Click-it or Ticket

I had the opportunity to respond to a traffic accident just outside one of our gates at work today. It was a single vehicle roll-over crash. There was a lady and a young child (guessing about 7 years or so) occupying the vehicle. When I arrived on the scene, ambulance crews (un-sung heroes in my book) were attending to the lady inside the vehicle, the young child was out of the vehicle and apparently unharmed. One of the members of the ambulance crew (there were 3 ambulances there) was holding the child and talking to him. The lady was extracted, placed on a backboard with the neck thing and her arms were also in some kind of device. She was coherent and talking to them. I overheard one of the police officers say that they were both wearing seatbelts.

I worked for the National Hot Rod Association’s Safety Safari for 25 years and have seen firsthand what good safety equipment can do for you in a wreck. This vehicle in the wreck today, a full sized SUV, was totally demolished; all windows broken out, seat backs broken and laying the fully reclined position, all sheet metal completely distorted, 1 wheel broken off at the axel (the end of the axel and the brake drum was still bolted to the wheel). And yet the child and the lady were relatively ok. With my work at the race track, I’ve seen horrible accidents involving lots of speed and yes there have been fatalities, but they are very few and far between. I have seen cars roll multiple times from speed in excess of 200 and 300 miles per hour, bounce off concrete walls on fire and drivers un-buckle themselves and walk over to the ambulance.

We never think that we will be involved in a wreck; this lady today certainly did not. But it happens. There is a push right now in the state of Texas on seatbelt enforcement; it’s called “Click-it or Ticket”. I’m not so sure I agree with the tact of issuing a ticket for not buckling up, but it is a documented fact that seatbelts save lives. I believe it is a personal choice. So is smoking, doing drugs…blah blah blah, I don’t want to go into all of that. But people, it’s easy and it is free, doesn’t cost a dime, just buckle up. If not for yourself, think about your friends and family that will have to take care of you if you are crippled or worse yet, you are killed. It’s not all about you or me, it’s about the effect it will have on the ones around us.

I didn’t mean to preach, and I don’t want anyone to take this as preaching (I’m not qualified). Just think about your family and your friends and buckle up.