Focus on seatbelts!

At a time when lawmakers are embroiled in non-stop arguing, dealmaking, compromising and promise-breaking, it’s nice to see something new on the books that will indisputably help improve the health of our nation: just this week, the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that large buses and motorcoaches will soon be required to provide seatbelts for their passengers. The change comes after nearly 50 years of lobbying by accident investigators and opposition from bus operators, who fought the addition of seatbelts largely for reasons of cost. In the end, a deal was worked out wherein seatbelts would have to be installed in all new buses starting in 2016, although it may take a while for the rest of the nation’s 29,000 existing motorcoaches are caught up with the new regulation.
 
While the change may seem like common sense, it has actually taken quite a bit of sobering and even tragic evidence before lawmakers could be convinced of its necessity. Indeed, an average of 21 people are killed every year in large bus crashes, and nearly 8,000 are injured, mostly as a result of rollover crashes, during which passengers are sometimes ejected from the bus--precisely the kind of situation seatbelts are designed to prevent! And there are still many things left to fix--safety concerns remain, for instance, with bus windows, which may not prevent ejection as well as they could, and motorcoach roofs, which may not always be strong enough to withstand rollover crashes.
 
Still, seatbelts are by far the most effective safety step one can take on the road. The statistics don’t lie--according to the NHTSA, seatbelts saved more than 75,000 lives between 2004-2008, and in general, wearing a seatbelt can reduce the risk of crash injuries by 50%! And, despite the fact that 88% of people now use seatbelts in their own cars nationally (a record high), there are still plenty of preventable unbelted fatalities on the road: according to the same NHTSA study 1600 lives and 22,000 injuries could have been prevented if seatbelt use were to go up to 90% in every state. More than 40% of children that die in crashes are unbelted, as are 58% of teens; it’s clear that while we’ve come pretty far with seatbelt laws, there is still quite a long way to go.
 
Seatbelts are also hugely valuable from a chiropractic perspective--in addition to being lifesaving tools, they also are the most important thing preventing lasting back and neck pain after an auto accident. In fact, whiplash--one of the most common ailments seen by chiropractors after crashes--can be prevented by the use of seatbelts and properly fitted head restraints. It’s absolutely clear: no other safety improvement (and there are many at work in modern automobiles) comes close to matching the life-saving (and pain-avoiding!) potential of a properly-used seatbelt.

While there is clearly much to celebrate in the new law for motorcoaches, the push for greater further safety improvements is not over: new regulations for buses (windows that prevent ejection, and stronger roofs that don’t cave in) are expected to be proposed next year. Hopefully, we can look forward to more good news for the safety of the 700 million of us who are transported by motorcoach every year.