The House resumed at 8 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Yorkview.

Mr. Young: I ask the House to welcome the Ninth Downsview Scout Troop sitting in the gallery to watch the processes of democracy. I’m sure we’re all glad to see them.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Beaches-Woodbine.

Mrs. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the House to welcome the 188th Girl Guide Company from Williamson Rd. School, who are sitting in the east gallery with Mrs. Brenda Reddick, their captain.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Mississauga East.

Mr. Gregory: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. May I ask the House to welcome members of the 54th Boy Scout Company from the beautiful land of Mississauga East.

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)

Mr. Speaker: I believe when we rose at 6 o’clock, the hon. member for Mississauga South had the floor.

Mr. Kennedy: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Although I adjourned the debate, the member for Ottawa East asked if I might yield the floor, as he has an engagement in a few minutes and would like to speak first. If it’s your pleasure and that of the House, I would be glad to yield.

Mr. Speaker: I think that would be agreeable. The hon. member for Ottawa East.

Mr. Roy: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. May I thank the member for Mississauga South for his discretion in allowing me to proceed, and I also want to thank the members of the NDP caucus for allowing me to proceed. I intend to be relatively brief, but I do want to say that we as a party are in full support of this legislation. I find it unfortunate that the legislation was not introduced in 1974. If one looks at all the statistics -- and I suppose I could review the statistics from various countries -- but if you translate these statistics, I think it is clear that had seatbelt legislation been proclaimed or been enacted in this House in 1974, we would have saved probably a hundred lives in this province last year and probably saved in the area of $50 million in provincial funds.

These statistics are so overwhelming that one can’t help but accept this type of legislation. As you know, I proposed two bills last year that I considered should run parallel. I proposed seatbelt legislation last year and presented these bills to the House, and I have done so again this year. I think it was under Bill 23. In fact the minister had the good sense, when enacting Bill 26, to follow the legislation --

Hon. Mr. Snow: Bill 27.

Mr. Roy: Bill 27 -- that he had the good fortune and good sense to follow nearly word for word Bill 23, which I had proposed earlier.

As well I proposed legislation to reduce the speed limits, which I felt should run parallel to this type of legislation. The government has also adopted that legislation in part and has proceeded with it.

I do want to say that I can’t help but feel sorry that the government did not proceed last year with this legislation. Because what happened is that the government was prepared to follow public opinion polls rather than give leadership in this field. From the statistics -- from the number of deaths, injuries and the costs -- all the reasons for passing legislation existed in 1974. In fact, seatbelt legislation has been in force in Australia since 1970 and in France even earlier. Had the government proceeded with legislation, it could in fact have saved about 100 lives and maybe $50 million last year. I really don’t see what has more priority than that in this province.

I do want to congratulate this minister and his administration. Whether it’s a fact that it is in a minority situation, whether it’s a fact that it got a message in September, 1975, that it might be more responsive to the type of legislation which was in the best interests of society -- in any event, whatever the government’s motives, the minister is to be congratulated for having brought forth this legislation.

I just want to deal briefly with two aspects of it. I want to deal with objections that have been put forth by many members of the House, and I think have been put forth in good faith. All members are concerned about this legislation, I think all members have probably received phone calls, and in fact many members have had personal experiences with seatbelts. Many members have a certain amount of apprehension about the enforcement of seatbelt legislation, so I want to deal with basically two aspects that have been brought out as objections to seatbelt legislation.

The first one is the civil rights advocate who says that seatbelts in fact trample on civil liberties. “Here we go again, the government telling the individual what to do in this province.” It’s not the first time, I suppose, in the history of government that we’ve been forced to enact legislation which in some ways tramples on the liberties and the freedoms of the individual.

I think back to when the government of Canada proposed legislation for the breathalyser. If ever anyone wanted to point to legislation that trampled on civil rights, it was the breathalyser legislation. Not only did it force you to blow into the machine, but at the same time, the test could be used against you. That very legislation ran counter to one of the fundamental principles of criminal law -- that is that you should not be forced to testify against yourself. There was a lot of opposition to it.

But in 1975 I don’t think there are very many members, in fact very many people who are responsible for representing others -- politicians or otherwise; people in government -- who would be prepared today to argue against the breathalyser legislation. In fact, we’re considering going even further with that type of legislation and setting up breathalyser tests on the roadside or having some sort of test given by setting up roadblocks.

Mr. Speaker, you will recall yourself when we enacted legislation in this House dealing with helmets for people on motorcycles. Just last spring we were dealing with legislation and we prevailed on the Minister of Transportation and Communications at that time to have legislation to force people on mopeds to wear a certain form of helmet.

So it’s always the same principle at stake, between the rights of the individual and the rights of society at large. There will be the individual who says, “Well, if I don’t feel like putting on my seatbelt and I want to run against a cement wall and I break my neck, that is my own business.” In principle, I suppose he’s right. The problem that arises is that if he does not succeed in doing that and is only injured, then all of us have to pay for his recuperation.

All we are doing with this legislation is following what other segments of society are doing. Insurance companies are now assessing damages and even negligence on the basis of wearing or not wearing seatbelts, and courts are moving in that direction as well. I’m not sure whether there is any jurisprudence right on point, but I do recall being involved as a litigant in some court actions when people or counsel on the other side were consistently raising the fact that there may well have been contributory negligence in the case when the individual was not wearing his seatbelt. So basically, what we are doing, I’m suggesting, is enacting what society at large is prepared to accept.

The other argument is made that this is unpopular law and that people will not follow it. I just go back to the Australian experiment. At the time prior to legislation in Australia, I think about 17 per cent or 15 per cent of the people were using seatbelts. The statistics that I have, indicate that after the enactment of legislation, 80 per cent of the people decided to wear their seatbelts. From what I know of Australians, I think they’re as independent as we are here. In France, it is the same thing. In France, you just raise a tax and you get a revolution. There, the seatbelt was not something that was accepted by popular acclaim either, but they’re buckling up and their statistics reflect the fact that seatbelts are mandatory in that country.

The final matter I want to deal with is the enforcement. People have said we can enact this legislation but it’s unenforceable; the enforcement is going to be difficult. I really don’t understand that argument. How is it more difficult to enforce the use of seatbelts, for instance, than it is to have your driver’s licence in your wallet? How does a police officer tell, when a car is speeding along the highway, if the individual has a driver’s licence or his car is mechanically fit?

Speed limits are the same thing. Sure some people breach the laws dealing with speed limits, but by and large the fact that the law is there, that there is a small deterrent, that there is a fine there, only reinforces the fact that people are generally law abiding and will follow the law.

To me, saying that it is difficult to enforce doesn’t stand, because there are a whole series of laws which are not more obvious than seatbelts, and if some people want to buckle up and say to the police officer “I’m going to buckle up just to avoid the law,” I suggest that is going to be the exception. By and large, the people of Ontario will accept the law for what it is. It is a piece of social legislation for the benefit of all people in Ontario.

The final point I want to make briefly is simply this: I think it is going to require, on the part of the police, the law enforcement agency, a certain amount of common sense in the enforcement of it. I think over a period of time, as people accept seatbelts for what they are, there will be buckling up. I suggest that the Attorney General, or possibly the Solicitor General -- or I should direct this, I suppose, to the minister here, that he should discuss it with the Solicitor General in charge of law enforcement agencies -- that the law be applied reasonably and logically; that we don’t start overnight after the law has been proclaimed to set up roadblocks to see if people are wearing their seatbelts. I’m convinced that will not happen, but I would like to see a reasonable enforcement of the law.

I’m convinced that in a few years people will accept this legislation for what it is, and the people of Ontario will understand that by enacting this type of legislation we in this House have accepted our responsibility for all of the people of Ontario.

Mr. Kennedy: Mr. Speaker, about five years ago there was a terrible tragedy, a plane crash at Malton, which took 109 lives. It made headlines around the world. The grief and sorrow of that still remains with us. Multiply by about 15 times the grief and sorrow associated with that and one will begin to get some conception of the extent of the carnage on our highways. On a visit to Australia, I was in Sydney at the time, their mandatory law requiring the wearing of seatbelts came into force. I had not bothered with the use of them. I thought I had better obey the laws -- when in Rome do as they do -- and after a day or two of discomfort it became second habit. One started the car, put that belt on and in no time at all it was part of our mode of travelling.

Speaking to the bill for a moment, I commend the minister for bringing this forward, the government for screwing up its courage and bringing it to the advanced stage that it is now, and also the members who have spoken and are to speak with respect to this proposed legislation.

[8:15]

There are just a couple of points that concern me with the bill. One is the tender age at which the enforcement becomes applicable; two years old. I’m not sure what the age should be where restraining devices, as applied to youngsters, are made mandatory, but I might point out that the children’s automobile safety research committee, in a report -- it’s not dated but I think it was within the last year or so -- points out that its researchers expressed concern about placing children in lap belts before the age of seven or about 50 to 60 lb; yet most car seats can handle only up to 40 lb, it says here. The other interesting statistic in this article is that few people realize that if a child weighs only 10 lb and he is in a car travelling at 30 mph, he has an effective weight of 300 lb. So I’m not sure if a child just out of the infant stage is better protected by a lap belt or some other device. That leads me to my second point.

There is a great variation in the quality or more accurately, I think, the comfort of seatbelts. Some are hardly noticeable, while others seem to draw in on you and there is some discomfort with them. I think this legislation might give the industry an incentive to do further research on this subject and to come forward with something that is less constraining while doing the job for people. Perhaps the day will come when the used car salesman will use the quality and comfort of the seatbelt as a selling point. This could very well be.

At the time I moved the introduction of the bill in 1973, actually 2 1/2 years ago, there was evidence -- and I’m not going to add to the statistics, which everyone here know -- that there would be a 20 to 25 per cent reduction in fatalities and perhaps an even greater reduction in injuries.

We know the huge medical, social and property costs; the bereavement and grief, of which I have spoken; law suits and prolonged legal actions. We know, based on the experience with the mandatory wearing of seatbelts, that we could adapt ourselves to this feature and cut out much of those subjects I have mentioned. We also know, based on the evidence we have, that about 250 lives would be saved each year here in Ontario, as well as countless injuries.

The matter of a so-called infringement of our civil liberties is really a small bother in comparison to the benefits which can be projected into the benefits associated with the programme.

I want to make brief reference to some authorities that I deem to be authorities on this subject. In an article in the local evening paper, Ray Stapley laments the fact that we pay so much for a car, including this safety feature, and then we don’t utilize it. He re-refers to Swedish auto statistics, which I hadn’t seen in quite this context:

“One out of every 2,434 belted occupants was killed, while one out of 244 unbelted occupants was killed. Therefore, the chance of survival is 90 per cent greater if you are protected by the safety harness.”

He goes on to say he can’t understand why anyone would venture out on to a highway without that restraining device in place.

Cornell conducted a study in response to all those people who seem to be able to relate that they know of someone whose life was saved because he was not wearing a seatbelt, whereas he would have been killed if he had been wearing it. I don’t know how they know this, because at best it can only be subjective. But Cornell’s latest figures show that persons are 30 times as likely to be killed if they are thrown out of a car than if they remain inside. That speaks for itself.

We’re told that without the wearing of a seatbelt the likelihood of a multiple collision, that is to say a multiple impact, is eight per cent greater than if the belt is being worn, because you lose control of the car, the vehicle.

Hospitals in Australia are reporting a 24 per cent drop in bed occupancy since introduction of the law. They have other statistics which prove the benefits.

The Ontario Safety League came out very strongly last year with many statistics and figures in support of such use. Unbelted motorists started receiving fatal injuries at speeds as low as 12-miles-per-hour. Yet some other statistics, I think the member for Yorkview would sustain me on this, stated that at 60-miles-an-hour, with belts, fatalities were avoided.

An interesting sheet from the Department of National Health and Welfare came to my attention and this lists the causes of mortality among different age groups of our populace. In the 20 to 24 age group almost half the mortality was due to motor vehicle accidents.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to make my views known again on this subject. I wanted to touch briefly again on the so-called infringement of personal liberties and I endorse what the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) has brought forward. If it is perchance deemed to be an intrusion into our civil or personal liberties, certainly it is no more than the compulsory wearing of safety helmets, motorcycle helmets, safety shoes and, as he pointed out, the breathalyser test.

Mr. Bullbrook: Of course, the breathalyser is no analogy at all. You shouldn’t accept what he says.

Mr. Hodgson: Have you just entered the leadership race?

Mr. Bullbrook: No. The safety helmets are fine, but why do you talk about breathalysers? They’re not analogous at all.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: You’re in full bloom.

Mr. Kennedy: I don’t think the hon. member was in here when his colleague spoke. What he was saying was, at the time the breathalyser test was brought in, this was the basis of a substantial attack against it. It just doesn’t hold up.

I have a little clipping here from Australia with respect to enforcement; it might be interesting.

“Discussions with police in Victoria have not brought to light any particular difficulties in enforcing the law. They have not been required to prey on motorists to ensure compliance, mainly because they do not have to. Seatbelt wearing is now regarded in Australia as the accepted behaviour and not the exception.”

I’m not going to speak at any length on this. I’m pleased the Legislature is doing this. I'm sure the public will join with us in considering the overall results of the carnage on our highways, and against that, the small intrusion, if we want to use that terminology, of requiring the use of these safety devices. When we bring together all this material, all the evidence, and examine it calmly without any prejudice, we can only come to one conclusion. Use of seatbelts is to the benefit of all of us and so I urge the passage of the bill and acceptance by the public. I am sure this will result in more lives saved, and happier lives, in the years ahead.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I think most of the arguments that ought to be made and could be made in support of the compulsory seatbelt legislation have been made so far in the debate. However, I am going to repeat some of the things that have been said and give some further evidence in this regard. I do this because I think it is important that here in this Legislature we take a strong stand, that we give the reasons which we believe make it necessary for this legislation to be enacted, and that we give to the public the reasons for which they should support this.

I suggest that public opinion in support of this, if it is going to be effective, is important. As has already been said, I suggest that we got this legislation because of public opinion. It was introduced because of public opinion -- that public opinion that was expressed on Sept. 18 and caused the government to reconsider some of the things that it had done and had not done prior to that time.

Just as an aside, I suppose my giving up my time to give priority to the member for Ottawa East, who has now left, probably had something to do, too, with the public opinion which was expressed on Sept. 18 -- that opinion that finds some in that caucus having to make frequent trips, those who aspire perhaps to be leader of that party as a result of the public opinion on Sept. 18.

I think we all recognize that this proposed legislation is not the total or the ultimate answer to the prevention and reduction of highway accidents and deaths and injuries. But I do suggest that this type of legislation will always be valuable in providing something in addition to what all of the other safety features can provide. Whether it’s making cars safer by redesigning the interior and the exterior, whether it’s the reduction of the speed limit, or whatever other measures are developed to make the use of the automobile more safe, this will still add something to them. It is legislation which should be permanent.

I suppose a discussion on this subject could be divided into five parts and we would cover everything in a discussion of those five parts. The first of those parts is: Does the voluntary plan work? Whether it is in Ontario or elsewhere, does voluntary buckling up work? Second, is this sort of legislation innovative? Is it new? Third, can it be made effective? Will there be compliance with the law? Fourth, does it in fact save lives and reduce injuries and reduce costs? Fifth, and finally -- and this has been covered by other speakers, as they all have -- is it the type of compulsion or restriction of our civil liberties that will be tolerated? Are the health and the economic benefits from it worth the price of any loss of civil liberty?

[8:30]

I want to deal briefly with each of these five parts. There is ample evidence to show that the voluntary buckling up without compulsory legislation just simply doesn’t work. There is an article in the June 22, 1974, journal of the Canadian Medical Association by a Dr. D. J. Hauser who gives a great deal of information. He deals there with the question of voluntary buckling up and what has happened in other jurisdictions. He talks about the very sophisticated advertising campaign that was done in England and the results of that -- something like the advertising campaign, I presume, that has been done in Ontario recently. Then he goes on to say:

“The response at first was excellent. After three months, the seatbelt wearing rate doubled from 15 per cent to 30 per cent. However, the campaign is continuing but the wearing rate has been stabilized.”

Another more experimental campaign was carried out in the United States to test the effectiveness of a television campaign alone. The campaign was well controlled, using two equivalent viewing populations in one city. The advertisements had won advertising industry prizes for originality. However, after nine months, both experimental and controlled groups had the same 18 per cent wearing rate.

Also, the motor vehicle collision facts which were presented to us earlier in this session show that of those who had seatbelts in their cars, and were known to be buckled up was only something like 16.3 per cent of those who were involved in accidents, even after the advertising campaign which has been done. Perhaps some of my colleagues wouldn’t mind me saying that even in our caucus, to show how ineffective voluntary buckling up is, two of my colleagues said that they believe it is a good idea. They said they don’t use them now but if compulsory legislation is enacted they will use them. I don’t think there’s any question --

Mr. Good: Your House leader wouldn’t even buckle his lip.

Mr. Moffatt: Is that the member for Waterloo North? That is not like him.

Mr. Swart: -- that voluntary buckling up doesn’t work in any jurisdiction. Is it new? Of course it is not new. We have had evidence here already of the countries and the states which have introduced such legislation. This same article points out that some 22 states in United States last year proposed compulsory seatbelt legislation.

Hon. Mr. Snow: How many passed it?

Mr. Swart: Not very many, but it was proposed, and perhaps in the same way as here, once it has been proposed, the idea will take hold and even a reluctant government may be willing to bring in such legislation. It certainly can be made effective. Other speakers too have covered this point. Will there be non-compliance?

Again the report by Dr. Hauser shows that it is effective where it has been introduced and where they have tried to enforce it. It states here that the most immediate effect of the legislation was the doubling of the safety-belt wearing rate literally overnight -- and this is in Australia. Prior to the legislation the wearing rate was 20 per cent. Six months afterwards it was 75 per cent. Now three years later, it is 80 per cent with a higher wearing rate observed in the cities than in the rural areas.

I am going to another jurisdiction. In the first 10 months after the law was enacted in New Zealand, there was a doubling of the seatbelt usage rate, a slight reduction in the deaths of front-seat occupants and a reduction in the severity of injuries sustained by belted occupants. At the same time as that reduction was taking place, drivers who were not wearing seatbelts had an increase in fatalities of something like 40 per cent.

I think it has been amply proved that it does save lives and it does reduce injuries. I would like to give two or three quotes in addition to what have already been given in this regard. The Cornell automotive crash injury research programme, which has been quoted here before, established that there were 50 per cent fewer dangerous and fatal injuries to belt wearers compared to non-belt wearers.

A recent study at the University of North Carolina of 8,822 cases of 1967 and 1969 model cars involved in accidents shows that through the use of lapbelts an overall reduction of 43 per cent in serious and fatal injuries in frontal collisions were reduced 32 per cent; serious and fatal injuries in single-car off-the-road accidents were reduced 49.5 per cent through the use of the lapbelt.

Again, the Cornell laboratory’s most recent study indicates that the failure to use seatbelts increases the risks of instant death or severe injury by at least 100 per cent and of less severe injury by at least 40 per cent.

Hospitals in Australia are reporting a 24 per cent drop in bed occupancy since introduction of the law. One Melbourne hospital to which persons with spinal injuries in traffic accidents are referred had to keep a neurosurgeon and plastic surgeon on duty at the hospital each night. After the belt law became effective the need for the surgeons’ services declined so sharply that the two specialists were placed on call instead of having to be physically present at the hospital.

Also, the Canadian Medical Association journal again reports substantial reduction in injuries with the use of seat belts. It states “One major review of the evidence concerning the effectiveness of the automobile safety belt concluded that it reduces the risk of major injury or death by at least 60 per cent. The lap-shoulder belt is significantly more effective than the lapbelt alone.”

A publication called “The Seat Belt Argument,” put out by Transport Canada, says this:

“Studies in the UK have also shown that the death-and injury-reducing potential of seatbelts is greater for passengers than for drivers; that effectiveness is greater in low speed accidents; that effectiveness in preventing death is higher than effectiveness in preventing serious injury.”

An American study supports these results, concluding, on the basis of data from 14,000 accidents, that failure to use seatbelts increased injury risk as follows: “Of immediate death or severe injury by 100 per cent; of non-trivial injury by 70 per cent and of any injury by 40 per cent.”

Of course, finally as proof, I would quote from a document tabled here, “Motor Vehicle Collision Facts, 1974,” which shows that although about 20 per cent of the drivers involved in accidents wore belts, of those who they could tell for sure were using seatbelts only 10 per cent were killed compared to 20 per cent not using seatbelts.

I would also like to make some comments here relative to the saving in costs -- the economic saving from the compulsory use of seatbelts. Figures have been given here before and I don’t think there is any doubt that there can be figures which will show widely varying amounts depending upon what statistics are used. In January this year, the executive director of the Ontario Hospital Association made these comments, according to the Globe and Mail, “Victims of motor accidents fill 10 per cent of hospital beds all the time and cost Ontario $1 million a day to care for them.”

If we conclude there would be a saving of only 25 per cent in injuries with the compulsory use of seatbelts -- and that is low according to most of the estimates given -- even if we had only 25 per cent saving, we would have a figure of something like $90 million saved in hospital costs alone. If we add to that the loss in wages and production, which is apparently about equal to that, it is another $90 million. If we add to that the loss of the earning power of the some 450 people who are billed annually on Ontario highways, most of them fairly young people -- the majority of them in their prime earning time or just before it -- the estimated loss is at least $100 million. According to these statistics, we find that the total annual savings in the Province of Ontario from the compulsory use of seatbelts could be $300 million.

Finally, I want to deal briefly with the subject of whether the compulsion is worth the price. As has already been stated, the annual death rate is about 450 people who could be saved with the compulsory use of seatbelts. There are also about 25,000 personal injuries that could be eliminated with the compulsory use of seatbelts. The economic costs are probably in the neighbourhood of $300 million annually. The public generally has to bear the majority of that cost, and there is some justification for the public saying: “We feel that the individual driving the automobile must take some responsibility toward his safety when we are paying these costs.”

I suggest the time has come when the public does want this kind of legislation. Not long ago the Gallop poll took a survey on the question of whether people approved of the growing tendency of government to protect people from themselves through such things as the use of seatbelts, lifejackets, etc. It showed that 77 per cent of the people were in favour of increased legislation in this regard. I am convinced that the majority of the public want this, will accept it if we are prepared to take a stand and are prepared to give the reasons why it is necessary.

On one specific item on the bill, I understand it’s a general provision that a $20 to $100 fine will be levied for people not using their seatbelts. I would ask the minister to give consideration to perhaps using the point system in a substantial way, for drivers at least, rather than very high fines.

And secondly, we notice in the bill that there are exemptions which can be made. I think I can say for myself and for my party that we are glad that there is a provision where exemptions may be made for certain classes of motor vehicles and certain classes of people using motor vehicles. There may be the necessity for legitimate exemptions for some operators, such as taxi drivers, particularly if they are in the urban areas with reduced speed limits. I am not sure what exemptions are made, but I am glad that that is in the bill.

I conclude by saying that I, personally, and my party are glad that the government has seen fit finally to introduce this bill. We think it is a measure that will help financially in this province at a time when there are severe financial problems, and my party will be voting in favour of this bill.

[8:45]

Mr. Bullbrook: Mr. Speaker, this is the first time since the beginning of this Parliament that I have had an opportunity to rise and I want to, therefore, beg your indulgence. I’ve been down in that Hydro committee learning about system expansion and their load forecast and megawatts. I don’t know anything about what they’re doing down there and little about what they’re doing up here.

In any event, I wanted to take the opportunity, if I may, to congratulate you. This is the first time that I’ve had this opportunity of congratulating you in connection with your elevation to the seats of the mighty -- you individually as chairman of the whole House. It was a well-deserved appointment, but I want you to know it wouldn’t have happened if there had been a majority government. Your popularity was not dictated by us, but by the people of Ontario, but that doesn’t minimize one tittle the great joy that it gives me --

Mr. Wiseman: Or one jot.

Mr. Bullbrook: -- to convey my congratulations, and through you to Mr. Speaker Rowe on his elevation. I notice he’s been subjected to --

Mr. Renwick: He is out of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Bullbrook: My colleague from Riverdale points out that I’m out of order. Probably I am, but I think, frankly --

Mr. Renwick: You should buckle up.

Mr. Bullbrook: -- when we’re talking about seatbelt legislation, we’re talking about the protection of the individual, therefore I see some type of casual connection between my comments with respect to the Speaker and his function in this chamber. I thought to myself today after reading Norman Webster when he pointed out what a raucous, disjointed assembly we are, that at no time have I seen, in my eight years here, any disrespect during the prayers and it shows where you do have authority, inferential or direct, it works on this assembly, and I ask you to convey that through to the Speaker. A little more deification on his part and I’m sure we’d listen.

Mr. Ferrier: That is out of order.

Mr. Bullbrook: Now I want to come, if I can, to order.

Interjection.

Mr. Bullbrook: Would you ask that colleague from Riverdale to come to order? I listened to him quietly for 45 minutes this afternoon.

Mr. Ferrier: He was very short if he only spoke that long.

Mr. Bullbrook: Make no mistake about it, we wouldn’t have this legislation, as my colleague from Waterloo North (Mr. Good) pointed out and my colleague from Welland (Mr. Swart) so ably supported, if it weren’t for OHIP.

The government has finally reconciled the problem here in favour of dollars and cents, which is in the true Conservative tradition of social legislation. It truly is. They’ve decided now that they can save some money. They’ve statistically proven to themselves that it’s all worthwhile as far as the buck is concerned, and so we’re called upon to support this type of legislation.

One has to have some degree of lack of receptivity to it, I must say. It’s easy enough to talk about the breathalyser and analogize -- and I don’t defame, in his absence, my colleague from Ottawa East (Mr. Roy), because he was a prominent Crown attorney for many years -- but I see no great analogy between the breathalyser and this type of legislation. The breathalyser was a subservience on the part of the individuals to society’s need for the protection of society, not for the protection of the individual. It never was intended for the protection of the individual. It was the coming together of impairment together with the driving of a motor vehicle.

This is truly the same as the insistence we had that motorcycle drivers should wear their helmets. That is the analogy, there’s no doubt about it. But anyone who has ever thought about what the function of the state is and what the responsibility of the state must be, had to have reservations about the breathalyser legislation and they have to have some reservations about this type of legislation. It becomes a balance of priorities, I suggest, through the chairman to my colleague from Welland, and I and my colleagues are prepared to accept those priorities on balance.

I was pleased to see that at least one member of your caucus did decide to exhibit some reservations about it, as I do now. I agree with him as to the motivation of the legislation; I entirely disagree with him as to the public acceptance now of the legislation. We might educate them too. But yesterday morning I did an open-line show in Sarnia. There were nine calls on this, seven being against it. I’m not a great believer in statistics from Sarnia or otherwise, because as I said facetiously, and perhaps in a vulgar manner, when they got rid of the cosmetic surgeon in Australia after the buckling up of the seatbelts, there were two answers: either there was no more need for his services or the patient was dead. In either case, you don’t need him. So statistics can be used to fly the fancy that you wish to fly at the moment.

In any event, I’m going to accept the legislation because I’m convinced by all members of this House -- not by the government, but by all members of the House -- that it’s in the benefit of the individual himself and collaterally in society, only from an economic point of view, because if we didn’t have the obligation of society as a whole to provide for the medical and hospital welfare of people, I wouldn’t support the legislation.

I want to say frankly that this is not breathalyser legislation; it never will be and it never was intended to be. If an individual wants to buckle up or not, it is his inalienable right to buckle up or not, because when he becomes involved in an intersection accident, it isn’t a question of whether he has a seatbelt on or not that’s going to cause that collision; in many circumstances, I’m afraid, the buckling-up might well lead to the collision.

There are certain things I want to bring to the minister’s attention, and I would like to have a response from him. I was interested also in the minister’s byplay with the member for Welland when he mentioned 22 states had proposed legislation and the minister asked how many passed. I want to make sure, as a result of that comment, the minister does support this legislation? He is in favour?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Oh yes, very much so.

Mr. Bullbrook: There is a section here that I wonder about. It’s subsection 6:

“No person shall drive on a highway a motor vehicle in which there is a passenger who has attained the age of two years and is under 16 years of age and occupies a seating position for which a seatbelt assembly has been provided unless that passenger is wearing the complete seatbelt assembly and it is properly adjusted and securely fastened.”

Frankly, I read that to mean that there is no offence committed if a four-year-old is standing between his parents. I read it to mean that if a six-year-old is kneeling, looking out the back window, there is no offence committed. As my colleague pointed out, I read it to mean that if a 15-year-old is sitting on her boyfriend’s lap, there is no offence committed. I invite the minister’s reconsideration of the wording of the section, unless I am in error, as I might well be, in my interpretation of the section.

I appreciate the opportunity I have been given to make some comment on this. It’s obvious from the comments made that we don’t accept this totally without reservation; and when I say “we,” I mean that I don’t and some others don’t. I wanted to get up just for the sake of putting on the record the reservations I do have.

Mr. Jones: Mr. Speaker, first I’d like to commend the minister for bringing this bill on safety belts to the House. Unfortunately, some of my comments probably will run parallel to those made by some of the speakers who have come before me, but I think we have seen quite a joining of thoughts on the major portions of the statistics or the reasons this legislation is here and on what we, as a joint body have to do to make it acceptable and so that it achieves the reason that it’s needed and at the time it’s needed, which is right now.

Before the member for Sarnia leaves, I would like to comment that I know, for my part, that my reasons for supporting this bill certainly weren’t twigged by the monetary situation, which was an aside. We did note the comment of the Minister of health about the $90 million. We heard the comment of one of the members just a few moments ago discussing $300 million as a possible saving. To be sure, money is a factor but it’s very much an aside. My concerns are very different and I would like to run through them right now for the benefit of us all so that we can once again put them in capsule form as we go out to make certain that this does gain the acceptance it must.

We know that yesterday in this House, last evening as the member for Durham West (Mr. Godfrey) might recall, I did speak in opposition to what I put as an intrusion of government unless it absolutely had to be there. The subject being discussed was a proposal to legislate on a matter of convenience and unpleasantness. This seatbelt legislation is different and it is a matter of immediate life or death and I believe that most sincerely.

We’ve heard it related to safety helmets for motorcyclists, and having been in the insurance industry I was very familiar with those statistics. One only has to know some cases of youngsters who became vegetables to have it brought very much home.

We have -- and we’ve heard recounted here this afternoon and this evening -- a veritable mountain of statistics which can no longer be ignored and which show how many lives can be saved by mandatory use of safety belts. We’ve had this programme of buckle up, but we need to save further lives and it’s too urgent not to have this legislation at this time.

Before coming to this House, as 1 say, I was in the insurance industry and I was constantly faced with these gruesome reports and pictures in many cases. They showed the need for this legislation. I lectured at the safety league and other groups of that type and constantly these statistics were before one.

I would just like to capsule a few short highlights of this issue under four headings, if I may. The figures that the member for Welland (Mr. Swart) alluded to just a short time ago set it out for us all very clearly, I think. They can’t be ignored and probably they capsule many others available to us. They show that 476 drivers were killed when the seatbelts were installed but weren’t in use, out of the total deaths in 1974. Reverse this and those that were installed and were being used, saw only 46 deaths; that’s some 10 per cent. It is a rather startling statistic not to be ignored.

When we look at other areas of jurisdiction, as has been mentioned tonight, and I think it is important for us to remember, that as one of the members across the floor said, Australians are known for characteristically being very much opposed to any encroachment on their freedoms. They are world known for defending their rights. Yet the facts are that the first legislation was in 1971 in Victoria and during this time the proportion of people wearing belts rose from 25 per cent to about 75 per cent. When we consider that only about 65 per cent of all Australian cars at that time were equipped with seatbelts this implies an overall wearing rate in the area of somewhere around 50 per cent. However, over a nine-month period Victoria experienced a 19.7 per cent drop in fatalities and a 14.8 reduction of injuries to occupants of vehicles.

There was no similar reduction over this same period in evidence in the rest of Australia where no such law existed. We can conclude, therefore, that this dramatic drop in fatalities was due to the increase in seatbelt usage.

The other Australian states which subsequently followed Victoria’s lead experienced similar results in due course. New South Wales shows the vehicle occupant fatalities in 1972 were 25 per cent lower than would have been expected without such a law.

I’m not going to outline all of the important and, to my mind, timely article which appeared in one of the Toronto papers last Saturday which capsuled a lot of it.

[9:00]

Here’s an example. It is the case of the three-year-old daughter of a man who describes his trip to the hospital. It went on to talk about statistics of those wearing versus those not wearing seatbelts. It talked about what the policemen had to say. These are the men and women who are at the scene immediately after these tragedies occur. These are the people who attend the victims in those first instances. They are the ones who see the windshields with the holes punched through. Their condensed comments were basically that indeed they could see problems in administering the law but, nevertheless, they all urged that the legislation be amended and for their part the sooner the better.

We heard earlier, the comments of the member for Welland. He gave examples of hospitals where I’m sure for the people on the staff it was a happy observation that they were able to cut down on staff which had heretofore been attending people being rushed off roads and into the emergency sections of hospitals in that jurisdiction.

We had a lot of comments on Australia tonight. It did pioneer, but there is also Britain. In fact it’s mentioned in this article that last year they had 4,000 fewer accidents and 400 fewer road deaths since they had their legislation implemented. The police in all jurisdictions which I looked into agreed that any inconvenience in making sure that justice prevailed in the implementation of wearing seatbelts was far outweighed by the lives which would be saved by the legislation.

I believe the member for Wentworth (Mr. Deans) earlier mentioned air bags. These are probably something to which we need to give some consideration. My work in lecturing the safety league has made me quite familiar with this. There are pros and cons to these bags. I’ll mention a few because it is something, I think, we should be looking into quickly. It relates to this legislation as it comes to us today. There are advantages, the major one being there is no action required on the part of the occupant. It’s an instant thing, and in addition the air bag has the ability to provide a high level of protection for a frontal collision.

Unfortunately, there are some disadvantages. The research I’ve studied is available in an excellent document I commend on safety belt use called, “A Mandate for Survival.” It is pointed out that a mid-section safety belt needs to go hand in hand with the air bag to gain maximum protection from these so-called air bags.

The member for Wentworth mentioned that the price is about $139 or $140 right now, and hopefully they would come to be $100. They’re certainly something we should be encouraging in the marketplace, but for now they have not proven to be the answer for damage and injury in collision from other angles than frontal, unless, as I say, they are in conjunction with a lap belt.

Mr. Young: They have a lateral protection too.

Mr. Jones: In addition to the extra cost of these air bags, it would be somewhere about 10 years from now to get them into this price range and get them into cars. In fact 90 per cent of our cars are now equipped with belts. So that’s the priority of this legislation in course today; and hopefully for tomorrow, as the technology of air bags is further improved upon, well see them come in their turn.

Mr. Foulds: All it needs is mass production and not technology.

Mr. Yakabuski: There are a lot of air bags over there.

Mr. Foulds: You should know.

Mr. Yakabuski: Yes, there are a lot of them over there.

Mr. Foulds: You’re speaking from experience for a change.

Mr. Jones: I agree with some of the other comments which have been made and some of the proposals and recommendations for safety. I think it’s timely to remember these when we hear comments, as we did from the member for Mississauga South (Mr. Kennedy), with his concern about the young drivers, and they’re very real, because they’re very much statistics in this same condensed “Collision Facts 1974” that we’ve been alluding to.

Mr. Foulds: I thought they’d be real because they were people, rather than because they were statistics.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Jones: He’s concerned about them because they’re people, but he’s concerned about them because of the size of the statistics that relate to that age group, and I think we all are.

I think we also should pay some thanks for some of the programmes that have been coming in and are seeing increasing use, such as the pro drivers course, which has shown us a reduction of no less than 40 per cent in occurrence of accidents and no less than 40 per cent in severity of accidents, where the youngsters in those age groups are taking these courses. This is being reflected by the insurance industry, which monitors those things. We’re having a 40 per cent reduction where those youngsters in that age group do take the course versus those who don’t take the course.

This is to be commended. We see the newspapers encouraging it, we see some of our local radio stations actually sponsoring it, we see the police departments working on it, we see our educational departments encouraging it and in fact subsidizing it. I think this is something we should continue on, because these statistics relating to the seatbelts show the urgency for carrying on that programme, which has proven itself.

There are critics -- and we have all sensed some of the testiness that was apparently afield in certain of our caucuses -- there are critics of this bill. Some of these are those who claim that the seatbelts can cause injury. But studies have shown -- and again they’re available to us, just a veritable mountain has come to deluge us -- that injuries due to seatbelts are generally slight in comparison with those injuries which would have been sustained had the occupant not been wearing a seatbelt. In high-speed accidents one can’t expect to emerge entirely injury-free, of course, but seatbelts generally reduce the severity of the injuries.

Another myth of critics concerning seatbelts is that they can trap the occupant in a burning or a submerging car. I stand here tonight as someone who was in a car that was broken completely in half on the Queen Elizabeth Way and bounced down the road, and they tell me had I stayed in there I would have been dead for sure, according to the local police. As it happens, again, I am in that small percentage that was in that kind of odd situation versus the mountain of others that would have been saved by them.

Statistics have shown that one per cent of all serious accidents are followed by fire or submersion, and yet we have a lot of people concerned about that; that they would be trapped, there would be a fire, they would be submerged in water. In 1973 in this province, no one wearing a seatbelt was killed by fire. One person drowned wearing a belt, but he was intoxicated. A belted occupant is far more likely to remain in a conscious state and, therefore, be able to escape from the vehicle. Thus, the chance of injury or risk of entrapment is far lower if a seatbelt is worn.

There are those who say -- and we’ve heard it earlier tonight and I talked about my comments on another issue last evening -- that this is an infringement on their rights and some say it’s an invasion of privacy. The logic behind these arguments pales in the light of the figures we’ve been reviewing. It is simply faulty to have that kind of logic.

Highways built with taxpayers’ money are public property, and, as for driving, one’s private automobile on them, it’s a privilege, it’s not a right. I can’t buy the logic of the arguments about the invasion of privacy and the infringement of rights. We are going to have ourselves a job, all of us, jointly, from whatever side of the House, in bringing this acceptance to the people in our respective ridings. Hopefully, we’ll do the job because it’s terribly important, regardless of the fines or the fact that the law will exist. Nevertheless, it’s still a friendly persuasion, if people were to use them rather than risk a $20 fine and sit on the belts in any event. So we do have a job to do, but hopefully this will accentuate it and bring people to accept it.

I listened to the comments of one of the earlier speakers. He talked of taking a survey in his caucus and I was delighted to hear that a lot of people made the honest admission that, “No, I haven’t been buckling up,” but they certainly would be once the law came in. Grumble as they might, they would be doing it; the habit would be formed and they would go on to use it. Indeed that is the essence of this whole legislation to my way of thinking.

We did have the comments, again, by the member for Sarnia (Mr. Bullbrook) where he was being, I sense either a little cynical, or perhaps he was giving us a little levity there after some heavy discussion of statistics; but he made this comment, that the Conservative government brought this about after they came to a “look at the buck,” as I recall the comment. I know for my part, and for all those in my caucus that I spoke with, that was not at all their motivation in supporting this bill.

Mr. Bullbrook: Why was the gestation period so lengthy?

Mr. Jones: I am talking about the current situation, Mr. Member, and I --

Mr. Bullbrook: You can call me Jim.

Mr. Jones: I talked with these people, and they were all sincere. Some were here before, in that period you talk of, and some weren’t; but the point was the consensus today was very clear. The things of concern were the things I talked about, as I have to this point.

Also I know in my case one of the things that was very important to me, as I looked at these statistics and put together this debate, was the children. They were a large concern to me. As we consider this aspect, there are certain things that are unique to small children in these accidents. They have a relatively heavy head and they have a fragile skull, as we all know, and for this reason a small child is very likely to suffer a more serious head injury, even in low-speed accidents.

In 1972 children under the age of 14 made up 16 per cent of those killed and injured in motor vehicle accidents. For this reason, children would definitely benefit from increased seatbelt use.

I could talk of my personal experience and my youngsters not using them. I know certainly, now, since we have been considering this, they ride in the back and they are using them. Probably this is because there has been the influence, there has been the surge toward this legislation.

I hope an increasing number of other parents in this province will take advantage of the approved child restraints that are available for their children under four. These restraints have been tested, they have been proven and they are effective in protecting these small children in most accident situations.

So as we go about our job to convey this legislation and to have it gain its acceptance so that people use belts, quite apart from the law side of it, I hope that we at least convince the parents. We all know it is not completely possible to strap in every youngster. If you are driving to the local arena, six youngsters might be crowded into the car in these circumstances; but on those long trips to the cottage and all those other trips on the higher speed byways, let’s hope that people will use seatbelts. I hope we all, as individual members, will encourage others, especially our youngsters because we know that they can come flying out of the back seats. We all know the gruesome story without even being reminded in these articles and pictures that so vividly brought it to our attention.

I am indeed pleased and honoured I had an opportunity to speak to what I feel will be a very important piece of legislation coming down in my time here in this House. I do support the bill and indeed ask all other members of the House, as I say to carry the word of it and their belief in it out where it will do good; will save lives and avoid injuries. Thank you.

Mr. Ferrier: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this bill. I would like to say, along with the member for Sarnia, that I realize this bill has had rather a long gestation period. We sat here in the House back in the late winter or early spring and heard the government in the Throne Speech say that mandatory seatbelt legislation would be introduced and passed. Of course we felt that would be in effect for this summer.

Hon. Mr. Snow: All in the fullness of time.

Mr. Ferrier: Well, you know, some of the back-bench boys laid a heavy hand on the former minister --

Mr. Young: They didn’t come back.

Mr. Ferrier: They didn’t come back. That’s probably why there are so few there today.

Interjection.

Mr. Ferrier: If the government had gone ahead with this legislation in the spring and been more progressive at that time it may not have suffered the results that it did. But the minister decided not to introduce the legislation, and what he decided to do was to bring in about a $500,000 buckle-up programme.

[9:15]

Mr. Hodgson: It was a good programme.

Mr. Ferrier: We had that pre-election advertising to overwhelm the electorate with the wonderful things the government was doing. Had this legislation come in and been passed, we could have saved that $500,000. And we could have saved another $500,000 on the report by the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) and his right wing friends.

But to the credit of this minister, perhaps he has been able to realize that action has to be taken to protect the people of this province and to cut down on the number of personal injuries and deaths that do occur in accidents. Statistics have shown quite conclusively that the wearing of seatbelts reduces injuries in accidents. Fewer people are thrown from cars, the reason why a lot of people lose their lives.

This legislation does impose compulsion on the drivers and passengers in this province. I suppose this interferes with civil rights, but lots of things we do in this House interfere with civil rights. We feel that it will be of value to the people if they put their seatbelts on and take this extra precaution.

The advertising programme the government had certainly didn’t have the effect that it thought it would. It probably did a fair little bit to enhance the advertising industry, but it didn’t do the job that should have been done. This is the legislation that we should have. We in this party are in favour of safety legislation in whatever form it comes in to protect the public, and we believe there should be enforcement of this kind of thing.

Some people say that it will be difficult to enforce. Because it is compulsory, I think it will provide a significant incentive to people who do not now wear their seatbelts to buckle up. I think it will have the desired effect. The penalty is not meant to be punitive. I suppose it will be enforced in some degree in the courts and people will grumble about having to pay fines. But I think that if people do follow the intent of the legislation and buckle up, that will be of value in itself.

As statistics show, and as quoted by colleagues from Welland and from Yorkview, there’s a significant reduction in deaths and injuries and the degree of those injuries. And there is also a significant effect on cutting the costs that the insurance companies bear and money paid out in settlements. If there is a reduction in insurance industry costs, surely there can also be some kind of decrease in the premiums that the insurance companies have been imposing upon us with such regularity. I hope that it has that effect and that the government checks into this matter and will monitor the insurance industry to a significant degree.

I have some statistics to quote about the effect of the seatbelt law on injury patterns in Victoria, Australia. A spokesman for the Royal Australian College of Surgeons compiled a sampling of medical data and an opinion on traffic accident injuries for a submission to the Secretary of Transportation in Washington. Some excerpts from the report are here in my hand.

It noted that spinal injuries were reduced by one-third; lung and chest injuries were down; those with multiple injuries dropped from 14 per cent in 1971 to six per cent in 1972. There has been a 40 per cent reduction in kneecap and hip injuries among accident victims treated at St. Vincent’s in Preston and Northcot Community Hospital since the law took effect.

There has been a 50 per cent decline in the number of vehicle occupant victims treated for severe facial injuries at Weston General Hospital, reports R.V.S. Thompson, plastic surgeon. Comparing the 12-month periods before and after the legislation was enacted, fatal accidents with fractured skull and brain damage have fallen by 30 per cent; in non-fatal cases, fractured skull and brain damage have marginally increased indicating that victims are surviving because head injuries are less severe. Fatal accidents with fractured femurs have decreased from 22 per cent to 15 per cent; in non-fatal accidents the incidence of fractured femurs has risen two-fold indicating that victims are surviving who otherwise might have died.

The statistics which have been put forward here tonight are extremely convincing and are the record of serious research in other jurisdictions into this wearing of seatbelts, especially when accidents are concerned.

I was involved in an accident about four years ago and we were hit quite hard. Both my son and I were wearing our seatbelts and there was absolutely no personal injury to either one of us. I feel this legislation is a very good step which the government is taking. I think the cutting down of the incidence of personal injury and the degree of severe personal injury which has taken place in other places and likely will take place here with this legislation, is bound to have a significant effect on the medical costs and the hospital costs that we, the general public, bear.

It was a few years ago, I believe in 1971, when the no-fault insurance and amendments to the Insurance Act took place. This government across the way took the insurance companies off the hook and made the public Treasury bear the expense of accident costs in this province as far as hospitalization and medical treatment were concerned.

We have borne those quite considerable expenses and it is about time the government brought in some kind of legislation like this to cut down on the expenses of accidents which we are bearing.

As I say, it is good legislation. I certainly support it and our party supports it. I think I would like to tip my hat to the member for Yorkview (Mr. Young) who is sitting before me tonight who has consistently spoken in favour of safety measures. He convinced a former Minister of Transport, Irwin Haskett, to bring in legislation to require motorcycle drivers to wear helmets.

An hon. member: That’s in a lost cause.

Mr. Ferrier: He has consistently fought for safer vehicles and safer driving procedures and I am glad to see that the leadership he has been giving in this House is bearing fruit in the kind of legislation the government is bringing forward.

As I say, I rise with my colleagues to support this legislation, which should have been brought in during June or July; I guess the election has forced it upon the government. The results have taken away some of the people who weren’t as progressive as they should have been in the government party, and perhaps the government has got in a few more who have seen the light. Anyway, we are glad it’s coming in, better late than never.

Mr. Ruston: I would like to have a few words with regard to Bill 27, an Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act as it pertains to seatbelt legislation.

I suppose I must admit that I have not been as good a performer in the wearing of seatbelts as I should have been, considering the miles I drive yearly. I figured out one day that I have averaged about 30,000 miles for the past 25 years, so I guess I have gone around the world once or twice. It has only been in the past year or so, that I have started to get more conscious of wearing a seatbelt, and I must admit it was one of the younger members of my family who convinced me that we should be wearing them. Maybe it takes the younger generation to educate some of us older folks as to what we should be doing in terms of seatbelt safety.

Mr. Ferrier: You’re not admitting that you are getting older, are you?

Mr. Ruston: I find, though, the minute I sit down in an airplane, the first thing I do is hook up the belt and I never undo it all the time I am in the air -- except, of course, on some long trips --

Mr. Bullbrook: When the necessities of nature deem otherwise.

Mr. Ruston: -- and I feel quite comfortable. On one occasion when I was in an airplane the road was so rough up there that you were mighty glad to have the seatbelt on because you might end up in the ceiling or some place.

There are always some concerns with regard to any new legislation, and while some of the ones I have in mind regarding this bill may be minor, on the other hand they are of concern to me and to people in a family of different age groups as to where they are going to sit in the car. I think the member for Sarnia mentioned subsection 6 of the bill and raised questions as to what is considered a seat, where the belts are so located, and whether someone has to have a belt on if they are sitting, standing or sleeping, with special reference to small children.

We have raised a number of children, and we were blessed with twins on the first occasion. When we were driving, the wife held one of the twins on her lap and the other lay on the back seat, so I guess if I had to stop suddenly, he probably would have ended up on the floor. Something that I suppose will have to be considered in the regulations is just how we are going to handle this.

I would caution the government that this isn’t the end-all and everything to solve the accident situations on our highways. Maybe we should call them collisions. I think Mr. Haskett’s name was mentioned here once or twice --

Mr. Foulds: Only in vain.

Mr. Ruston: -- and he said we should be calling them collisions instead of accidents. I consider an accident as something that is unavoidable. Many of the collisions on our highways today are avoidable, providing we use a little more common sense; and probably we should have a little tighter control of our driving regulations as to who should have a driver’s licence and who should not.

The attitude of drivers no doubt has a great deal to do with some of the accidents on our highways. I have found that one of the states in the United States has made a study of this, and they have found that from 15 to 20 per cent of the accidents and deaths probably are caused by sheer negligence on the part of the driver and his carelessness and disregard for other people on the road. I don’t think we can say that this will be the end-all to the accident situation and to avoiding deaths on our highways.

In September, 1974, it was stated that Ontario was going to get tough on drunk drivers, but that’s one of the problems that no doubt is still with us.

[9:30]

Another thing is the construction of our highways in some areas and the traffic light situation. Many intersections we find have a continual accident ratio. It is rather depressing that sometimes you almost get the impression from the people at the Transportation and Communications ministry that unless we have at least three deaths and 50 accidents in so many months, they don’t want to put a traffic light on a corner. That’s another thing which adds to the death toll and accident rate on our highways.

I think that in the coming years -- and I’ve stressed this in the Ministry of Transportation and Communications estimates over the last two or three years -- maybe we’ve built enough highways; now let’s make them a little safer. Let’s get down to the brass tacks of where are the areas of high accident rates. I’m sure that isn’t too hard to have figured out or fed into a computer. Maybe, from the figures over the last few years we can tell where the high accident rate is going to be in the coming years, by doing some of these systems.

I think Texas or one of the states in United States -- one of the southern states -- is doing this. They even have police cars in these areas in advance so that they can keep motorists down to the speed limit. If certain driving conditions are worse they have a constant patrol on the highways in the areas where the high accident rates are. There are many things we can do to lower the accident rates on our highways.

On seatbelt legislation, I attended a conference in Toronto in the fall of 1974, I think. It was the American Association for Automotive Medicine; a two-day conference at the Holiday Inn here in Toronto. Although it was quite a technical conference it was very interesting to hear the medical doctors and the medical profession from all different places in United States and parts of Europe giving papers and talks on accidents and the causes of them. The use of seatbelts was one of the very interesting parts of their presentations, with moving pictures -- actual moving pictures and so forth -- of what seatbelt restraints do for people. Air bags were also shown in some of the presentations. They haven’t been brought down to the right precision just yet -- as well there is the cost factor -- but I think they will be one of the factors in the coming years which will be of help in this matter.

I think as far as the three-point strap belt is concerned, which we have now, there are some people who find them very uncomfortable. In my own car I have the lapbelt and the other one hangs up across the side of the car. When I put it down it’s about ready to cut my neck off when I hook it up. These are, of course, on the older cars and maybe they don’t have quite as good a system as some of the new ones. I have been in some with a three-point system which does seem to me to be more comfortable.

Someone mentioned a while ago the rural mail carriers. I guess they don’t drive over 25 miles an hour so I suppose they’d be exempt from this. It would be impossible for them to wear a seatbelt and deliver mail in the rural areas. I am sure that will be one of the things which will come under the regulations, to allow exemptions for them.

As far as child belts and some seats are concerned, that is another thing. I was looking at the papers at the conference of the American Association for Automotive Medicine. There was some very detailed explanation of some of the problems the Canadian government and the Canadian Standards Association have had in trying to get a proper seat for small children in cars. Actually they still haven’t agreed on one which was really considered perfect. It was good in some areas, sideways and so forth, but from what I can gather there is still some concern as to how good they are. I’m sure there are one or two on the market now, from what I can gather, which seem to have come up to some of the special standards in the United States. Not too long ago, one of the companies in Canada was fined $100 on pleading guilty to a violation of the regulations for selling a seat that wasn’t proper and wasn’t strong enough to carry the load it was meant to do.

I just want to reiterate that with new legislation I would hope, as the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) said, that the enforcement of it would be given the lenience that is possible under common sense. Some people can enforce regulations differently than others and it’s a human element that gets involved. Having been involved in the enforcement of the Customs Act for 10 years, I find that people interpret it differently. I suppose it’s the same thing with policemen. Different policemen interpret regulations and Acts differently. I would hope there would be some leniency until they get this more or less on the books for a while and people are educated to wearing them and accepting them, which I’m sure they will.

I’m sure they will accept them but it may take a few months to get this across to them. Then they will realize in driving with the proper restraint system they’re more comfortable and that there is a greater degree of safety and so will feel safer in their vehicle.

Some people will look at statistics over the next year or two and probably at the end of two years say this has been a great thing since accidents, deaths and so forth have gone down. But we are already doing one other thing that maybe would also cause the accident rate to go down in that we’re lowering the speed limits on our highways. There is no doubt that this has quite a bearing on the accident rate. Maybe it would cloud the issue a little bit as to what the benefit of seatbelts will be.

The other thing is that as gasoline prices go up due to the world oil shortage it could be there will be fewer cars on the road and less mileage driven. This again naturally causes less accidents.

This is one of the things in the United States that some of us fail to think about in saying that the toll on the highways has gone down there. They had their shortage of gas about two years ago when they had the main problem and lowered the speed limit to 55 miles an hour. No doubt the two of them made a great contribution to cause some of the lower accident rates. With the combination of the lower speed limit with the seatbelt legislation and with more determination on the part of government to improve our highways where we find they are unsafe -- and we should have statistics to show the accident rates on them -- and by weeding out the drivers now on our roads that shouldn’t be driving, I think we can certainly cut down on the death rate and the accident rate on our highways.

Mr. Grossman: I wanted to rise on this issue for three reasons really. Firstly, there has been substantial talk about how this legislation affects our personal freedoms. Secondly, my family is one of those most typically affected by this type of legislation so I can speak from first-hand knowledge as to the direct effect it will have. Thirdly, among very many of the voters in my riding and across this city at least, there is some evidence that the legislation will be unpopular.

Dealing with the last first, the fact that the legislation is unpopular is no reason why this House should decide to withdraw from such progressive steps. The unpopularity is not so much real as apparent. As is the case with very many issues, those who get on the phone, those who send telegrams, those who send communications, those who stop one on the street, are rarely those who are willing to accept the legislation -- indeed who willingly and happily accept it -- but are those who resent the intrusion into their private little automobile.

It really is without reason. It’s one of those things that those people affected feel a real interference with their lives, when in fact they should be just as upset when their lives are being interfered with due to inflation -- indeed due to strikes. Yet it is something like this, something that they feel every time they get into their car, that causes them to get on the phone and call their members. I hope the members of this House will not interpret whatever telephone calls they’ve been getting as an indication that the majority of the public is against this legislation.

Notwithstanding that, even if that were the case, I suggest it would be incumbent upon us to act in this field. On dealing with the issue of personal freedoms and whether or not we should act in this type of field, we have not seen fit to act in the field where we have chosen to save the lives of people who want to die.

There are many people who have attempted murder-suicides -- and can successfully complete the murder aspect of it but fail on the suicide aspect of it -- and yet we exercise every possible effort, spend every possible nickel and dime we can, to save the lives of those who indeed don’t want to live. Why then should we hesitate to go into the field of saving the lives of people who want to live and who have not chosen to attempt to die? I talk now, of course, about the horrendous sensation I feel when I drive on the summer weekends up to the cottage, and one can see accidents almost every weekend. Almost any weekend one can see a doll or a toy in the median and a child on the road. I can’t believe that any member of the Legislature or the public who has ever witnessed one of those sights can suggest for one moment that there should be any second doubts about this legislation.

We haven’t concerned ourselves with rising costs on automobiles when it comes to installing safety factors. We haven’t even been concerned when we have been faced with excess dollars on purchase of automobiles for anti-pollution devices. The real health hazards requiring those anti-pollution devices, for example, have been established, but in terms of saving lives directly they can’t possibly come anywhere near the effect this legislation will have on saving lives. Yet we didn’t object when probably upwards of $1,000 was added on to car costs because of anti-pollution devices and because of other safety equipment. Yet we object when we are not asked to pay any more, but we are only told to do up seatbelts.

Let me say that I and my family are a typical reason why this legislation is necessary. To be honest, after having witnessed those horrendous scenes on Highway 11 weekend after weekend, I am still one of those persons who will not take the extra effort to do up my seatbelt.

Mr. Deans: That was hardly a lasting impression.

Mr. Grossman: Likewise, my wife -- and she is the one who will suffer the brunt of this legislation in our family in any event -- will now be faced with having to buckle up, in the front and back seats of our car, three children, two, three and four years old. She has been cursing me for several days now, because when the legislation was announced I suggested to her that it was now incumbent upon her to begin to obey the spirit of the legislation and she’s been buckling up three kids as well as herself since then. Indeed I’ve been doing the same.

[9:45]

I should at least report to the Legislature my own experiences, in that I do it almost automatically now. I don’t feel it’s a great intrusion on my life. It’s not too darned comfortable, but I can live with it; and I will live with it instead of dying without it.

I’m ashamed to say to this House that, in spite of the advertising programmes, in spite of the clear facts; I’ve not only continued to permit myself to drive without those seatbelts, but ashamedly have permitted my children to do so as well, for which I cannot forgive myself.

But over the last few weeks particularly I’ve taken the time to read the facts on seatbelt legislation. And having read that, I must say that it’s only in the last several days that I’ve begun to force my family to do the same -- for which there is no excuse; for which there is no apology that will be sufficient, except that we’ve been fortunate enough to stay accident-free, which is not easy to do on Highway 11.

Mr. Speaker, I hold myself up as a bad but accurate example to this House, of the type of person who needs this type of legislation. I’m sorry to report that, but I must say that I’ll be happy to vote for the legislation. It’s badly needed and it may well result, together with the reduced speed limits, in a time when I can travel to the cottage and other places in this province without almost regularly seeing those horrendous scenes of limbs and bodies scattered across medians and highways.

Interjections.

Mr. Grossman: If you’ve driven up Highway 11 --

Mr. Bain: We have and we’ve watched the lousy drivers from the south.

Mr. Grossman: That’s quite true, but I’ll be happy if I’m at least safe in the knowledge that if one of those bad drivers from the south, as the member puts it --

Mr. Deans: Why didn’t you buckle up before?

Mr. Grossman: If one of those bad drivers from the south crosses the median and hits my car, completely beyond my control, at least I’ll know my children are buckled up in the back seat of the car. Indeed, that’s quite an important step.

Considering the freedoms that are relinquished, I suggest to you that the fact that this legislation affects someone each and every day as they get in their cars, should not be overrated; indeed one should not underrate and underestimate the saving in lives.

It is with some relief that I can support this legislation and I can assure the House that I, like others, will not hope that I will avoid getting caught; I will indeed abide by the legislation and be thankful for it.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, I rise mainly because of the questions which you addressed to me in the caucus of our party this afternoon when we discussed this bill to decide what the position of the party would be and we agreed to support the bill in the principle of the bill; all of us with varying degrees of reservation, which I think are shared by many members throughout the assembly.

I regret very much that my friend the member for Eglinton, the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry), is not here tonight, because this bill touches, of course, upon the question of civil liability as well as the question of infractions of the Highway Traffic Act and minor monetary fines which may be imposed for a breach of these provisions.

I think it is fair to say that we all understand that the bill attempts to deal with something called human life and injuries to human beings, and monetary damage and other losses which may be suffered as a result of something called the failure to wear seatbelts.

My concern, of course, is that the mere infraction of the Highway Traffic Act has all sorts of gradations within its frame. This, as I understand it, will fall within the general penal provision which provides a minimum and a maximum penalty for the failure to observe the provisions of the Act.

I need not elaborate this theme; I’m sure the minister is quite aware of the difficulty which is involved in the enforcement of any such law as this, and I’m not going to argue that particular aspect of it. But I want to tell the minister, and I want to say to the government, what was expressed in the caucus of our party: that you cannot always make progress simply by piecemeal legislation when it happens to suit the government for its purposes to implement -- that there must be a much more considered approach to the problem.

Everyone knows that in the case of an accident upon the highway -- involving death, personal injury or property damage -- that in all likelihood the greatest monetary problem that’s going to arise is in the civil losses which will follow.

I express my reservation to my colleague, the member for Sarnia (Mr. Bullbrook), and to any other of the lawyers who were in the assembly, that I do not profess for a moment to practice at the negligence bar of the Province of Ontario, and I’m not an expert in that field. I have a limited knowledge about it. But I did take the trouble to look at what I believe to be the four latest cases that were available to me about the confusion which exists within the courts in Ontario, in Canada, and in the United Kingdom on the question of whether or not the failure to wear a seatbelt is or is not a factor to be considered in determining whether or not the person who has omitted to wear the seatbelt is guilty or liable for the contributory negligence, or unable to collect additional damages because of the contributory negligence of failing to wear the seatbelt.

I want only very briefly to read into the record, if I may, the four headnotes. I don’t intend to make any extended comment about them. I think the four head notes to these four cases illustrate the confusion in the courts and the difficulty which exists in the area of civil liability.

I draw again to the minister’s attention that it is the Highway Traffic Act which imposes the vicarious liability on the owner of a motor vehicle for acts done by the driver of that vehicle driving with his consent. I recognize that there are provisions to relieve that responsibility in this particular bill, but the Highway Traffic Act touches upon two areas: the civil negligence aspects of motor vehicle travel and the offence nature of motor vehicle accident travel, and the offences which are prescribed by the Highway Traffic Act as being liable to punishment.

The first case I want to refer to is one in our courts where Mr. Justice Osler, in a decision made in September, 1971, in the case of Jackson and Millar, dealing with what could be called a joyride by two boys, one of whom had borrowed his father’s car with permission. The passenger in the front seat of the car was injured, and Mr. Justice Osler went into this question of negligence with respect to the wearing of a seatbelt at some length because he didn’t know whether the case would go to a higher court. To my knowledge it has not gone to a higher court. The head note simply says:

“Where the injury to the plaintiff passenger results from being thrown out of the vehicle while it is spinning and coming in contact with the pavement, and where he was not wearing a seatbelt, the availability of which he was aware, but instead was leaning against the door of the vehicle in a slouched position, he should be found 10 per cent to blame for his own injuries.”

That was in 1971 in the High Court of Justice in Ontario.

In England, in February, 1973, again the decision of a particular single judge, the case of Pasternak vs. Poulton:

“The plaintiff was given a lift by the defendant in his car late at night after a party. The plaintiff did not know the defendant well, although she had been a passenger in the rear seat of the car earlier in the evening. The car was fitted with seatbelts. The plaintiff got into the front passenger seat. The defendant, who was driving, did not wear a seatbelt himself nor did he tell the plaintiff that there was a seatbelt for her. In consequence, she did not put the seatbelt on nor did she take steps to find out whether there was one to put on. As a result of the defendant’s negligent driving the car collided with a lamp post, the windscreen was shattered and the plaintiff suffered severe injuries to her face.

“In an action by the plaintiff for negligence, the defendant alleged that she had been guilty of contributory negligence by failing to wear the seatbelt. At the trial, expert evidence was given that a statistical examination of car accidents had shown that the risk of injury was substantially reduced if a seatbelt was worn. The plaintiff did not own a car herself but was familiar with the use of seatbelts, and stated in evidence that she would, as a matter of general practice, wear a seatbelt if she saw the driver wearing such a belt, but stressed that in a strange car she thought one had to be told how to use them.

“It was held by that judge that the plaintiff ought reasonably to have foreseen the possibility of the car being involved in an accident and of her suffering injury as a result. She could easily have found out whether the car had seatbelts and therefore ought to have known that a seatbelt was available. On the evidence, and in view of the fact that at the date of the accident it was generally accepted by road users a sensible practice for the occupants of cars to wear seatbelts, the plaintiff, acting reasonably, ought to have foreseen the possibility that by wearing a seatbelt she would suffer no, or certainly less, injury if the car were involved in an accident.

“It followed that she had been guilty of contributory negligence in failing to do so. The failure of the plaintiff to wear a seatbelt had caused or materially contributed to the injuries she had suffered. The defendant, however, had been negligent not only in the manner in which he had driven and controlled the car, but also in his failure either to demonstrate the need to wear a safety belt by wearing one himself, or by at least pointing out the existence of the seatbelt and explaining that it was for her use. In all the circumstance, the plaintiff bore only a very small share of the blame for her injuries which would be assessed at five per cent.”

The third case is quite simple. It took place in Nova Scotia, and it was held, in the case of Beaver vs. Crow in May, 1974, that:

“The failure by the driver and the passenger in a motor vehicle to use available seatbelts amounts to contributory negligence if it results in an injury that would not otherwise have occurred or would not otherwise have been as severe. The burden of proving the causal connection between plaintiff’s failure to use seatbelts and plaintiff’s injuries is on the defendant. The driver of the vehicle is not, however, negligent in failing to advise the passenger to use the seatbelt.”

Hon. members can readily see that the judge in that court failed to follow the previous case to which I have referred.

The latest case which I know of is another case in England. In the case of Froom and Others vs. Butcher, decided in June, 1974, and reported this year:

“The plaintiff was driving a car when he collided with another car driven by the defendant. The collision was caused by the defendant’s negligence. At the time of the accident, the plaintiff was not wearing the seatbelt which was fitted to the driver’s seat of his car because he did not like to do so, and because he had seen many accidents and had known of cases where drivers were not able to get out of their vehicle when a crash occurred. The plaintiff’s injuries in consequence of the collision were more severe than they would have been if he had been wearing a seatbelt.

“In an action by the plaintiff for damages, the defendant contended that the plaintiff had been guilty of contributory negligence in failing to wear a seatbelt and that his damages should be reduced accordingly. It was held in that case that it was open to the court to take note of the controversy between those who recommended the use of seatbelts and those who did not.

[10:00]

“Although the dominant view was that belts should be worn, there were clearly two bodies of opinion among sensible people. It could not, therefore, be said that a person who, acting on an opinion firmly and honestly held and shared by many other sensible people, chose to drive without a seatbelt was guilty of negligence in the sense that he was doing something that no reasonable person would do. The plaintiff had not, therefore, been guilty of contributory negligence.”

Whether the quotations which I have used from the headnotes of those cases in themselves will illustrate for the House the confusion which exists in the courts with respect to the question of whether the wearing or not wearing of a seatbelt constitutes contributory negligence I believe it is of the essence of the kind of legislation which is in front of us this evening.

I say to the minister, it is not possible by a mere amendment of the Highway Traffic Act, on the basis of the information which is available to him, to suggest that this is the answer to the problem of whether or not seatbelts are a safety measure; it is based only upon statistical information.

As everyone knows, regardless of the emotional feelings of members who have spoken about the issue, in any individual case -- which is not a statistic for statistical purposes -- it may very well be that the wearing of the seatbelts causes injuries which would otherwise not have been caused. Let us not suggest for one single moment that some statistical weight of evidence from other jurisdictions of necessity makes this a bill which we should all pass with maximum unanimity and with a feeling that we have made a great contribution to safety upon the highways. That is not so.

What we are saying in this assembly -- and I take it to be the sense of the assembly that the bill will pass -- is two or three things, some of which I discount. The first one is it is now fashionable to be concerned about deaths and injuries and the cost of deaths and injuries and property damage on the highway. Where those fashions come from, everyone knows. They come out of the ether. Sometimes they are important and at other times they are not important. I dismiss the fashionable argument as being of no significance.

The second element which has been introduced is statistical information from other jurisdictions about which we, in this assembly, know very little. Every time we endeavour to introduce statistical information, for example, on the question of a government-operated insurance scheme, we are told there is no comparison which can be made between driving conditions in Manitoba, driving conditions in Saskatchewan or driving conditions in British Columbia. Therefore we cannot transfer the experience in those jurisdictions to the experience here. Now we are told that because of the experience in Australia and because of certain other information, without any in-depth study that I know of, we must therefore accept as conclusive the statistical evidence available.

I consider that also to be a specious argument. I think it is of some probative value in some instances but I certainly don’t think it is conclusive or, that in any given individual car accident which may occur, it is going to be of any assistance to the person who is unable to get out of the seat of the car because he is wearing a seatbelt.

I do, however, believe that it is possible now for this government to devise a scheme of overall conclusive safety features for highway driving of which the wearing of seatbelts may be one aspect. It may very well be that such a safety code could be devised which, by its cumulative effect, would reduce deaths upon the highway, personal injuries on the highway and property damage on the highway, and might even incidentally, so long as there is a private car insurance scheme in the Province of Ontario, reduce the premiums that people pay for that insurance.

But let us be realistic about what the bill is about. Let us not kid ourselves that it is a bill which is dictated by some kind of an emotional response. I am inclined to think that I will do what most people do. I will probably wear a seatbelt more often than I would have done before, I may even think about wearing it continuously; but there will obviously be occasions when I get into a car and don’t wear one, just as the minister will get into a car and not wear one.

I am saying to the minister let’s always be realistic about our legislation; let’s not think that this particular amendment to the Highway Traffic Act, at this particular point in time in the Province of Ontario, is anything but another element in an unending search for something called safe driving upon the highways. I am inclined to believe, and I perhaps drive more carefully than I did at one time, that in fact if people obeyed most of the rules and regulations which are prescribed under the Highway Traffic Act of the Province of Ontario, in all of their aspects with respect to driving, that in fact there would be significantly fewer accidents.

I am not absolutely certain that the contribution of this particular bill will of necessity, by itself, do anything other than perhaps influence to a small degree the number of deaths and serious injuries which do occur from time to time because of motor vehicular traffic. But I do think that this minister should be able to extract from the current atmosphere of concern about traffic on the highways, the need for a comprehensive educational programme -- backed up by laws and regulations, backed up by adequate safety inspections, backed up by any number of other areas of concern about safety about which I am not knowledgeable -- to make certain there is such a code that will reduce the accident toll on our highways.

I would trust that his friend the Attorney General or the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Handleman) will, during the course of their ruminations about what should be done about the law of the Province of Ontario, look at the state of the civil law, as I have tried to expound it from these four cases, and realize that the passage of this bill does not solve in any way the confusion which exists now, and will continue to exist, in the civil cases which arise in the courts as a result of negligence on the highways.

Let’s be reasonable; let’s simply say that on balance, at this particular point in time, we consider this is a positive step. But only on balance, that there must be an ongoing method by which you monitor what happens on the highway and that we not annually be presented with this statistical information, which is always horrendous, without some explanatory information as to what conclusions the ministry draws from those statistics to see whether or not we can’t, step by step, perhaps at this point in time and within the life of this particular Parliament, fashion a code of safety for transportation on the highway which will be a model rather than to engage in a self-congratulatory step by the government, by suggesting that this bill is in any way other than another minor step toward that goal which we all would hope could be achieved.

Mr. Haggerty: I rise to support the principle of Bill 27, an Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act, but with some reservations. The amendment basically requires the use of seatbelts in motor vehicles being driven on our highways. I can recall the Throne Speech debate of 1974 had indicated the government was to introduce legislation to make seatbelts mandatory.

Quoting from my own speech at that time, I said:

“The question of mandatory use of seatbelts has not been well received by Ontario motorists. The old saying speed kills, promoted by safety crusaders, is well substantiated by the recent drop in traffic fatalities in the United States. Speed limits were reduced as a fuel-saving measure in the oil crisis that hit the United States and there was a noticeable decrease in the total number of accidents. The government of Ontario should give consideration to reducing the speed limits on our highways in Ontario.”

The government is proposing changes in the Act to reduce the speed limits on our highways to 55 mph. I can accept this change. I think it’s a good programme to reduce the speed limits to 55 mph.

Hon. Mr. Snow: It’s not 55.

Mr. B. Newman: It’s 60 and 50.

Mr. Haggerty: Then perhaps it should be 55 mph to keep it consistent with drivers in our neighbouring province and the United States. I happen to represent an area that is close to the American border and perhaps 55 mph would be more appropriate.

Mr. Samis: Down east it is 70 mph across the border.

Mr. Haggerty: They fly down there, don’t they?

Mr. Samis: They move fast down there.

Mr. Haggerty: How many accidents do they have down there?

Mr. Samis: They are adventurous drivers.

Mr. Haggerty: The direction the government should be following is the prevention of automobile collisions before an injury occurs. Better design and safety on our highways are needed now.

The member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) mentioned too that improvements are required in highway design. I am sure the minister travels the Queen Elizabeth Way as much as I do and he knows some of the conditions that exist there today, particularly at night. Driving from Toronto to Fort Erie one notices oncoming traffic. The way the guideposts are in between the two sections of the highway and the continuous flickering of the lights of oncoming traffic are enough to drive somebody up the wall.

I don’t know if he has that problem or not, but it has been brought to my attention by many motorists that this does cause difficulties driving at night. I notice in the motor vehicle collision facts in 1974 that during the driving period between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. traffic accidents and injuries were about twice as much as in the morning period from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. Maybe this does have some bearing on the number of accidents in the evening, caused, perhaps, by improper headlights.

Maybe the design is not right. I notice in the vehicle I drive I can’t see far enough ahead of me to come to a complete stop, if I am driving at 60 mph, unless I have my bright lights on. I understand there are lights manufactured in Europe that provide additional safety because of their particular design. When you have your low-beam light on, it does not reflect into an oncoming car. What is the name of that?

Mr. B. Newman: Halogen.

Mr. Haggerty: I guess that’s the name of the bulb I am trying to think of. I don’t know if you’ve given any consideration to this type of improvement in driving conditions in Ontario.

[10:15]

Perhaps I could cite more. I can well recall when the Minister of Energy brought in a bill here, saying he was going to do this to conserve energy, I asked him to reduce the horsepower or the cubic displacement of the engines of cars. I don’t have to tell the minister that you can look out and see some of these sport cars, small as they are, that have about 450 cu in. engines in them. That is ridiculous. I think the minister should be given some directions in this regard to reduce the horsepower of engines in automobiles. If you’re going to reduce the speed, you don’t need that big an engine. Also, you’d be conserving gasoline and energy.

Mr. Speaker: Will the member get back to the principle of the bill, please?

Mr. Haggerty: The principle of the bill is to reduce accidents on our highways.

Hon. Mr. Welch: The principle of the bill is to buckle up.

Mr. Samis: It’s to make people wear seatbelts.

Mr. Speaker: The bill deals specifically with seatbelts.

Mr. Haggerty: Seatbelts; that’s right. All I’m saying is that I do have some reservations about the bill. I did support the legislation that brought in safety helmets for motorcyclists. Quoting again from “Motor Vehicle Collision Facts” -- and perhaps I should read it into the record:

“The number of motorcyclists killed and injured continued to increase in 1974, with the exception of motorcycle passengers killed, which decreased 18.8 per cent. While the number of motorcycle drivers killed increased 2.4 per cent, injuries to motorcycle drivers were up 24.3 per cent and injuries to motorcycle passengers increased 13.6 per cent.”

Hon. Mr. Snow: There are no seatbelts on motorcycles.

Mr. Samis: It’s helmets that are required on motorcycles.

Mr. Haggerty: But the point I raise is that I supported the bill for safety helmets, which this report indicates have not reduced the number of fatal injuries to persons driving motorcycles.

Mr. Speaker: I must remind the member that you’re not required to use seatbelts on motorcycles, nor helmets in cars.

Mr. Samis: The member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) is doing a great job in the Speaker’s chair.

Mr. Haggerty: I am glad the Speaker has listened to me, anyway, because the other speakers before me went all over the bill --

Mr. Ruston: Good point. Right on.

Mr. Samis: Mention seatbelts.

Mr. Haggerty: Mention seatbelts? I suppose I can come back to seatbelts. I don’t see any consideration in this bill about having a uniform type of seatbelt.

Mr. Samis: Hurray!

Mr. Haggerty: There’s nothing in here that says this. In particular, it has been brought to my attention that a person bought a 1974 car and both seatbelts wouldn’t buckle up; to get replacement clips he has to buy the whole complete unit, which amounts to about $170, whereas if a replacement kit was available, it would cost about $2 for a little plastic clip. I think that’s something the minister should give consideration to.

The other consideration, when we are talking about seatbelts is that many cars today have four seatbelts, and yet there are many cars that will carry three passengers in the front seat and three in the back seat. What do they do with the other two passengers for whom seatbelts are not made available? Has the minister given any consideration to that?

Hon. Mr. Snow: The number is in the bill.

An hon. Member: They don’t need them.

Mr. Haggerty: As one member says, they don’t need them. Perhaps they don’t.

The other matter I’m concerned about relates to school buses that are exempt under the bill. I feel that if there is any place that needs seatbelts, it is school buses, because many of them are a small type of a van that should have them in there. I feel that if anyone rode one of those school buses, they’d find you’re not in your seat half the time because the motion of the bus accelerating, stopping and going, almost puts that youngster out of the seat. I’ve been told that perhaps in a matter of a very few years there are going to be more youngsters who are going to have back problems because of this type of transportation. The minister’s squinting his eye. Perhaps he’ll see in future years that this is what’s going to take place.

Mr. Edighoffer: He is waking up.

Mr. Haggerty: I believe that seatbelts should be made mandatory in school buses.

The other matter concerning seatbelts is that there are persons driving motor vehicles who have difficulties with shoulder belts and find some discomfort with them. I think consideration should be given to maybe a whole new design for seatbelts, because I find that there is much discomfort with them. I do use seatbelts and I find that sometimes being tied to that seat for perhaps almost two hours of driving can cause some discomfort.

I think most of all that as we look at the motor vehicle collision facts in 1974 -- and the report has been discussed by a number of previous speakers -- that whether you have a seatbelt on or not, it is not going to reduce the number of collisions or accidents -- and I make reference to the problem of alcohol. I don’t think our present point system has been successful in the Province of Ontario. I think there should be some changes. Those persons who want to violate the law in that particular instance should be the ones who should be paying the shot.

There is nothing in the bill to indicate that if you are a good driver you’re going to have a reduced insurance premium. That raises another question when you talk about insurance. I’m just wondering this and concerned. If a person is not wearing his seatbelt, does his insurance become void?

I can’t get any direction from the minister. I don’t know whether he is asleep or not. Oh, he’s awake now. Is that what you’re nodding your head at me for, Mr. Speaker? To get his attention? All right.

But I think these are the things that should be done. I think there should be better highways designed for safety and better designs in automobiles for safety. I think these are the points that I want to raise. I do support the bill in principle, but as I said, with certain reservations. It is questionable whether the bill, with mandatory enforcement of seatbelts, is going to reduce the number of accidents -- and I think only time will tell.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Durham East.

Mr. Samis: The mobile member from the Oshawa region.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Durham East has the floor.

Mr. Moffatt: Mr. Speaker, I think every person in this House throughout the debate has given at least some support, and in some cases a great deal of support, to the idea that seatbelts in the event of a motor vehicle collision will significantly reduce the kind of injuries and fatalities and so on. I happen to support that particular idea.

In listening to the member for Yorkview (Mr. Young) -- in whom I have a great deal of faith and who has pursued this kind of legislation for a number of years -- I find it intriguing that in the legislation which has been pushed for by that particular member, as soon as we get a scrap from the table of the government which seems to go some way toward the solution of the problem of seatbelts, everybody assumes that the entire package of legislation is going to go the full way and the problems are going to be solved.

I’ve listened to members from the opposite side today talk about the great step forward of introducing mandatory seatbelts. Quite honestly, I don’t think that the bill does all of the things that it’s given credit for doing.

I hear people talk about the passive restraint systems in the same way as we used to hear the foes of seatbelts talk about seatbelts. There is the argument about, “You get caught in your car and drown; and you could burn to death.” Now air bags are being talked about in the same way.

I think that until we are ready in this province to deal with the system of protecting the occupants of automobiles by proper construction and proper safety measures we will not have achieved anything.

The interesting thing is that the programme which we had last year, the “Buckle up” publicity programme, has obviously worked, because the members in the back-benches obviously all looked at that booklet and they obviously have all read it and believe it, because the votes have now come together. If that’s success, then I guess that’s success.

Mr. Wildman: They’re still confessing they don’t do anything unless they’re forced to.

Mr. Moffatt: I don’t think half a law at any time really solves the problem. I happen to be one of the people who for a number of years has worn a seatbelt, and I don’t think that really solves the entire problem. What I’d like to see is the minister deal in an effective fashion with creating passive restraint legislation in this province. The problem, of course, is that the automobile manufacturers, who have constantly opposed seatbelts and now are opposing passive restraint systems --

Hon. Mr. Snow: Oh no, come on, where did you get that idea?

Mr. Swart: Believe him, he’s a spokesman for the automobile industry.

Mr. Moffatt: The automobile industry is now willing to go part way and accept the seatbelts as being a little bit of a problem but we’re willing to live with it. They’re certainly not willing to live with the idea of having similar dashboards in every particular automobile because the air bag has to fit. We are not willing to deal with the addition of a credenza attachment to the back seats or to the front seats. In every case where substantial experimental work has been done -- at Cornell, at UCLA, and in Sweden and in Germany -- with regard to experimental cars, if you look carefully, Mr. Speaker, at any of those automobile experiments you won’t find seatbelts being used as the restraint system. That’s for an obvious reason, because if we wish to go to the position where we will have safety in an automobile we do not go the seatbelt route. It’s an interim measure at best. I really fail to see why such a great deal of credit is being given to this particular legislation. Once the Globe and Mail endorses legislation it obviously becomes acceptable, and I don’t particularly think that’s the best criterion.

I’d like to know what particular merit there is in not bringing along legislation at the same time which will affect school buses? What particular sense is there to say that in this province students in school will ride a bus for 14 years without seatbelts or some other restraint system? I don’t happen to think seatbelts work in school buses. It has to be a passive restraint system; there is no other effective way. If you are going to play games with students for 14 years and then expect them to become seatbelt wearers I suggest that is folly, because it just will not happen. We cannot educate people in that fashion. Do you wish me to adjourn?

Mr. Speaker: If this is a convenient place for you to break.

Mr. Moffatt: One place is as convenient as the other.

Mr. Moffatt moved the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, before moving the adjournment of the House, tomorrow the House does not sit but there will be ample committee work.

On Thursday, we will go into committee of supply to consider the estimates of the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) to be followed by those of the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Irvine).

Hon. Mr. Welch moved the adjournment of the House.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.