Kids' seatbelt clicks needed to avoid ticket
A new law, in effect July 1, allows police to ticket a driver if a child younger than 17 is not wearing a seatbelt.
By JONI JAMES
Published June 9, 2005
TALLAHASSEE - Parents, you might want to buckle up your kids.
Under a new law signed by Gov. Jeb Bush Wednesday, law enforcement officers soon will have the power to pull over cars any time they spot a child 17 or younger not wearing a seat belt.
The driver then could get a separate ticket for each individual who is unbelted, including adults.Fines vary by county.
The law takes effect July 1.
Call it Florida's first foray into "primary" seat belt enforcement, which allows officers to pull someone over after seeing a driver or passenger unbelted. Already practiced in 21 other states and encouraged by the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration, primary enforcement is thoughtdrive up seat belt usage, leading to fewer traffic injuries and fatalities.
Current Florida law allows police to stop a car for a seat belt infraction only if it involves a child under 5 who isn't properly restrained in a child seat or, if age appropriate, a seat belt. Otherwise, law enforcement officers must observe another traffic violation, such as running a red light, before stopping a car.
For years, key lawmakers resisted the change, arguing it gave law enforcement too much leeway and could be discriminatory, for example, if a police officer was racist and only stopped drivers of a certain race or ethnicity.
But a dogged, five-year campaign by state Rep. Irv Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, finally overcame that resistance this year when he agreed to limit its application to children. The new law also requires law enforcement agencies to track the race of drivers who are stopped and to prohibit any practice of racial profiling.
Slosberg lost his teenage daughter in a traffic accident in 1996. Dori Slosberg was 14 and riding unbuckled in a car driven by another teenager.
"This is all in honor of my daughter," Slosberg said Wednesday, shortly after receiving a call from the governor informing him he would be signing the bill. "I'm sure she's looking down and she's proud of me."
"We're ecstatic," said Fred Dickinson, executive director of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. "It will save lives."
The change is tucked into an omnibus 138-page highway safety bill packed with other revisions to state traffic law.
Also starting July 1: Motorists who cause traffic accidents will have to pay trauma centers $500 for each serious injury and $1,000 for each fatality they cause. The change is expected to generate as much as $4.7-million annually for the state's trauma centers.
Bush's signature Wednesday came as he also signed a law aimed at thwarting a handful of consumer lawsuits in Florida courts over tactics used by car dealers to sell a controversial antitheft device known as window etching. One of those lawsuits won class action status last week.
Window etching involves using acid or some other stamping technique to etch a car's vehicle identification number, or VIN, on each piece of the car's glass. The theory: "VIN-etching" makes it cost-prohibitive for a thief to steal your car, as all the glass would have to be replaced.
Tampa attorney Craig Rothburd, who represents plaintiffs in a Hillsborough County lawsuit who claim a car dealer never disclosed they were spending hundreds of dollars for an optional service, said the law will be challenged in court on the grounds a new law can't apply to old cases.
The new law grants auto dealers immunity from any lawsuit related to window etching purchases before 2002 as long as the sale "was disclosed to the consumer in writing at the time of the purchase or lease."
"Hopefully, the unconstitutionality of a retroactive anticonsumer law will not be lost on the courts as it was in the Legislature," Rothburd said.
--Joni James can be reached at 850 224-7263 or jjames@sptimes.com