Seat Belts Give Hugs

This is National Child Passenger Safety Week.  Typically, the focus is on ensuring that infants and children – our most vulnerable motor vehicle occupants – are properly restrained in car and booster seats. While certified child passenger safety technicians are educating the parents, grandparents and caregivers of young children at free seat check events in New Jersey and nationwide (be sure to check out what’s happening inyour community this week and particularly on September 24, National Seat Check Saturday), I’m calling on the parents of teens and young adults to engage them in an ongoing conversation about seat belts.

Despite being a generation that has grown up with car and booster seats, today’s teens and young adults aren’t leading the way when it comes to buckling up.  A recent statewide survey conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll and the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety found that 83 percent of young drivers report always wearing their seat belts, down 8 points since last
year.  Young people are also less likely to use their seat belts when riding as passengers in motor vehicles.  They are 11 percent less likely than other drivers to always buckle up in the front seat, and 11 percent less likely to say they do so when seated in the back, with only 79 percent and 40 percent of drivers under 30 saying that they always do so, respectively.

This is troubling since the number one killer of teens and young adults is car crashes.  Teens, in particular, should be embracing the lifesaving benefits of seat belts (they reduce the chance of serious injury and death in the event of a motor vehicle crash by as much as 75 percent) since mile for mile they’re involved in three times as many fatal crashes as all other drivers.

So what’s a parent to do?  Be a positive role model, by always buckling up regardless of where you’re seated in the vehicle, and talk to your teen and/or young adult about their seat belt habits.  In fact, be adamant about belt use, reminding them that when it comes to their safety – and in particular seat belts – you’re not willing to compromise. This “authoritative” parenting style, according to research conducted by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, does work.  Teens who report having parents who set rules and monitor their activities in a helpful, supportive way are 50 percent more likely to buckle up.  (They’re also half as likely to crash, 71 percent less likely to drive intoxicated and 30 percent less likely to use a cell phone when driving.)  And that’s critical since there were 49,000 teen-related crashes in New Jersey last year.

While serving as Director of the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety, I received a letter from the mother of a teen driver encouraging the state to adopt the theme, “seat belts give hugs,” to promote teen belt use.  The mom wrote that her son was lax about buckling up, but learned the error of his ways when he was involved in a motor vehicle crash that, fortunately, did not result in serious injury.  Shaken up by the experience, the young man told his mom he needed a hug.  She obliged and while holding him tight, said “seat belts give hugs, too.”  He smiled and said, “yes, mom, now I get it.”

As the mother of a son (my only child), I couldn’t help but be touched by her story.  As a safety advocate and certified child passenger safety technician, who knows how effective seat belts (and car seats) are in the event of a crash, I loved her analogy.  When a crash occurs, a seat belt is engineered to sense what is happening.  It retracts or hugs the occupant so that he not only stays in the seat,
but has a significantly improved chance of walking away unscathed from what truly is a violent event.  That’s because the seat belt helps spread the forces of the crash over the strongest parts of the body (across the chest and pelvis) thereby minimizing trauma.  Consider this – in a crash at 30 mph, an adult backseat passenger without a seat belt is thrown forward with the force of three and a half tons, the weight of an elephant charging straight through at the driver.  The unbelted passenger literally becomes a bullet, injuring and killing not only him, but others in the vehicle.

So the next time your child (let’s face it, regardless of whether they’re 17, 27 or 47, they’ll always be our children) heads out the door with car keys in hand (or is being picked up by a friend), give him a hug and remind him that seat belts give hugs, too.  Talk about seat belts and be adamant about their use so that you and your child enjoy a lifetime of hugs.