'Buckle up' drive takes on special urgency

Bright young people with their lives cut short.

Whether thousands of miles away on the streets of Baghdad or deserts of Afghanistan, or on a lonely Southwest Nebraska road, we can think of no greater tragedy.

We will not address the war on terrorism and to what extent we should be involved. Nor, today, will we address the possibility of alcohol being involved in car accidents.

But if law enforcement agencies are looking for examples to cite in the current "Click It or Ticket" campaign, they don't have to look far.

The SUV involved in Sunday morning's accident was relatively intact, the wreck appeared to be survivable had only seatbelts been in use and the occupants remained inside the vehicle.

The scene was repeated around the state last weekend, with a Crofton man killed west of Verdigre, and a Wisconsin woman killed on Interstate 80, both killed when they were thrown from their vehicles after not wearing seatbelts.

We were saddened, some of us outraged, when U.S. losses in Iraq climbed above 3,000 for the entire war. Yet, somehow, we put up with more than 10 times that number each year in traffic fatalities.

Many consumers were so outraged in the early 1970s, when the government required car manufacturers to install an "ignition interlock" to require seatbelts to be buckled before the car could be started, that the requirement was repealed after only one year.

Yet, if 90 percent of Americans buckled up, according to authorities, more than 5,500 deaths and 132,000 injuries could be prevented annually.

But isn't this America, and shouldn't we have the choice of whether or not to buckle up?

Yes, we have a choice, but all of us pay for those who don't. On average, according to authorities, inpatient hospital care costs for an unbelted crash victim is 50 percent higher than for one who was wearing a seatbelt. And, society bears 85 percent of those costs, not the individuals involved, in the form of nearly $600 a year in highere taxes, health care and insurance costs for all of us.

By some estimates, persuading 90 percent of us to use our seatbelts, we could save nearly $9 billion annually.

That's a lot of money. But far more important are the thousands of lives that could be saved and injuries prevented.

As we travel this Memorial Day weekend, let's take a couple of extra seconds to make sure everyone in our vehicle is buckled up.