Kansas lawmakers seemingly have spoken on the long-suffering idea of a primary seat-belt law, and the answer is no. Never mind that three-quarters of the state’s 2005 traffic fatalities were unbuckled. Still, state Sen. Les Donovan, R-Wichita, fresh off his 2006 victory with the booster-seat bill, has the best argument for passage: “There’s no reason on Earth for us to kill a lot of people we don’t need to,” Donovan, the chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, told the Kansas City Star.
Also, Kansas would be newly eligible for $11 million in one-time federal grants for traffic safety programs if it joined the 25 states in which drivers can be pulled over for no reason other than not being belted. Still, Donovan said he’s skeptical whether 2007 will be the year.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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22 Comments
The only sure way to increase use of seat belts is to outlaw their use.
Les Donovan R
Figures another Republican trying to tell others how to live.
Hopefully, the leg. will remain wise in this area. The state has no business forcing adults to buckle up. The primary offense status on kids is onerous enough.
Rhonda, how about helmets when you drive? That would save lives too.
What is the big deal? If you want to buckle up, then buckle up. But if you have a car wreck and you’re not buckled up – should the taxpayers be forced to pay your medical costs just because you were stupid?
I’m surprised it is not a law. I remember using a seatbelt kit back in the 1960s installing them on my car.
Putting on seatbelt to me is as natural now as starting the car.
Oh and that chart in the Kansas City Star was unreadable. Someone needs to instruct whoever posted that graphic that some bitmap graphics can’t be resized and still be readable. It is sometimes better to zoom in and take a screen shot rather than resize.
I have no sympathy for those who are injured not wearing seat belts. Please die and save us tax payers and insured people money.
“I have no sympathy for those who are injured not wearing seat belts. Please die and save us tax payers and insured people money.”
Yet, if you are over the legal alcohol limit, parked at a stop sign, and someone not wearing seatbelts rear ends you, and is killed, you can be charged with vehicular homicide.
And as for cops stopping you; they’ll find a way if they wish.
“Also, Kansas would be newly eligible for $11 million in one-time federal grants for traffic safety programs if it joined the 25 states in which drivers can be pulled over for no reason other than not being belted.”
Make no mistake about it; the issue is not lives, it’s dollars. Period.
JR and I agree on this one(!!). Butt out, state. My head, my windshield.
GMC, it is all about the money. Too bad the feds have to use a bludgeon instead of a carrot, though.
My experience working in a funeral home the last three years undergrad and first year of law school has me buckle up all the time; my choice.
To the other attorneys out there, while in Indiana (USAF days), there was a hot debate over reduction in damages in a PI case if seat belts were not in use; idea was the duty to mitigate damages, failed for some, to me, obvious reasons. Was this ever an issue in Kansas?
DK writes:
“Yet, if you are over the legal alcohol limit, parked at a stop sign, and someone not wearing seatbelts rear ends you, and is killed, you can be charged with vehicular homicide.”
REALLY!?!? Please show me any example of same. While you may be tagged with a DUI (and rightfully so), there still has to be causal relationship between the DUI driver’s acts and the accident to make a vehicular homicide case.
Once again, a lot of misinformation out there. And DK continues to add to it.
Nope:No causal relationship is needed.
Here’s the Kansas case: http://www.kscourts.org/kscases/ctapp/2000/20000121/81410.htm
I interviewed the appeals lawyer in this case:
http://www.hazink.com/old/creamer/creamer.html
Just remember the next time you are criminally charged in Kansas that: “The facts are immaterial.”
In addition, several states have enacted laws which allow enhanced charges against those who have ANY amount of a controlled substance in their bloodstreams, even though there is no proof that such amounts impaire or contribute to an accident.
What is freightening is how overwhelmingly the public supports such laws. When I used the Creamer case in an argument at another blog, almost everyone agreed that a drunkard rear-ended at a stop sign should be prosecuted for vehicluar homicide. “He was drunk. ergo; he shouldn’t have been there.”
Perhaps Door King and maybe the legal beagles can weigh on this;
Getting behind the wheel while legally impaired and under the influence of alcohol can be used as a contributing factor even though the impaired drive may not be at fault for the initial cause of the accident.
The law is very clear that you are not to be operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.
Contributing factors, I think is the key here. Again, I’ll let the legal beagles weigh in on that one.
DK -
I’d point out the facts of Creamer are quite different than the facts you postulated. Creamer was driving the vehicle which caused the accident – i.e. a causal relationship – ya think that’s a significant point?!?! I do.
DK, just read the Creamer opinion, and have to agree with GMC; Creamer was driving the towing vehicle when the trailer broke loose; seems to me to be a very important factual distinction between this and the hypothetical you posed.
Except for the fact that no testimony was given that the use of alcohol had anything to do with the breaking free of the towed vehicle. How is the causation linked to the use of alcohol?
This would likely have been a simple accident, and no felony charges would have been filed if alcohol had not been involved. It may have been a civil matter.
I have another anecdote: I have no idea whether it is true, however, in Ellis county, so goes the story, a man over the legal limit was t-boned when a beltless sober driver ran a stop light and was injured.
The charge was aggravated assault. I haven’t checked the facts. I’ve retired from the social justice business because I see it as hopeless. What has replaced justice is moral approbation. If you sufficiently offend someone, you can be charged with a heinous crime, no matter what the circumstances, and chances are the prosecutor will obtain a conviction no matter what the facts or law are.
In a celebrated Manhattan case (I am relying on newspaper stories which I remember and for which I have no citation), police gave chase to a motorcyclist who was traveling at a high rate of speed on the interstate.
He eluded police, but a highway patrolman, not involved in the chase and speeding to the scene, had an accident and was killed.
The man was convicted of first degree murder.
I am willing to bet that almost everyone in this room will think that the conviction and charge was perfectly fair.Didn’t 75 percent of you vote for Bush only two years ago?
DK – you’re now reduced to relying on “I heard that” and “so goes te story” and newspaper reports of unknown citation or quality. Surely you have more to base your thoughts on than “I heard of a guy once that . . . ”
This is exactly how so much misinformation is spread.
I dunno what the big deal is about buckling up. I worked as a volunteer on an ambulance service for 22 years – EMTI. Rural. And we covered 428 square miles. We do have major highways running through our area. 50 West is wide open. Worked enough really bad accidents, seeing the results: hanging half in/half out a car door, or pinned under the vehicle, tramping through a crp field for them because they were not buckled. I don’t need statistics, pr even a law, thank you very much. I buckle up. Oh yeah, there was the one where the county worker was speeding down a county road in a 3T plus sand truck; the hydraulic “thing” in front of a back wheel dropped off; we were bagging body parts for the sheriff’s office. Driver flew through the w/s. My partner said to me, “Watch out. Watch out. You’re about to step on a lung.” Yep, I buckle up.
I was in an accident Thankgiving day, I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, even though I knew better. I got thrown around pretty good and ended up in the ER. My husband was wearing his and didn’t get a scratch. I’ll never make that mistake again.The guys who ran the red light and broadsided us took off. The cops told us that the day before, someone did the exact same thing, only the car that ran the light had it’s passenger ejected halfway out of the windshield, and the driver took off with him hanging out like that!They checked all the hospitals, but never found the poor guy. I can’t imagine what happened to him.
Beckster, me, also EMT-I also volunteer rural.
However I have seen too many also die being buckled in too, especially on the highways and interstate, where speed is the biggest factor. The stats are that you are more likely to live if you are buckled, but it only matters on what kind of accident you are involved in. The biggest factor by far is speed. If your vehicle catches fire, and you have 3 kids to get out, that could be a hinderance. I also had an uncle who would have died had he been buckled in (drove off a cliff, his entire front end and motor was in the driver’s seat), he was thrown out, but the result was quadriplegia, which in his case I know he would have been happier being dead.
So it’s all relative. Personally I think if I’m on the highway or interstate, nothing is really going to save me. I do buckle up now, but I don’t consider myself any safer, barring a rollover.
Wearing a seatbelt while driving is common sense. Most people who don’t buckle up have never been in a serious accident before, so they think they’re invincible. How could anyone be so reckless with their lives?
See, here is another one.. Seatbelted guy dies, and the non seatbelted guy lives. Although age may be a big factor in this as well.
MANKATO — A 92-year-old Burr Oak man was killed Wednesday afternoon in a two-vehicle crash on a Jewell County road, about eight miles north of Mankato.
According to a report from the Kansas Highway Patrol, Richard Canfield entered the intersection of 160th Road and X Road and collided with a southbound pickup. The second pickup was driven by Brent Beck, 28, Mankato.
Canfield was wearing a seat belt; Beck was not, according to the patrol report.————–
One accident I worked, two people, head on Interstate…obviously I can’t give any more information that that, but the driver was belted, killed instantly, the passenger was not, and was alive and talking, although pinned under the dashboard.
Had he not slid under the dash, I’m certain he would have died on impact as well, for the vehicle had a slanted projecting (who designed that!!) dashboard, and it was pushed into about neckline with the seat.
See, you guys in Wichita, you travel at about 40 mph all through town- where a seatbelt WILL do you some good in most cases. We in the rural areas either drive 30 in town or 55 and up out of town. There really is no in between.
Like I say, it’s all relative.
Then you get the oddball accidents- where either nobody should have lived and did, and the other ones where you can’t figure out how they died.