If you’re a veteran seat belt user like me, who has been buckling up as a matter of habit for most of my driving life, you might wonder why anyone would oppose the mandatory seat belt bill that’s been endorsed by Gov. John Baldacci.

While some critics of the seat belt bill have argued that it’s little more than an ill-conceived way to raise state revenues through the fines paid by unbelted violators, there is a sizable segment of the Maine public who believe the bigger issue is that forcing adults to use seat belts is an infringement on their individual rights.

When I wrote a column a few months ago asking why Maine didn’t have a mandatory seat belt law, instead of a secondary one that allows police to cite unbelted motorists only if they’re stopped for other violations such as speeding or vehicle defects, a reader kindly wrote to inform me that I apparently had forgotten the 1995 referendum that passed the current seat belt law by the narrowest of margins.

Barring a new referendum, he pointed out, any new legislation that would change the law would be directly contrary to the will of the people as expressed in that vote.

It’s not that I’d forgotten about that referendum. I just didn’t understand the logic of the will being expressed by the large number of no voters back then, and I still don’t. There are plenty of rights worth fighting vigorously for, but the right to needlessly die or be critically injured in a car crash and significantly increase health care costs for everyone in the process shouldn’t be high on the list.

If all Mainers buckled up voluntarily, of course, there would be no need for laws that force them to do it. But Maine people have always been notoriously negligent about seat belt use. In the 1980s, only 30 percent of us buckled up. Now, with a secondary law on the books for a decade, the rate has grown to nearly 60 percent – a remarkable improvement, no doubt, though still below the 68 percent average compliance rate in other states with secondary seat belt laws.

According to a recent report by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, seat belts were instrumental in saving 25,000 lives in 2002. The NHTSA’s research has shown that lap and shoulder belts reduce the risk of fatal injury by 45 percent and the risk of moderate and critical injury by 50 percent. Of the 32,819 people killed in car wrecks in 2000, the NHTSA reports, 57 percent of them were unrestrained.

In 2001, according to the NHTSA, those 20 states with primary laws, such as the one being proposed for Maine, showed an overall compliance rate of 78 percent. The NHTSA estimates that if the rate of seat belt use was increased from 68 percent to 90 percent nationally – Canada’s stands at a whopping 92 percent – as many as 5,536 more fatalities could be prevented, as well as 132,670 serious injuries, for a savings of nearly $9 billion in hospital-related costs.

The chief of the Maine State Police, Col. Craig Poulin, said this week that the mandatory seat belt bill may be the most important piece of legislation facing lawmakers at the moment. People have the right to disagree with him, of course, and continue to argue that seat belts should be a matter of personal choice. But considering the gruesome statistics that back his claim, it’s difficult to understand why they would.