Seat belts not on as death numbers rise 14 June 2006
Three people died on WA country roads on Monday night and all of them were not wearing seat belts. Why?
The current road death toll this year is 87 and at least 14* (more than 16%) either were NOT wearing seat belts or had equipment failure relating to seat belts.
When you’re taught about ABC or 2 + 2, you eventually get it. Some faster than others but if you’re taught it, you get it.
Yet we’ve been taught about wearing seat belts in motor vehicles for about 40 years and we have people who just do not get it.
I can understand people smoking cigarettes because they say it gives them pleasure. More fool them.
But what enjoyment or pleasure is derived from not putting on a seatbelt then going onto a road where there is a chance of combined impact at more than 200km/h?
How can we, living in one of – if not the – freest, healthiest, best-educated, richest cultures on earth have people in our midst so stupid that they get into a car and don’t put on a seat belt which gives them a heightened chance of survival if a crash occurs?
They have been educated ad infinitum by their parents, at school and by government advertising suggesting its merits but they don’t belt up. Why?
* Main Roads figures to early May put the figure at 11 and news reports of the three deaths on Monday said all three were not wearing seat belts.
I WRIGHT 