Common sense saves lives

When I got up to go to work on March 8, I left the house with one thing on my mind: the critical meetings I had scheduled that day. When I got into my truck, as is my habit, I switched on the radio, buckled my seat belt and headed south to Augusta to begin my day.

As reported in this newspaper, my routine was interrupted – spectacularly – half an hour later. Driving in the rain, I hadn’t noticed the rapid icing on the highway. I was startled by my truck suddenly sliding to the right, sideways, to catch the snowbank, flip upside-down, crash violently head-on into a ledge face and flip end over end. The back windows blew in, filling the truck cab with broken glass and snow.

The whole incident took no more than two seconds. When my truck came to rest, I sat in stunned silence in the wreckage that a moment before had been my pickup truck. At length, with the encouragement of a passerby, I unbuckled my seat belt and walked away.

Nearly 20 years ago I followed the same sequence at a summer job while I was a college student. At that time, I rode a motorcycle, and that other fateful morning I routinely slid my helmet on before I blithely headed out to work. Catching the edge of a patch of gravel on a turn, I slid off the road, went into a ditch and was catapulted head-first into the base of a tree. The only sound I remember hearing was the crack of the helmet against the trunk. I suffered a minor elbow fracture, but was otherwise fine.

In the fierce election campaign of 2002, I took part in a political event about the environment. That morning, I was in the bow of the lead canoe in the expedition. Despite the fact that I can’t swim a stroke, I only donned my life jacket to set a good example for other less-experienced boaters in our flotilla. The trip had been well planned by the organizers; we would be traveling by canoe from the Eddington Salmon Club launch to the Brewer public landing about a mile downriver on the Penobscot. We didn’t last long in the fast water, and I quickly found myself under the capsized canoe, bounding through rock-strewn rapids. I ruined some papers in my wallet, but thanks to the life jacket I had reluctantly put on, all I really suffered was humiliation.

There are currently pending proposals before the Legislature to ramp up enforcement of the seat belt law to a primary stop enforcement effort, and to once again require that motorcyclists wear helmets. Predictably, both proposals are being hotly contested – as they should be. I fully understand legislators’ resistance to the premise of government-prescribed remedies to the ills caused by the exercise of individual discretion. But it isn’t surprising that these bills have been introduced, nor is it surprising that they have such broad, bipartisan support, despite their inherently controversial nature.

I’m in as good a position as anyone to argue for the efficacy of the safety equipment mentioned above. It certainly works, and I am more than happy to proclaim that truth far and wide. My use of it stands as the sole reason why I’m around to write this today. I’m always surprised at how many people don’t make use of any of the equipment that’s saved my life. More alarming to me is my own inconsistent use of life jackets, helmets and seat belts over the years.

How many times have I jumped in the truck to run quickly to the store, and ignored – purposefully – putting on my seat belt? How often have I used a life jacket as a seat cushion? Tragedy doesn’t lay in wait only on long trips. Disaster makes no appointments. Accidents don’t go on three; they cheat, and sucker punch you when you’re not ready. They wait until you’re distracted, thinking and doing a hundred other things, and then they rip the rug out from under you, and steal away all you have, and cast to the wind everything you’ll ever be.

There’s a lot to be said for the liberty of making a choice as to whether or not you need safety equipment. There’s more to be said for being ready when your moment of truth comes. If you don’t use it and get home safe, all I can say is you’ve really gotten away with something.

The day I write this would have been the day of my funeral. I speak not only for myself; I lost a co-worker at the University of Maine to an identical car accident, who was ejected from his car, fatally, and sending his parents who depended on him to a nursing home. I also had a high school classmate who hit a stone wall on his motorcycle with no helmet, and who eventually also wound up in a nursing home. I was lucky enough and smart enough to have gotten in the habit of having my seat belt, helmet or life jacket on.

People may be right when they say that common sense can’t be legislated. More use of common sense, however, would mute the cries for more common-sense legislation.

Matthew Dunlap, of Old Town, is Maine’s 47th secretary of state.