When kids advise, kids buckle up

As further proof that the average teenager’s skewed sense of invincibility can often overwhelm his common sense, consider this disturbing survey conducted last year by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fewer than half of the nation’s high school students said they always used seat belts, and 10 percent admitted they never did at all. That the country’s least experienced drivers also have the lowest rate of seat-belt use suggests that far too many of them are ignoring the critical message that driving instructors and parents presumably try to drum into their heads long before they ever get their licenses.

And as statistics reveal, their disregard of the well-established fact that seat belts really do save lives is putting teens at grave risk. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 5,610 teenagers died in car crashes in the United States in 2004, making traffic accidents the leading cause of death for that age group. Among drivers aged 16 to 19, seat-belt use ranged from a paltry 46 percent for the youngest in that category to a shocking 36 percent for the oldest.

But as the USA Today newspaper reported recently, students at an Illinois high school are attempting to get out the word themselves by talking directly to their peers about the importance of using seat belts. It’s a promising approach that we in Maine might want to consider, too, as part of our ongoing efforts to make the roads safer for the most vulnerable of our driving population.

The kids at Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley High School, as part of a campaign begun last year for a nationwide contest sponsored by State Farm and the National Youth Leadership Council, have been producing and performing in their own public service ads that remind their fellow teens to buckle up. The school’s driver-education teacher told USA Today that the student initiative – which also includes the use of banners and prizes for teens found wearing safety belts – may have been instrumental in preventing severe injuries or the deaths of six local teens who had been wearing seat belts when they were involved in crashes in the past year.

“I’ve been teaching driver’s ed for 21 years and this is the only thing I’ve seen that works,” Judy Weber-Jones told the paper. “This is a teammate telling them to buckle up, a boyfriend or girlfriend telling them to buckle up.”

One recent graduate of the school, whose seat belt saved his life in an accident last year, admitted that the only reason he buckled up that day was because he saw a road sign made by schoolmates that invoked the names of two young local crash victims. The Gibson City students have taken their life-saving campaign on the road, too, traveling last July to a neighboring county where 16 teenagers died in car crashes over 15 months.

According to the National Safety Council, other schools are also trying new ways to spread the gospel of seat-belt safety among teens. In Morristown, Ind., for example, students wear bracelets with beads signifying loved ones to remind themselves when they get behind the wheel of the grief that their unsafe driving habits can cause.

So if there are any Maine teens out there hoping to do a school or community project one day that might just make a difference in people’s lives, the innovative Illinois idea may be worth repeating here at home.