Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
(Salt Lake City, KSL News) -- Traffic safety advocates are preparing for a fight after a piece of seat belt legislation was altered last week to the point of dismantling the law altogether.
At the Capitol, police officers, emergency room doctors and Triple-A of Utah joined forces to push four proposals to tighten seat belt laws and, they say, save lives.
All are upset over what happened to one of those bills in a House committee last week.
Those amendments neutralized the seat belt law, because one lawmaker says 'common sense' shouldn't require a law.
"I have yet to have a parent say to me, 'thank goodness I didn't have my child in a seat belt. Boy, I'm sure glad I have that freedom. Thank goodness my family is disrupted now because I had a chance to exhibit common sense,'" says Jeff Schunk, an emergency room doctor.
Representative Chad Bennion, R-Murray, who proposed the changes to the bill, stands by his idea of protecting common sense -- not legislating it.
