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Transportation Secretary Slater Says Seat Belts are Best Means to Making Thanksgiving Safe

25 November 1997

Transportation Secretary Slater Says Seat Belts are Best Means to Making Thanksgiving Safe

    WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 -- Continuing President Clinton's
commitment to safety as his highest transportation priority, U.S.
Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater today joined the Air Bag Safety
Campaign at a pre-Thanksgiving event dramatizing the need to use seat belts
and urging all motorists to drive safely during the holiday period.
    "Safety is President Clinton's highest transportation priority, and the
best defense in a motor vehicle crash is a seat belt.  Every year, 11,000
lives are saved and countless thousands of injuries are prevented because
these drivers and passengers made the right decision to buckle up for safety,"
said Secretary Slater.  "This holiday weekend, we can all make the right
decision: children in the back and everyone buckled up."
    Secretary Slater was joined in urging motorists to always use their seat
belts by Carolyn Hanig of Broken Arrow, Okla., whose son died in a crash
because he was not using a seat belt, and Janet Dewey, executive director of
the Air Bag Safety Coalition.
    Only about 68 percent of motorists in the United States use their seat
belts, and about 11,000 are saved annually because they are restrained by seat
belts or in child safety seats, according to the department's National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration.  Under the President's initiative to increase
seat belt usage, a goal of 85 percent of drivers and passengers buckled up has
been established for 2000.  This goal would save an additional 4,200 lives,
prevent 102,000 injuries and save $6.7 billion in associated medical costs.
    Secretary Slater urged motorists to follow four simple rules of the road
for every trip, during the Thanksgiving week and year-round:

    --  Place children in the back seat.  It is the safest place for children;

    --  Never put a rear-facing child seat in the front seat;

    --  Always move both driver and passenger seats as far back as possible
        from the air bag, and allow approximately 10 inches between the air
        bag and the driver's chest; and

    --  Always buckle up properly.  Adults should use both lap and shoulder
        belts; children should be in child or booster seats appropriate to
        their size and age.

    The Air Bag Safety Coalition estimated that during the Thanksgiving
holiday period 124 lives will be lost that could have been saved through
buckling up.  Accordingly, at the state line between Maryland and the District
of Columbia today, law enforcement officials, emergency medical technicians
and rescue vehicles circled 124 "victims," dramatizing the possible loss of
life on America's highways during the Thanksgiving holiday period.
    The U.S. Department of Transportation's Web site can be found on the
Internet at http://www.dot.gov/briefing.htm.

SOURCE  U.S. Department of Transportation