A reasonable person might assume that any piece of legislation that could draw the support of a coalition of public safety and health care agencies that included a state’s Department of Safety, Department of Transportation, Hospital Association, Emergency Nurses Association, Brain Injury Association, Medical Society, Association of Fire Chiefs, and Association of Chiefs of Police would be approved before the sponsoring legislator could even finish reading it.

Now, I’m not saying there are no reasonable people in New Hampshire.

But I am saying that in April, the New Hampshire State House approved a bill, by a 153-140 vote, to make the Granite State the last in the union to adopt a mandatory seat-belt law for adults, and that last month, by a 16-8 vote, the State Senate killed it.

And while seat-belt legislation might strike some in the other 49 states as obvious, the bicameral brouhaha in Concord underscores the deep philosophical undercurrents in the debate.

Proponents of the now-dead bill argued in favor of pragmatism, emphasizing the life- and cost-saving potential of such a law, which, according to a coalition of lawmakers, public health officials, and law-enforcement leaders called Seat Belts For All, “could result in 10 fewer deaths, cut the number of serious injuries by 213 and reduce related costs by about $48.6 million each year.”

But the reason New Hampshire has remained the last state without a seat-belt law for more than a decade (second-to-last holdout Maine passed their law in 1995) has nothing to do with the effectiveness of seat belts, and everything to do with allegiance to a mindset:

Live Free or Die.

The state motto, emblazoned on New Hampshire license plates and highway signs, comes from Revolutionary War General John Stark, who, unable to attend an 1809 anniversary reunion of the Battle of Bennington due to poor health, sent his toast in a letter: “Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.”

Adopted in 1945, “Live Free or Die” has since become a point of pride and identification across the Granite State.

In the case of the seat belt law, it’s become a point of justification, for legislators and citizens alike.

“It’s none of the government’s business what I do in my car,” said Senator Robert Letourneau, transportation committee chairman.  “The meaning behind our state motto, ‘Live Free or Die,’ is freedom.”

“To me, it says ‘Live Free or Die’ on the plates. It should be our right,” Concord resident Jason McMann, 29, told the Concord Monitor back in April, after the bill passed the House.

Candy Legault, 42, of Dunbarton, agreed with him.  “Our [license] plate says it all,” she said, adding that she chooses not to wear a seat belt.  “It’s uncomfortable.  When your time comes, your time comes.”

Which is true.  But Legault and other supposed freedom fighters fail to mention the impact your time coming tends to have on the freedoms of people who are not you.

Like the fact that according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s “Economic Impact of Crashes” study (http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/airbags/buckleplan/mayplanner2003/factsheet.html), the economic cost to society in 2000 was more than $977,000 for each crash fatality and an average of $1.1 million for each critically injured person; or that motor vehicle crashes in 2000 cost a total of $230.6 billion, an amount equal to 2.3 percent of the gross domestic product, or $820 for every person living in the United States; or that the general public pays nearly three-quarters of all crash costs, primarily through insurance premiums, taxes, delays and lost productivity.

While you’re absorbing those stats, add in one more:  “Of the 31,910 vehicle occupants killed in crashes in 2001,” the NHTSA reports, “60 percent were not wearing a safety belt.”  Go ahead.  Do the math.

Opponents brush off those numbers, and say this bill is just another attempt to turn New Hampshire into a “nanny state,” protecting its citizens from themselves.

“This is a bill that people are going to feel impacts their lives before they even get out of their own driveways,” said Representative Andy Peterson.

Actually, I’d argue that while you’re still in your driveway, you’re free to do whatever you want:  sit there unbuckled, drink yourself blind, or leave your turn signal on ‘til the bulb burns out.

And for that matter, if you own your own road, you should be free to do what you like there, too, even if it means you do die.

But driving your car on public roads isn’t a right, it’s a privilege.  No matter what state you live in, you’re not entitled to do whatever you like on the streets and highways, because they’re paid for with public funds, and shared with people whose safety is as valuable as yours.  That’s why the freedom to drive 90 is already restricted in New Hampshire, as is the freedom to drive a motor vehicle without annually submitting to a motor vehicle inspection.  At least until the movement to overturn those laws gains momentum.

“I happen to be proud of the fact that here in New Hampshire we make our own decisions,” said Senator Robert E. Clegg, but it seems awfully selfish and arrogant to make irresponsible decisions that can affect countless others in your family, your community, and your workplace – none of whom get to say whether you buckle up.

And while no law guarantees anything, the NHTSA reports that in 2003, the most recent year for which statistics are available, New Hampshire ranked last among the states in seat-belt usage at 49.6 percent, while the usage rate in states requiring seat belt use was about 79 percent.

Look, I’m not suggesting getting rid of the motto.  It represents the state’s legacy and history, and it looks great on the license plate.  But it’s a motto, not an infallible tool for decision making.

Also featured prominently on the New Hampshire license plate is the Old Man of the Mountain, the stone profile that, as former Governor Craig Benson said, “stood for centuries as a testament to the steadfastness of New Hampshire's Yankee character and the resolve of its people.”

He used the past tense because in 2003, the Old Man fell.  So while the Old Man still stands as a symbol of those things, he’s now doing it a bit more metaphorically.

Which is to say, even he wasn’t set in stone.