A note from a nagger

The Montana Highway Patrol last week issued their annual traffic fatality report for 2011. Don't have it in front of my but recall rough figures hard to understand: "Seventy five (75) percent of victims last year were not wearing seat belts. Of 19 December fatals, 17 were not belted."

Certainly, user percentages have gotten better since first efforts to educate the public were started decades ago and rose to over 50 percent by 1991. What is so difficult to understand is our inability to reach that last stubborn percentage of risk-taking drivers. Following is my report from 27 years ago, 1984:

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This past week brought a shocking revelation. I was the banquet speaker for a Joint International Convention of motor vehicle administrators, troopers and police chiefs. Also helped judge traffic safety programs presented by several states.

Montana's entry in the competition was a "Buckle Up for Safety" drive in Helena District. It was a well-run and hard-hitting campaign lasting one whole year, using thousands of personal contacts as well as media ads, posters, signs, plus prizes for cooperating citizens.

Here is the part that shocked me out of my skivvies. (A) When the campaign started, 4.3 percent of the people there used seat belts, and (B) after one year of intense publicity, only 21 percent were using the life-saving devices.

Is this the way it is all over Montana? Is this the way it is across the nation? Just four or five percent of the people using seat belts? I naively thought most of us did.

Had any of you followed my tracks these last 25 years covering news for the Missoulian, Kalispell News and KOFI, you'd have seen more blood, death and suffering than imaginable. We are talking here about crippling, killing, screaming, grinding vehicle crashes, and I recall all too clearly the major circumstances of most.

I don't care if your Uncle Bill tells about the wreck he was in back in '75 and survived because his belt wasn't fastened. He is either rationalizing or is that lucky one in a thousand.

I speak from experience very few people have: "Your chance of being zapped outright or mortally injured is greatly enhanced by sitting on your seat belt." Not being perfect, I'll admit to driving in towns like ours without being buckled a few times, even though I recall several in-town fatalities which would have been prevented with a restraint. Have lost track of the ones beyond the city limits because that is where speed and odds drastically climb.

Consider another example: "Pilots, crew or passengers never leave the ground or land in an aircraft without being buckled." NOBODY! It is not macho to fly unbuckled. It is stupid. Same goes on the ground. I've knowledge of a few plane wrecks that did not involve as much speed or smashing as some car wrecks.

It isn't enough to just wear seat belts yourself. Use whatever persuasion it takes to get others into the habit. If you ride with me, my car has an attachment which won't allow it to start until everyone is buckled up. That attachment is me. I've left little notes in my kids' cars reminding them to wear their seat belts. I think everyone should do things like that ... for people they love.

That's why I wrote this column.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist. He lives in Kalispell.