After a particularly deadly year for Vermont drivers, lawmakers are looking to up the ante for seatbelt enforcement.
Rep. Pat Brennan, chair of the House Transportation Committee, says current seatbelt enforcement laws are not adequate enough to protect public safety.
Vermont law only allows police to charge drivers for not wearing a seatbelt as a secondary offense if drivers are pulled over for another violation, such as speeding.
Brennan and his committee support a new requirement for “primary” enforcement, which gives police the authority to stop a vehicle if drivers and/or passengers are not wearing a seatbelt. Scofflaws would face a $25 fine for the first offense, $50 for the second and $75 for the third.
The change would go into effect Oct. 1.
The House Transportation Committee passed H.691, by a 10-0-1 vote and the House gave the bill preliminary approval on Thursday.
Lawmakers have considered tightening up seatbelt enforcement for years, but Brennan said an uptick in highway fatalities in recent years has given the bill more urgency this session.
“With the possibility of saving a few more Vermont lives on the road, now is the time to move forward with this,” Brennan said at a press conference in the House speaker’s office Thursday.
In the past four years, fatalities have gone from 44 a year to 69 annually, according to Rep. David Potter, D-Rutland, the vice chair of the House Transportation Committee. Drivers and passengers were not wearing a seatbelt in 52 percent of those fatal accidents, Potter said.
Potter said lawmakers believe better enforcement will incentivize more drivers to wear seatbelts.
About 84.5 percent of drivers and passengers wear seatbelts, Brennan said. In the 30 states that have primary enforcement, seatbelt rates average 92.1 percent. It is expected that there would be at least a 5 percent increase in the number of Vermonters who were seatbelts as a result of the new legislation. An estimated 2,500 more drivers would wear seatbelts if the bill is enacted, Brennan said.
Potter said the legislation will save lives, and money for medical costs and life insurance. He has been a proponent of primary seatbelt enforcement for decades and is a former driver’s education instructor.
“I can put up a list of former students I have had in driver’s ed that are now deceased due to highway fatalities,” he said.
A similar bill went through the House a decade ago, but did not emerge from the Senate, Brennan said.
H.691 also establishes new minimum and maximum penalties for driving, stricter penalties for driving while intoxicated with a minor in the car and caps the cost of blood drawing.
House SpeakerMitzi Johnson, who is a former emergency medical technician, said too many Vermonters are not wearing seatbelts. Johnson said she has “seen first-hand the severity of the injuries sustained from accidents without a seatbelt and the increased risk of death.”
“This bill really hits home to me and this bipartisan legislation passed the House several times,” Johnson said. “We look forward to working with our colleagues in the Senate and with the governor to see this become a reality for Vermont.”
