For crying out loud — just put on the stupid belt.
Kansas is in the midst of its annual two-week push to get drivers to obey the law — and to stay alive or to avoid crippling injury in the process, as if that was too much to ask.
This year’s round of “Click It Or Ticket” began Monday and runs through June 5.
Its the time when about 150 law enforcement agencies around the state get involved in pushing the seat belt law.
As the Associated Press noted: “The Kansas Department of Transportation says more than two-thirds of the 388 people who died in traffic crashes in 2009 were not wearing seat belts.
“It says 89 percent of those who escaped injury were belted in.
“The transportation department’s website says 428 people died in traffic accidents in Kansas last year, and 102 have been killed so far this year.”
In other words, will putting on your seat belt insure that you won’t get killed in a car wreck? No.
It will only do that two-thirds of the time. So, if you like the negative side of those odds you shouldn’t mind playing Russian roulette with two rounds in the chamber of a six-shooter.
Consider the other statistic here.
Of those people in Kansas last year who had a wreck, 89 percent of the people who were NOT hurt were wearing their safety equipment.
By far, in other words, wearing a seat belt will keep you safe.
And let’s be honest. In those instances where someone was wearing a seat belt and still got hurt, you can imagine that the wreck was so horrible they probably would not have had much of a chance of survival had they not been belted in.
It’s not that big of a deal and, as cops all over Kansas are trying to impress upon us in the next couple of weeks — it is the law.
Put on the belt, every time the car moves.
Oh year, while we’re at it, take a moment to teach your kids to do the same thing. That is also the law.
— Chuck Smith