big government or the police to get involved in their decisions to buckle up or not. However, he said the reality of the impact of unbelted drivers in crashes supersedes those arguments. "We're the ones that have to go to someone's home and tell them their son or daughter isn't going to come home," Shaver said.
"I would much rather come to a crash and unbuckle your seatbelt than wait for hours for the coroner to come when I know the next thing I will have to do is go tell your next of kin," Aschenbrener commented.
Danielle Cabot can be reached at southwest@lillienews.com or 651-748-7815.
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