John R. Neal

*1 Attorney General Jim Hood has received your request and has assigned it to me for research and reply. Your question relates to the 2017 amended seatbelt statute, Section 63-2-1 of the Mississippi Code.

*1 The statute, prior to the 2017 amendment, provided in relevant part:

*1 Miss. Code Ann. Section 63-2-1 (effective as of July 1, 2015)

*1 The amended section effective July 1, 2017 provides, in relevant part:

*1 Your question is “[d]oes the new seatbelt law apply to people riding in the back of a pickup truck, flatbed truck, or any such vehicle.”¹

*1 It is the opinion of this office that the new law was not intended to and therefore, does not apply to people riding in the back of a pickup truck or flatbed truck (collectively referred to hereinafter as “pickup truck.”)

*1 As noted above, Section 63-2-1 requires every operator and every passenger to wear a “properly fastened safety seat belt system, required to be installed in the vehicle when manufactured pursuant to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208.” Standard 208 makes a distinction between the passenger areas of a vehicle and cargo areas. The requirements speak of seatbelt systems installed “IN” the vehicle. The bed of a pickup truck is a cargo area and has no seats to which a “seat belt system” could be attached. Likewise, Standard 208 does not require seat belt systems to be installed in the cargo area or bed of a pickup truck. For this reason, it is the opinion of this office that people riding in the back of a pickup truck are not within the contemplation of and therefore not governed by Section 63-2-1.

*2 We believe that the actual changes made in the statutory language support this interpretation. The operative amendment was simply to change the applicability of the statute from “every front-seat passenger” to “every passenger.” Clearly the statute as it previously existed drew a distinction between “front-seat” passengers and those in back-row seats. In making a change by simply deleting “front-seat” as a modifier to passenger, we believe it was the intention² of the Legislature to include those passengers in back-row seating which have seat belt systems that were required to be installed at the time of manufacture.³ The law is named “Harlie's Law” after Harlie Oswalt who, according to various news sources, died in an accident last year while riding in the back seat of a vehicle and not wearing a seat belt.

*2 As of July 2018 there were 30 states that have addressed the issue of passengers riding in cargo areas. See Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Highway Loss Data Institute, Pickup Trucks; Restrictions on riding in cargo areas (July 2017). Generally speaking the states that have done so, have provisions that are geared toward the protection of children and minors. Moreover, when writing such laws, the language is unequivocal in its application to cargo/bed areas of trucks. For example, the Florida statute provides:

*2 Fla. Stat. Ann. Section 316.2015 (West)(emphasis added); see also, Ga. Code Ann. Section 40-8-79 (West)(“It shall be unlawful for any person under the age of 18 to ride as a passenger in the uncovered bed of a pickup truck on any interstate highway in this state.”) Additionally, most states have exceptions to the prohibition against riding in the cargo/bed area that range from age of the passenger, agricultural use, parades⁴ and hunting. If this office were to interpret the changes to Section 63-2-1 to apply to cargo/bed areas of pickup trucks, there would be no exceptions⁵ such as are included in virtually every other state law on the subject. Mississippi would have one of, if not, the most stringent laws in the nation on riding in pickup trucks. We do not believe this was the intention of the Legislature, and therefore, our opinion is that Section 63-2-1 does not address use of cargo areas which do not contain installed seat belts.

*2 If this office can be of further assistance, please contact us.