Ind. Passes Tougher Seat Belt Laws, Cigarette Tax Hike

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Indiana lawmakers decided that smokers will pay more to puff and almost everyone will be required to wear seat belts under dozens of new state laws that take effect on June 24.

Legislators raised the cigarette tax for the second time in five years, this time from 55.5 cents per pack to 99.5 cents. Smokers won’t like the hike, but Gov. Mitch Daniels does. The state plans to use the extra money, and hopefully matching federal dollars, to provide health insurance to more than 100,000 low-income Hoosiers and fund other health initiatives.

“Today we are taking a long step toward the dream of a healthier Indiana,” Daniels said when he signed the bill. “We are taking the longest single step Indiana has ever taken in this direction.”

More people will have to buckle up under a law that some legislators spent years trying to enact.

Current law doesn’t require back-seat passengers age 16 or older or occupants in vehicles plated as trucks, which can include pickups, SUVs and minivans, to be restrained. That will change July 1, but the new law will no longer allow police to use check points to enforce seat-belt compliance.

Democratic Rep. Peggy Welch of Bloomington said federal experts believe the new law will prevent 20 deaths, 330 hospitalizations and more than $65 million in injury-related costs each year.

The change will leave Georgia as the only state with a primary seat belt law that does not apply to vehicles with truck plates.

Students and some parents will notice new laws when school starts in a couple of months. Schools must hold a tornado drill and manmade disaster drill once a semester.

Those who install mobile homes after June 30 must equip them with special radios that alert people to pending dangerous weather.

The bill stems from a Nov. 6, 2005, tornado that wiped out a mobile home park in Evansville and killed 25 people in southwestern Indiana. It was initiated by Kathryn Martin, whose 2-year-old son, C.J, and two other family members died in the tornado. Daniels phoned Martin as he signed the bill so she would know it was law.

Congressman Brad Ellsworth, D-Indiana, who led storm-relief efforts after the tornado as Vanderburgh County sheriff, introduced a national version of the bill.

In all, the General Assembly enacted more than 230 laws during the session that ended on April 29.