Message Monday - Same stuff, different day. Buckle up.
Even when we’re not in the middle of a pandemic, January and February in Iowa can get a little monotonous. It’s easy to get in a rut and just go through the same motions every day.
We’re hoping one of those repetitive motions is buckling up every time you get into a vehicle. While the latest Iowa seat belt survey showed that 95.2 percent of front-seat occupants are wearing seat belts, the survey does not measure whether back seat passengers are belted.
You would think that having more than 95 percent of people (driver and front-seat passengers) is great but coordinating fatality statistics show there is still an issue. In 2020, 99 of the 337 people killed on Iowa’s roads were not buckled. Of the 99 who were unbuckled, 74 were drivers and another 11 were front-seat passengers.
While we can’t say for sure that all of those folks would have survived had they been wearing a seat belt, it’s safe to say at least some of them would be with us today if they had taken a few seconds to snap that buckle.
So next time you jump in the car to run to the store or go pick up your kids at school, make sure everyone, no matter where they are seated, is buckled up.
Since tomorrow is Groundhog Day, here a few fun facts from the movie that you may not know: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/happy-groundhog-day-heres-5-769137
For 2020, there were a total of 337 fatalities reported. So far in 2021, there have been 13 deaths in traffic crashes. That is an increase of one since last Monday. To see statistics published daily by the Office of Driver Services, go to the daily fatality report at https://www.iowadot.gov/mvd/stats/daily.pdf