
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 12, 1990                   TAG: 9006120381
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BUCKLING UP/ REMINDER TO ROANOKERS

EVERYBODY'S for traffic safety, but that doesn't put seat belts in the same class with motherhood and apple pie. Your toddler may chew on a car's seat belt, but it's not palatable. And a seat belt around your middle doesn't convey quite the same warmth as your mother's embrace.

Then again, if you liked the feeling of safety and reassurance within your mother's arms, something akin to that is available from seat belts. Wearing one makes for safer motoring and greater assurance of getting home in one piece. It's a message the city of Roanoke hopes to drum into drivers' thinking.

Twenty-three people died in traffic accidents in Roanoke from 1985 through 1987; 20 were not wearing seat belts. That averages 6.7 unbelted fatalities a year.

Since the state's law mandating seat-belt use went into effect two years ago, 10 people have perished in traffic accidents in Roanoke. Of those, eight were not wearing seat belts: an average of four unbelted fatalities a year.

The overall number of traffic accidents in the city has not varied much in recent years; it averages 5,000 annually. So the reduction in fatalities probably results from compliance with the law. Before-and-after statistics from around the country bear out this conclusion.

But the number of fatalities could drop lower if even more people obeyed the law. A report by the Virginia Transportation Research Council indicates that last June, only 57.6 percent of Roanoke drivers and passengers were buckling up; this March, 60 percent.

Law aside, that's a disappointing rate of compliance with a basic safety tenet. Some people, of course, just don't like the seat-belt law. But most simply need to be reminded. In cooperation with State Police, the state Division of Motor Vehicles and the Virginia Auto Safety Alliance, the city intends to provide reminders.

During the next six months or so, there will be radio and TV public-service announcements urging people to buckle up; brochures, booklets and bumper stickers carrying the message will be available. City police will conduct a "Saved by the Belt" campaign to publicize cases where seat belts saved lives. The aim is to increase compliance in Roanoke to 70 percent.

That kind of rate could save morelives - within the city and also on the open road, where motorists and passengers would take with them a greater awareness of the seat belt's significance.

by CNB