WASHINGTON — More than two-thirds of young drivers and passengers killed in nighttime car crashes aren't wearing seat belts — deadly proof of what can happen when young people don't heed parents' pleas and authorities' threats to "click it."
Though seat belt use actually is rising slightly nationwide, fatality figures published Monday offered a somber contrast as law enforcement launched its annual pre-Memorial Day drive to persuade Americans to buckle up.
Total belt use rose to 82 percent last year — from 81 percent in 2006 — the government said. Twelve states had rates of 90 percent or better, led by Hawaii and Washington. Only three were below 70 percent: Arkansas, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
But the news was hardly all encouraging.
Sixty-eight percent of drivers and passengers between the ages of 16 and 20 who were killed in car crashes at night in 2006 were unbuckled, said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. During daytime, 57 percent of the young motorists and passengers who were killed were not wearing seat belts.
That portion of the study focused on 2006 data and did not evaluate other years.
The problem isn't just with teens. The percentage of unbuckled drivers and passengers who died at night is well up in the 60s through the age of 44. It declines to 52 percent for people 55-64 and 41 percent for those older than that.
Just last Friday afternoon a 16-year old neighborhood kid decided to drive like an idiot and managed to roll his car, with three other friends in it, off a 30' embankment (after hitting a tree) at the end of my street. His car came to a rest on the lawn outside my neighbor's house. Two kids ended up in the hospital, one with broken ribs and a punctured lung. The driver insists everybody was buckled in, but I'm not sure about the guy with the chest injuries.
I know that peer pressure is tough, but getting thrown out of a car and run over by other vehicles is pretty tough too.
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