Some legislatures favor
required safety features
By EDITH WOOTEN
Tar Heel Staff Writer
At least 10,000 Americans die each year in
automobile accidents.
It is the leading cause of death for those under
34.
At least 65 percent of these deaths could be
avoided if people wore seat belts, said B.J.
Campbell, director of the N.C. Highway Safety
Research Center in Chapel Hill.
. And with this in mind, many lawmakers have
given a lot of attention to the idea of making
safety standards mandatory.
Two years ago the N.C. legislature became
the sixth state to enact a law requiring the use of
child restraint seats. Since then, researchers
have seen a sharp decrease in infant fatalities in
automobile crashes.
A report put out by the'UNCs Highway
Safety Research Center said that more than half
of the children under two years of age who were
in accidents last year were wearing the restraints
and of them, none were killed.
"In summary, crash results indicate that re
straint use is up. . .with a proportional reduc
tion in deaths and injury," the report states.
Presently 40 states have enaced a child re
straint law.
Three weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled
that the federal government should not have re
jected a requirement that all new cars have a
passive occupancy restraint system, such as
automatic seat belts and air bags. -
Nils Lofgren, of the Motor Vehicles Manu
facturers' Association, said that the auto indus
try favored testing new methods of occupancy
restraint.
There are ways that the driver can forego
wearing the automatic seat belt, and the air bag
is only operational with a head-on collision at a
speed over 12 mph, Lofgren said.
"Until tests are finished, we are in favor of ;
what we" are sure of, the lap and shoulder
belts," he said. v
Campbell said that motor vehicle accidents
are by far the biggest killer of people under 34.
Each year the HSRC expects two or three UNC
students will die in car addicents, Campbell
said. .' .-' .
"It is so profound in its importance, that for
the rest of the population the overall death ratio
is getting better as the health of the country im
proves," he said. "College aged people arc dying
faster more often, because they die in automo
bile crashes. And the reason they die is because
they don't buckle up."
' Three or four states have made significant at
tempts to get a seat belt law passed. The fact
they failed is not the end of the story, he said.
"My crystal ball teCs me that in the next three
or four years we're going to find a state or two
that will pass it and fairly enforce it," Campbell
said. I believe that the results will be so dramatic
that what happened with the child restraint law
will happen here." -
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Seat belts pay off
By EDITH WOOTEN
Tar Heel Staff Writer
The Chapel Hill area is almost at the point of
leading the nation in yet another activity.
It has nothing to do with academics or even sports.
It has everything to do with life.
Since April, Chapel Hill and Carrboro drivers
have increased their usage of seat belts by SO percent.
The area is tied with Seattle, Wash., for the high
est percentage ever recorded in the nation. Thirty
two percent of the drivers here, according to a study
done by the UNC's Highway Safety Research Center
(HSRC), are wearing seat belts.
Dr. B.J. Campbell, director of the HSRC, said
that this was due to the unique area-wide campaign
titled Seat Belts Pay Off. The campaign gives prizes
to drivers if they, are wearing seat belts when they
are stopped in local parking lots. ,
"Our premise here is that people just don't think
about wearing seat belts," Campbell said.
The campaign is aimed at making people think
about buckling up as a normal procedure to starting
their cars.
"Our daily experience is that it feels safe to drive
in a car," Campbell said. "Most of the time we get
where we want uneventfully. But those rare events
occur often enough for it to be a leading cause of
death."
. Since the idea of seat belts paying off seemed
remote, Campbell said that the center tried to make
it pay off in a more immediate sense.
"That's how we came up -with the campaign." he
said. "It's the idea of rewarding positive behavior
which strengthens it and makes it habit forming."
So far, 7,000 to 9,000 drivers have been stopped
and 3,000 gifts have been given away since April,
Campbell said. ,
Winners have received $5 cash awards, free din
ners at McDonalds, AM transistor radios, packages
of lightbulbs and tickets to the Mike Cross concert
and the Morehead Planetarium.
Winners also become eligible for one monthly
drawing for $500, and on Oct. 15 a drawing will be
held for a grand prize of $1 ,000.
To evaluate the success of the project, there are 17
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Hamburgers' gift certificates prizes in the Seat Belts Pay Off campaign.
observation points in the Chapel Hill and Carrboro
area where researchers count the number of people
wearing seat belts at different times of the day.
"Nationally, if you went out and counted cars
you'd see 10 or 11 percent of the drivers buckled
up." he said. In Chapel Hill ii is much higher.
"We try to be as visible as possible, so that we will
remind people that it does pay off to buckle up."
Campbell stressed the importance of what the
campaign is trying to accomplish.
"If a genie came out of a bottle and said: OK,
you can have one wish. If you push this button, no
one will ever drive drunk again. If you push the
other button, everyone would buckle up from now
on. I would unhesitantly push the seat belt button
because (wearing seat belts) actually saves more
lives." he said.
The reason Campbell stressed this point, he said,
was that people have an intuitive understanding now
that drunk drivers kill.
"I don't think there is a comprehensive under
standing of the significance of wearing a belt."
"We consider it the most important highway safety
issue there is," he said. .
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