Mr. Hartog was stopped for an Iowa State Patrol roadblock and was
cited for a seat belt violation. The following month, he was issued another.
The Iowa law requires that the driver and front seat occupants shall wear
a properly adjusted and fastened safety belt.
Hartog contended that the law violated his right to privacy by depriving him of a fundamental right to make a choice pertaining solely to his person and his personal safety. He likened this supposed fundamental right to the fundamental right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy, as recognized in Roe v. Wade.
We fail to see how Hartog's claim of right to buckle up resembles those liberty interests the Supreme Court has recognized to be part of the right of privacy. Granted the law does restrict his freedom of choice; however it does not regulate those "intimate decisions relating to marriage, procreation, child rearing, education or family" that have heretofore been recognized as deserving of heightened constitutional protection.
Moreover, we have historically held that one's authority to drive on the public highways in Iowa does not rise to the level of a right. Operating a motor vehicle is a privilege which is not unrestrained. These is no place where any such right to be let alone would be less assertable than on a modern highway with cars, tuck, buses and cycles whizzing by at sixty or seventy miles an hour. When one ventures on such a highway, he must be expected and required to conform to safety regulations and controls, including some that would neither have been necessary nor reasonable in the era of horse-drawn vehicles.
Hartong raises an additional privacy contention: the Supreme Curt recognizes that the term "liberty" in the due process clause also denotes freedom from "bodily restraint." We think that the term "bodily restraint" as used is more akin to incarceration than to the "restraint" Hartog is required to fasten in his car.
In sum because no fundamental right is implicated here, the burden is on Hartog to negate any rational basis for the seat belt law, an issue we next address.
Police Power
Hartog contended the law violated the due process clause because the statute lies beyond the reach of the state's police power. He argues the purposes of the statute is to protect the individual from his own folly, and consequently, such purpose has no relation to the public health, safety, or welfare. Implicit is this argument is that the decision to wear a seat belt is a personal one affecting him only; therefore, he should be able to make that decision free of state interference.
Our determination is not what the legislature should do, but what the legislature can do. The legislature has considerable discretion in determining what constitutes the public health, safety, and welfare. Such laws are presumed to be constitutional provided there is some reasonable relation to the public welfare. Anyone challenging such laws must overcome this presumption by negating every reasonable basis upon which the laws may be sustained. There are certain parameters to the state's police power: To justify the state in interposing its authority on behalf of the public, it must appear, first, that the interest of the public generally, as distinguished from those of a particular class, require such interference; and second, that the means are reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of the purpose. Any law must address a "public" need as distinguished from a law directed at particular class of individuals with no impact on the general public; and second, the law's provisions must be reasonably related to the accomplishment of the public purpose.
With these principles in mind, we turn to Hartog's challenge. Concededly the statute is designed to protect the driver and front seat passenger from serious injury or death. So there is merit in Hartog's argument that the statute interferes with the individual's choice concerning his or her own safety. The issue immediately narrows to whether the first part of the two-part test is met: does the law really protect the health safety and welfare of the public, or, as Hartog argues, is the decision whether to wear a seat belt an individual one which affects no one but the individual involved? For the reasons that follow we think the pubic safety and welfare are served by the seat belt law.
Seat belt use enhances a driver's ability to maintain control of the car and avoid injuries not only to the driver but to others. Similarly, an unrestrained front seat passenger can interfere with the ability of a driver to respond to a collision. An unrestrained passenger also poses danger of injuries to other occupants through direct or indirect body contact in which a person holding a small child has been thrown forcibly against the child, crushing the child to death. It is apparent to us that the legislature could rationally conclude unbelted drivers and passengers endanger the safety of other. Preventing and reducing these injuries seems to us to be valid state interests.
We think the law promotes the public interest in another way: reducing the public costs associated with injury and death by automobiles. The police power relates not merely to the public health and public physical safety, but also to public financial safety. Laws may be passed within the police power to protect the public from financial loss.
Statistics bear this out. [ Court reviews several studies of the medical costs of motor vehicle accidents.] One commentary cites these statistics in support of using the police power to require the use of seat belts as a means of protecting the public treasury. These statistics do not include the massive costs incurred by public agencies involved in accident situations, e.g. police, fire, ambulance, judiciary and indirect losses to employers from off- the-job accidents, commercial cargo losses or litigation damages. A reasonable society would embrace the opportunity to reduce these costs. The Governor gave similar reasons for the law: "In addition to lives saved and injuries avoided, this legislation will save the motoring public, society, and state and local government millions of dollars in medical costs, productivity losses, insurance expenses...."
The government provides roads as a service to its citizens, and part of that service is assuring that these roads will be safe and efficient. The motorists is not being overly imposed upon when asked to comply with minimal standards of behavior designed to reduce the dangers of his driving to others. It is also difficult to object to the state's attempt to stop an individual from making the rest of society pay for the consequences of his risk- taking.