Seat belt measure passes senate

DENVER • You're obeying every traffic law. You're at or under the speed limit. You're using your turn signal. You come to a full stop at stop signs. And still, you get pulled over.

Why?

Your seat belt isn't clicked.

State law requires drivers in Colorado to wear seat belts, but police can't pull anyone over for not being buckled in. A ticket can be issued for not wearing a seat belt only if a driver is pulled over for speeding, for example, or for failing to stop at a red light. Those are known as primary offenses, while not wearing a seat belt is a secondary offense.

Lawmakers are considering changing that so police would be able to stop anyone they observe not wearing a seat belt, and the fine would increase from $10 to $75.

A primary offense seat-belt measure, designed to increase public safety, has been introduced year after year at the Legislature but has always been defeated.

This year, it's managed to get through the Senate by a comfortable 25-to-10 margin.

Every Republican voted against the bill, and the lone Democratic opponent, Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, charged on the Senate floor Thursday that the bill would increase racial profiling by police and violates constitutional protections from search and seizure.

"This opens the door to ‘stop first, ask questions later,'" Carroll said. "Once we go down this road, we can't go back."

But Sen. Paula Sandoval, D-Denver, who is Hispanic, said the police find reasons to pull over Latinos and blacks whenever they want to, and will continue to do so regardless of changes in the state's seat-belt law.

Republicans took her argument even further. Sen. Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, called the measure "coercion, bribery and extortion."

Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, said if the Legislature's aim was to protect public health it should also require every citizen to exercise or use sunscreen or outlaw smoking.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood, dismissed Brophy's argument as "craziness."

Boyd noted seat-belt use already is mandatory, and the only thing the bill does is let police pull over drivers who are observed not wearing their belts. The law would reduce the burden on taxpayers because crash victims often wind up on Medicaid, Boyd said.

The federal government would also chip in $12 million if Colorado passes the law, and might penalize the state if it doesn't, said Boyd.

"It's an incentive we can't afford to thumb our nose at," Boyd said. "It makes perfect sense."