Republicans on a Senate committee put the brakes on Sen. Lois Court’s bill to make Colorado the 16th state with hands-free driving this week. Another failed bill before a Republican majority would have made failing to wear a seatbelt a primary offense that alone could get  a driver pulled over.

Senate Bill 49 on hands-free driving died in the State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on a 3-2 party-line vote. Court’s vote was joined by Sen. Steve Fenberg of Boulder, but Republican Sens. Owen Hill of Colorado Springs,  Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling and Vicki Marble of Fort Collins said no.

Court said it was common-sense public safety, especially given the hands-free technology of smartphones and vehicles. A law enforcement officer could determine what’s a legal stop, when a person could check their phone, she told Colorado Politics last week.

“Think of the lives we could save by voting yes today,” Court said to the committee before the committee voted down the seat-belt bill.

Hill is a motorcycle rider and said that though he supports public safety, it’s a philosophical question of personal liberty.

“The fundamental question is it government’s role to police people and to decide these decisions for them, or is it people’s job to police themselves and respect and love their neighbor,” Hill said.

“I feel this one goes too far for me. Both of (the bills) go too far in terms of replacing personal liberty with fines, fees, taxes and regulations.”

Senate Bill 53 would have given cops a greenlight to write tickets for those only failing to wear a seat belt got a red light on the same day before the same committee with the same party-line vote.

The committee heard testimony that the law could be abused by police to pull over people because someone appeared not to be wearing a seatbelt, and disproportionately it would be people with older cars, most often the poor.

Sonnenberg spoke about how seat belts have saved members of his family and how not wearing one as an 18-year-old nearly cost him his life. And as much as he has preached to his kids and others about the necessity of buckling up, he didn’t see how toughening the law and writing more tickets would knock a dent in the problem.

“It’s already illegal,” he said. “I don’t see how adding (the bill) saves any more lives.”