BY JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — Department of Transportation Director Michael Lewis does not support a primary seatbelt law just because it is part of Gov. Donald Carcieri’s 2010 budget, or because it would give his department an extra $3.7 to $4.6 million in federal funds.

“I am a roll-over survivor,” Lewis told the House Finance Committee recently. “I was wearing my seatbelt; I was in a high-speed roll-over accident and I came out unscathed. It is not just the statistics that make me a strong advocate. I am here today because I was wearing my seatbelt.”
Lewis was just one of several witnesses who spoke in support of a budget article that would make not wearing seatbelts in a vehicle a primary offense, meaning you could be pulled over and ticketed solely for not buckling up. Currently in Rhode Island, not wearing a seatbelt is a “secondary offense,” meaning that, if you are pulled over for another offense or violation and the police officer notices you are not wearing a seatbelt, you could receive a second ticket for that offense.
The current fine is $85 for the secondary offense, if it is made a primary offense, the governor proposes dropping the fine to $30.
Budget Officer Rosemary Booth Gallogly says the operating budget does not include any estimated income from the fines.
“We didn’t include an estimate, even a small one, because we didn’t want to make it look like we were trying to raise money,” she explained, noting the controversy when the Carcieri administration last year proposed a $50 fine for using a cell phone while driving and estimated that in the first full year the law was in effect it would bring in $4.9 million.
Lewis said a federal law that expires this year would bring Rhode Island “at least” $3.7 million in capital funds for transportation, with the possibility that the state could get up to $4.6 million. The entire $4.6 million is included in the capital budget.
Saying “I think there is little doubt that seatbelts save lives,” Lewis told the committee he estimates that elevating seatbelt use to a primary offense would increase seatbelt usage in the Ocean State by about 11, from about 73 percent to about 85 percent, and that would result in four lives saved a year and a reduction in about 96 serious accidents.
Lewis said the federal funds could be used to reconstruct between two and four “urban signalized intersections” with high accident counts and install about 15-20 miles of guardrail on the state’s highways.
Robert Murray, lobbyist for AAA, called the primary seatbelt law “the Number One wish list bill.”
Saying he has worked with transportation safety laws since 1973, Murray told the panel “one thing I know from all my experience is that this one bill probably does more to save lives and reduce injuries than any other bill we have passed in this state.”
Murray noted that, over the years, cars have been made safer, highways have been made safer, but “the behavior of drivers is the hardest thing we have had to deal with – how do we get people to save their own lives?”
The only opposition to the bill came from the RI affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Amy Vitale told the committee that the bill was likely to aggravate the problem of racial profiling by police officers, who, studies show, are more likely to pull over cars with black or Hispanic drivers than those with a Caucasian behind the wheel. And once they are pulled over, minorities are more likely to have their vehicles searched by police.
A primary seatbelt law, Vitale said, “gives police one more tool, one more reason to pull over a vehicle.” She added that the ACLU questions whether a police officer would be able to see whether or not a driver is wearing a seatbelt.
Written testimony provided to the committee, however, by the National Urban League, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Professionals, the National Conference of Black Mayors, and the National Association of Hispanic Nurses, all supported primary enforcement of seatbelt laws.
Vitale also disputed the numbers being used by state officials, saying the most recent statistics show seatbelt use in Rhode Island at 79 percent, not the 72 percent cited by Lewis.