HELENA -- Law enforcement officers should be able to stop a vehicle if its occupants aren't properly restrained by seat belts or child safety seats, a Helena lawmaker said Thursday.

State law allows police to write tickets for not wearing seat belts or failing to properly restrain children, but only after stopping the driver for another infraction.

Senate President Mike Cooney, D-Helena, and several proponents told the Senate Judiciary Committee that changing the law was an easy way to save lives.

In 2005, about 75 percent of those killed in car accidents were not wearing seat belts, according to the Montana Department of Transportation.

The department's head, Jim Lynch, said the new law would increase the number of Montanans who used seat belts from 80 percent to 90 percent. The increase, he added, would save 20 lives and about $113 million a year.

Attorney General Mike McGrath also urged the committee to consider the economic costs the state bears when people don't wear seat belts. He said injuries that could have been prevented by wearing a seat belt drive up health care costs and decrease the economy's productivity.

"Facts are, seat belts save lives; primary seat belt laws save money," McGrath said.

The bill drew broad support from a wide range of supporters, including representatives of law enforcement, auto manufacturers and insurance companies. Some proponents told the committee that seat belts had saved their own lives or child restraints had saved their child's life.

A few opponents of the bill said the current law works fine and the state doesn't need to give the police another reason to pull a car over. And they said it was nearly impossible to accurately see if someone was wearing a seat belt in a moving car.

Similar concerns killed a comparable bill last session. American Indian representatives said the measure would lead to more racial profiling of their constituents by police.

After the hearing,. Cooney said he had already secured support for the bill from some Indian lawmakers and hoped to convince others that the bill had nothing to do with racial profiling, but was only about saving lives.

Cooney's bill is SB 300.