They just want to save lives - seat belts

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

All they want is to get their message to the public.

A cop called to the scene of a fatal car crash, who has to knock at yet another door and tell one more mother, father, husband, wife, that their loved one is dead, doesn't want to do this anymore, wouldn't have to do this with such frequency, if only people would wear seat belts.

His message is this: People don't have to die in car crashes. People don't have to be seriously injured.

An emergency room nurse who, every night, hooks up intravenous and checks for vital signs and attends to those injured in car crashes and pulls the sheet up over many who didn't have to die, who wouldn't have died if they had been wearing seat belts, has the same message: Buckle up. Seat belts save lives.

Police and public health officials from six New England states gathered at the Cambridge Hyatt this weekto figure out how to spread this message. They want the public to know what they know, see what they see, realize what they deal with every day.

How can we educate people, they asked the media and one another. They came with public service announcements, press releases, statistics. They came promoting their "Buckle Up - Avoid the Summertime Blues" slogan and "Buckle Up America! Week," which is this week.

All to promote seat belt use; all to reduce traffic deaths and injuries.

It's a tough sell because seat belt use is not a hot subject. Since Massachusetts voters defeated the mandatory seat belt law in '86, the issue has been abandoned. Politics, gang wars, murder and violence - these are the things that consume us now.

And yet, consider this:

A murder is committed every 22 minutes in this country.

But someone is killed in a car crash every 14 minutes.

An aggravated assault takes place every 30 seconds.

But someone is injured in car crash every 11 seconds.

Violent crimes cost the U.S. more than $14 billion a year.

But traffic crashes cost us more than $74 billion a year.

"We have accepted 130 people getting killed on the highway every day," a person says and no one disagrees. It's a grim truth that elicits no reply.

A woman suggests that we use different words when we write and speak. Say car crash, not car accident. An accident is a surprise, she says. It isn't a surprise when someone who is not wearing a seat belt is critically injured or killed. It's an inevitability.

You've got to start with the children, a police officer declares. If you teach children about the importance of safety belts, they will teach their parents. Education is the answer to seat belt use.

But not the only answer.

How often do you stop a man or woman for not buckling up their children, a woman asks a police officer. As often as you stop someone for an expired registration?

The question goes unanswered. Though children under 12 are required by law to wear seat belts, the law is seldom enforced.

Fact: Car crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans age 5 to 32.

Fact: In 1990, if every small child had been buckled into a safety seat, 500 deaths and 49,000 injuries would have been prevented.

Fact: In 1990, if every front seat occupant had buckled up, an estimated 15,275 human beings would not have died.

When did you begin wearing a seat belt, a man was asked? Five years ago, he said. He explained that one day he had buckled up, something he did occasionally, but his passenger had not, and a car rammed them. He suffered minor injuries. His passenger was hospitalized for months. From that day on he has always worn a seat belt.

Incredibly, many Americans don't see seat belts for what they are: life savers. These are the same people who would never think about crossing a street without looking both ways, or walking down steps in the dark. They carefully check for traffic because they know that if they don't they could be hit by a car; they always turn on a light because they realize that they could stumble down the stairs. They don't consider these actions infringements on their freedom.

Seat belts aren't infringements, either. They're safety devices, that's all, which in 1990 alone could have saved the lives of 15,000 people, if they had buckled up.