Their View

The Senate’s overdue and overwhelming approval of a bill to let police enforce our state’s seat belt law was a serious blow to selfishness, irrational arguments and obstructionism.

More importantly, it was a much-needed victory for common sense, responsibility, majority rule and the protection of innocent lives.

And not a moment too soon.

Last year, South Carolina’s already-low seat belt usage dropped so much that we ended up in a virtual tie for dead last nationally. Our highways are consistently among the nation’s most deadly. That’s no coincidence. ...

The House has worked hard in recent years to improve our seat belt laws; it is to be commended for its commitment to public safety. There’s no reason to think representatives will change their minds this year. There is, however, a danger that the House could play the bragging-rights game we see all too often in both the House and the Senate: One body passes a bill and, rather than passing that bill, the other body passes its own bill ... House leaders must resist the temptation to get drawn into that destructive pattern; lives are, literally, at stake. ...

We’ve worked and waited too long to have a governor veto a life-saving bill because he doesn’t think it will save enough lives. Whether or not that’s not our libertarian governor’s real objection, lawmakers should not hesitate to overturn any bad decision he might make.

The (Columbia) State