Buckling up

Fastening seat belts not always the norm in rural areas

By Tom Smith
Alabama Times Daily, January 21, 2008

When Brett Martin worked for the Alabama Department of Public Safety, he knew where to look for people who were not wearing seat belts.

"The rural areas," said Martin, who now works for the Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office after spending 13 years as a state trooper. "There were places I could go and could write three to five 'no seat belt' citations within an hour.

"The state statistics show Alabama is between 75 and 85 percent in seat-belt compliance. But then you go to rural county roads, and compliance drops. Maybe 50 percent of those drivers are using seat belts," Martin said.

According to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Office, approximately 18 percent of the nation's driving population do not use seat belts. Of that 18 percent, a large portion is in rural areas.

In a study by the University of Minnesota Center for Rural Safety, which focused on 2005 data from the Federal Highway Administration, 57 percent of fatalities occurred on rural roads, even though only 21 percent of the nation's population is generally considered rural.

"Overall, in the U.S., seat belt use has increased, just not in rural areas," said Lee Munnich Jr., an instructor at the University of Minnesota who headed the research.

Munnich said fatalities, not just seat belt usage, was the focus of the study.

"Fatalities are twice as high in rural areas as urban areas, and you would think it would be the other way around," Munnich said. "The study did find there were more crashes in urban areas, but just not as many fatalities."

Ray Palermo, with Response Insurance, of Meriden, Conn., said statistics indicate 61 percent of passenger occupant deaths occur in rural areas.

"The reason for this is because people get in a comfort zone; they're familiar with the surroundings and they don't see the need to buckle up," Palermo said. "And you're more likely to see this kind of attitude in a more rural setting than in an urban setting."

Eddie Russell, director of the North Alabama Highway Safety Office in Tuscumbia, said drivers can settle into complacency on roads where there's not as much traffic, which can occur on rural roads.

"Your drivers, especially in rural areas, are not as alert to their surroundings because of that comfort zone," Russell said. "Drivers, driving in a more congested area, tend to be more alert to what's going on and be more attentive."

Heath Potter, a former agriculture extension agent in Lawrence County and now an insurance representative with Alfa, said when he was working with the extension office, he got into trucks with a lot of farmers to go look at crops and "they didn't buckle up. They never gave it a second thought."

Potter said for years it was a struggle to get his grandfather to wear a seat belt when he drove around their farm in the Flat Rock community of southwest Lawrence County.

"He felt he was familiar enough with the surroundings that he didn't need to worry about buckling up, and luckily he hasn't had a wreck," Potter said.

Potter said seat-belt use wasn't an issue when his grandfather was growing up.

"He grew up in a time where there weren't seat-belt laws or seat belts," Potter said. "For years, he had trucks on the farm that didn't have any seat belts in them."

Statistics from the National Highway Safety Office indicate that a high percentage of accidents with fatalities occur within three to five miles of a person's home.

"It's because we relax," Potter said. "I know better and have taught my sons better, but I'm the world's worst to think 'I've driven this road so much that I know it. I don't have to be looking at the road to make this turn.' And that's when the accident happens."

Munnich said the Minnesota study points to the benefits of using seat belts.

"Overall, our study showed that even though fatalities have been coming down and seat-belt use going up, that's not necessarily the case in rural areas of the country," Munnich said. "We found that most of that is due to human behavior."

So, if that's the case, how do you change human behavior?

"You have to have laws, policies and education," Munnich said. "Education is great, but enforcement is essential also."

Munnich said some improvement has been made with more states having primary seat-belt laws.

With primary seat-belt laws, law enforcement can stop a driver for not having a seat belt. Some states still have secondary laws, which gives law enforcement authority to write seat-belt violation citations only if the driver has been stopped for another infraction.

"The key is to instill using seat belts into future drivers at a young age," Palermo said. "You want it to be a part of the normal routine when you get in a car. You sit down and then buckle up."

Martin said in his 13 years as a state trooper and 14 years in emergency medical services, he can count on one hand the number of wrecks where a person was killed while wearing a seat belt.

"I been on horrible wrecks, where it looked like there were no survivors, but because the individuals were wearing seat belts, they walked away," Martin said. "Seat belts work, whether you're on a city street, interstate, state highway or a county road - that's the bottom line."

Tom Smith can be reached at 740-5757 or tom.smith@timesdaily.com.

Copyright 2008 Alabama Times Daily ( http://www.timesdaily.com ). Reprinted here with the permission of the Alabama Times Daily. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the written consent of the Alabama Times Daily.