Michael Davis doesn't like it when the government messes with his affairs.
So when Davis, a 43-year-old radio producer from Willow Spring, heard about legislation that would require adults in the back seat of a car to wear seat belts, he chalked it up to more government interference in people's lives.
"I think it should be their decision, not the government's," he said. "I'm tired of a maternalistic government trying to tell people what to do."
But what Davis calls too much government involvement, safety advocates call necessary, life-saving legislation.
The state House is expected to take up the issue Tuesday, when a committee considers a bill that would require all motor vehicle occupants to use seat belts or face a $25 fine.
In North Carolina, only drivers, front-seat passengers and children younger than 16 are required by law to wear seat belts. Adults in the back seat aren't obliged to buckle up.
Safety advocates, such as Tom Vitaglione, co-chairman of the N.C. Child Fatality Task Force, say that, in an accident, unbelted rear passengers can fly forward to kill or injure drivers. The advocates also point to rear-seat passenger deaths -- 364 over the past three years in North Carolina, with almost 70 percent unbelted -- as evidence that the law needs to change.
The provision would not only give passengers a reason to buckle up; it also would educate people about the danger of riding belt-free in the back of the car, Vitaglione said.
Statistics show that only 38 percent of passengers nationally say they consistently use safety belts when riding in the rear seat of a car, according to a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
That pales in comparison to studies of seat belt use in the front seat. North Carolina has an 87 percent rate of seat belt use in the front seat, one of the highest in the nation.
"The inadvertent message of our current law is that the back seat is safe," he said.
New safety research
When North Carolina's current seat belt law was enacted in 1985, it didn't pertain to adults in the back seat because such a provision might have hurt its chances of passage, said Bill Hall, a manager at the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center.
New research on the dangers of beltless back-seat passengers helped fuel the recent push for more comprehensive legislation. Although several attempts were made in recent years, the measure wasn't seriously considered until last summer, when the Senate passed the bill.
It met some opposition in the House, and legislators adjourned for the summer before it could reach the House floor.
Rep. Ronnie Sutton, a Robeson County Democrat, said he will vote against the bill if it reaches the House floor.
"I think we're going a little too far when we're requiring adults to wear seat belts in the back seat," Sutton said. "Most of my constituents like to have the option of not wearing seat belts in the back."
Weighing the risks
Rep. Jennifer Weiss, a Cary Democrat, said evidence shows that drivers have five times the risk of dying in a crash if passengers in the back don't buckle up.
"That personal autonomy argument is a hard argument to make when you could be killing the person in the front seat," said Weiss, who is pushing the bill in the House. "So much of this is an education campaign, anyway."
North Carolina established itself as a leader in seat belt awareness and enforcement in 1993 by starting the "Click It or Ticket" program, in which police set up checkpoints to enforce seat belt laws. The program has become a model for similar programs across the nation, Hall said.
North Carolina has averaged about 140,000 seat belt violations a year over the past five years, despite a high seat belt compliance rate. Fatal and serious injuries for restrained automobile passengers, though, are on the decline.
Robin Jernigan, a 41-year-old nurse from Garner, said she has seen the often tragic results of not wearing a seat belt. That's why she would support further restrictions.
"It's aggravating, but I'm sure it's the safer way to go," she said.
