Safety Belt

Police monitor safety belt useWestminster police said 35 percent of the motorists in the city did not wear safety belts during an observation day at four intersections last month. More than 2,400 vehicles were checked, they said.Police said 75 percent of female drivers wore seat belts while 57 percent of male drivers wore the safety restraints. Forty-three percent of all truck drivers (pickup trucks or larger) wore the belts.Officers said 100 percent of the motorcycles riders were obeying the law and wore helmets during the safety check.

In the city that reads, motorists need a two-word vocabulary lesson: Buckle up.Surveys conducted by the city and state show that Baltimore drivers and passengers are far less likely to wear seat belts than their counterparts elsewhere. The lapse has increased fatalities and the severity of accident injuries and costs, according to safety experts."Seat belt compliance, like a lot of things, has to do with people's concern for health and safety," said Fred Shoken, a city traffic safety educator.

C Drivers in Carroll County, particularly those of pickup trucks, have slipped considerably in the use of seat belts, according to surveys conducted last month.Pickup truck drivers complied with the seat belt requirement only 57.4 percent of the time during the survey, compared with an 82 percent compliance rate in a survey several months ago.The surveys are an activity in the Golden Eagle Competition, and no citations were issued during the observations.The Golden Eagle Competition is a new highway safety initiative sponsored by the Maryland Association of Women Highway Safety Leaders and the State Highway Administration, according to the Carroll County Health Department.

Five Howard County students are no dummies when it comes to seat belts.As Centennial Elementary School fifth-graders last year, they were part of a group that worked on a yearlong safety belt awareness project.The result of the students' work is a 28-minute video called "Kids Asking Questions: Secure Your Life -- Wear Your Seatbelt." All elementary school teachers will use the video as a training tool this year to help them teach seat belt safety classes."Not many people realized how effective it is to wear seat belts," said group member Jamie Hilliard, 11, now a Burleigh Manor Middle School sixth-grader.

Twelve people whose lives were saved or injuries greatly reduced by seat belts or child safety seats were honored with framed certificates by Lt. Roy Neigh at the Westminster state police barracks yesterday.Those honored were all drivers or passengers in vehicles involved in accidents in Carroll County within the past year, said Lieutenant Neigh, barracks commander.They are Anna Mae Warehime, Brian Keith Jones, Diana Leaman Stull, William Harry Hill, Leslie Nicol Vaselaros, Trey Miles III, Gail Lee Smith, Kimberly Freeland, Kyle Patrick Freeland, Mary Anna Phillips, Kristopher M. Phillips and Karyn E. Phillips.

Accident survivor credits seat beltA 28-year-old Westminster man who climbed out of his overturned car uninjured yesterday said his seat belt "made a believer out of me."Jay Benge, of the 3000 block of Old Washington Road, said he was using his seat belt for the first time in more than a year when the accident occurred.Mr. Benge said he was driving east on Brehm Road near Old Manchester Road about 10:15 a.m. when an approaching three-wheel all-terrain vehicle, or ATV, forced him to veer to the right to avoid a collision.

Michelle Boyle's parents knew something wasn't right when the police report and newspaper accounts of her death in a car crash said she wasn't wearing her safety belt.Now the couple are caught up in a national conflict over what some safety advocates say are seat belts that can release on impact. Jim and Virginia Boyle are scheduled to appear on national television tonight to recount their 17-year-old daughter's Aug. 19 death on a rural road in West Friendship."It was pointless, it was senseless.

If you are not wearing a seat belt and your car is in a serious accident, then the back seat is just as dangerous as the front passenger seat, according to an analysis of 2,000 crashes involving Volvos in Sweden. The analysis was made by Volvo Car Corp. and the Swedish Road Safety Office.Rear-seat passengers who are not wearing belts are far more likely to be hurt in a crash than belted passengers, the study confirms. But Volvo safety experts add that unbelted passengers in back are a hazard not only to themselves but also to people in the front seats.

ANNAPOLIS -- Thanks to the General Assembly, Maryland's mandatory seat belt law is about to pick up pickups.By a 119-11 vote, the House of Delegates enacted legislation yesterday that expands the seat belt law to include light trucks.Under current law, automobile drivers, front-seat passengers and children under age 5 must be restrained by a safety belt.As initially proposed by the Schaefer administration, the legislation would have made failing to wear a seat belt a primary offense. That would have allowed police officers to stop motorists for a seat belt infraction alone.