EDITORIAL
'Click It or Ticket': Buckle up or pay
You have to wonder whether "Click It or Ticket" is going to be a catchy enough slogan to get the attention of the so-very-with-it 18-to-35 crowd.
But that's what they're calling a new seat belt safety campaign, which will include $350,000 of advertising aimed at getting drivers and their passengers — including keiki — to buckle up.
That particular age group is being targeted because they "think they are invincible," says state Transportation Director Brian Minaai. Of course, such thinking is socially irresponsible, as large numbers of them, and their passengers, end up disabled by car wrecks and veritable wards of the state.
The ones who survive, that is. Minaai said 42 people killed in vehicle crashes in the year 2000 were not wearing seat belts, and 31 of them were between the ages of 16 and 35.
Lt. Stanton Koizumi, head of the Kaua'i Police Department's traffic safety unit, said three of the last four people killed in traffic collisions on Kaua'i would have lived if they had worn seat belts.
Listen to numbers like that, not the shopworn superstitions about seat belts trapping you in a burning wreck, or keeping you from being safely "thrown clear" of a collision. For more than 20 years, the statistics have shown overwhelmingly that seat belts save thousands of lives every year.
And if a common-sense pitch like that isn't enough to get you to buckle up, perhaps you'll listen to a pocketbook argument: Police will be deploying hundreds of officers from May 20 to June 6 to issue tickets to unbuckled drivers and their passengers. That includes children not properly restrained.
The fine is $45 to $67, plus $15 administrative fee and $7 for a driver education fee. If paying such a fine gets you to buckle up, you should consider it money well spent.
It's a shame, however, that the negligence of some drivers will divert police officers from other important duties. If everyone would wise up and buckle up, maybe we can cut the "Click It or Ticket" campaign short by a week or two.
