Late last year, a task force was created with the goal of increasing the number of area high school students who regularly wear seat belts.
And according to recent survey results, the Seat Belts Are For Everyone program is working.
Crawford County Sheriff Sandy Horton, who leads the task force, said Wednesday that seat belt use among students at the six area high schools is up 8 percent from the time the program began last December. At two of the schools, Horton said, seat belt use has jumped 17 percent among students. Because the program includes a competition between the schools, Horton declined to disclose which schools are performing the best at this point. He did say, however that he is pleased with the results of the recent survey.
"We didn't know what the results would be," he said, "but we're very pleased that we're seeing an increase in seat belt usage. It's good news. We're very pleased and happy the program is having an effect."
As part of the program, students from the six area high schools — Pittsburg, Frontenac, Girard, Northeast, Southeast and St. Mary's-Colgan — are asked to sign pledge cards, which puts in writing a promise to wear a seat belt. Each month until April, six cards at each school will be drawn and those students will be given a $25 VISA gift card provided by the program's sponsors.
At the end of the entire process, students from the school with the highest rate of seat belt users, and the school with the most improved percentage, will be entered into a drawing for grand prizes, which include a laptop computer and mobile audio players.
Horton believes those incentives, as well as pressure from peers to be safe, have led to the increased seat belt use.
"The credit really needs to go to the students," Horton said. "There are 31 students from all of the high schools that serve on the (SAFE) program. They are the ones who came up for the name of the program and they are the ones who take the surveys in the schools. So I really think it's that peer pressure and the interaction among students that has helped increase usage."
Along with the sheriff's office, the SAFE program also includes representatives from Pittsburg Police Department, the Kansas Highway Patrol and other law enforcement and safety agencies. Horton said the goal of the task force is to increase the percentage of people who consistently were a seat belt while in an automobile. According to a survey conducted in 2007, just 57 percent of Crawford County residents wear a seat belt while in a moving vehicle.
Of the 47 teenagers who died in car crashes in Kansas in 2007, only 12 were wearing a seat belt. Conversely, 91 percent of teens who were unharmed in automobile accidents that year were wearing a safety restraint.
PITTSBURG —
