Should Mass. police be allowed to stop drivers for failing to wear seat belts?

BOSTON ― If research and statistics indicate that seat belts save lives, according to experts from the National Highway Traffic Safety Board, why are 23% of Massachusetts residents failing to buckle up?

A trio of Massachusetts legislators — Sen. Paul Feeney, D-Foxborough, and Reps. Jeffrey Roy, D-Franklin and James Hawkins, D-Attleborough — believe the answer could be to change how police enforce seat belt violations. They suggest officers be allowed to stop motorists specifically for violations of the state’s seat belt law.

The proposed change would bring the state in line with 35 other states that allow seat belt violations as the primary cause for making a stop or issuing a citation if the lack of a belt is recorded on a traffic-enforcement camera.

Currently, Massachusetts only allows law enforcement officers to issue a seat belt violation citation if a motorist is stopped for another infraction.

“The consequences of this law are significant,” Roy said Monday at a Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security hearing regarding the three bills. “Seat belts save lives and they save money.”

Roy cited statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: In 2018 the financial cost of motor vehicle crashes nationwide was $242 billion, with Massachusetts' share coming to $5.8 billion. Of that, 75% of the costs are borne by residents not involved in the crashes. Motor vehicle accidents also take a financial toll on employers, costing them some $827 million a year, according to the statistics.

The bills will promote safety, save lives and save money, Roy said.

In 2017, seat belt use in Massachusetts hovered around 83% of residents but has been declining since. According to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the rate of seat belt use in Massachusetts was 77% in 2022. Only Nebraska and New Hampshire had lower rates.

Contrast that with neighbors Connecticut, where 92.1% of residents buckle up and New York, where 91.9% of residents do, according to the data. If the state were to change the law, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates seat belt use would increase by 7.4%

Controversy has roiled the state for the last four decades from the time it enacted mandatory seat belt use in 1985, only to have it repealed through a binding referendum in November 1986. It was reinstated in 1994 and challenged again, with voters opting to retain the law.

“The law has done a lot of good for us in Massachusetts,” said Art Kinsman of Region 1 of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, based in Cambridge. However, more could be achieved through the suggested change.

“Since 2015, an average of 116 people a year die in accidents in Massachusetts because they were unrestrained,” Kinsman said.

“Since 2014, 1,044 Massachusetts residents have died unbelted in motor vehicle crashes.”

Kinsman acknowledged the state’s fear of racial profiling as its justification for relegating seat belt infractions to a secondary violation. However, in seven states that have recently changed the laws similar to the change advocated by the legislators, there has been no increase in the percentage of tickets issued to minorities and residents of color, Kinsman said. The states are Delaware, Kentucky, Illinois, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington.

“Those numbers have decreased slightly or stayed the same,” Kinsman said.

Leah Walton, speaking for the National Transportation Safety Board, called deaths on the nation’s roadways a public health crisis.

Mary Maguire, vice president of governmental affairs at AAA Northeast, suggested legislators think of the personal toll people suffer from motor vehicle accidents.

“When my son was 17, his life was saved by a seat belt,” Maguire told the legislators, saying that because her son survived the crash, so did her family. “Our happiness and wholeness was also preserved.

“The dreams we all have for our children are being fulfilled, thanks to the lifesaving power of the belt,” Maguire said. "The belt cuts the risk of death in a crash by 50%."

One of the bills would just change the language included in the current statute; two companion bills filed by Roy and Feeney would require the driver and all passengers to be restrained, regardless of their ages. Youngsters would be restrained in appropriate child safety seats, while adolescents between 12 and 16 would also be belted.

Adults and teenagers over 16 would be cited and fined directly for seat belt violations; drivers would be responsible for paying a $50 fine for each unrestrained youngster in the car. The bill proposes that the fines be directed to the Head Injury Treatment Services Trust Fund.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Massachusetts ranks among the bottom four states for seat belt use