Greetings!
Another year--another opportunity to reduce the annual number of fatalities in Nebraska due to the lack of a safety belt in a crash. What do you have planned to increase safety belt usage this year? Are you going to do observations to help get your company on the Honor Roll? Do you have a health fair planned? Or do you have some other great ideas? Please help at your local high school with their Come Home Safe project, especially if you are in a Nebraska county with a low buckling rate (see below). Click It--Don't Risk It is sponsoring Come Home Safe again this year, an effort to get all of Nebraska's high schoolers safely buckled up. It's a tragic fact that teenagers represent the age group least likely to wear a safety belt, but most likely to be involved in a crash. Two safety belt observations plus some education at your high school may make them eligible to win a $1000 grand prize, or one of two $500 runner-up prizes. Winners' names will be drawn from contest participants on May 4, 2011.
We're very interested in all of your ideas and successes. Please send project descriptions and pictures if you have them to: cidri@safenebraska.org
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St Robert Bellarmine School Joins the Honor Roll
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As part of a class project about physics, Joe Knudson and Austin Burke demonstrated the science of safety belts using the Click It egg ramp. When the toy car rolls down the ramp, eggs better be wearing rubber band safety belts if they are to survive the crash at the end.
Click It also loaned these 7th graders the Strawberry Shortcake convertible and our Strawberry Shortcake and Blueberry Muffin dolls. Blueberry drives, and always wears both her lap belt and her shoulder belt. Strawberry lives dangerously without a belt, and is ejected nearly every time. Good thing she's plastic so she's able to crash another time.
As an extension of the project, Joe and Austin observed cars pulling into the St. Robert parking lot to see if safety belts were being used. Their observations earned them a trip to Lincoln to shake the governor's hand and an Honor Roll certificate for St. Robert's school for the prevalent use of safety belts at the school. Learn about St Roberts School
Pictured from left are Governor Heineman, Austin Burke, Joe Knudson, and Danielle Knudson, J oe's mom and a Click It team leader. Is your local Elementary on the Honor Roll? This is a great way to teach the physical reality of an object in motion staying in motion until stopped by an equal and opposite force. Check this link to an explanation of the physics of safety belts in a car crash
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Observed Safety Belt Rates by Nebraska County
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Some Nebraska counties are better than others in observed safety belt use. The 2010 observed unweighted safety belt use percentages by county are:
Adams 50.6% Box Butte 52.3% Buffalo 54.7% Cass 75.8%
Colfax 63.1% Custer 46.7% Dawson 51.3% Douglas 80%
Gage 65.3% Hall 62.5% Holt 62.5% Lancaster 73.2%
Lincoln 62% Madison 67.8% Sarpy 87.0% Saunders 63.4%
Scotts Bluff 57.4% Seward 82.9% Washington 76.1%
Click on Nebraska County Observed Unweighted Safety Belt Use - 1994-2010 to find your county on the Highway Safety Website
Safety Belt Usage is one of your concerns as a coalition member. What can you do to ensure that all Nebraskans are buckling up every trip, every time in your county? Your efforts in your local county make a difference!
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