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Show r r Tuesday, November DAVIS COUNTY CLIPPER 16, 1993 A5 Opinion Today? Mail your comments to: Clipper Publishing 1 370 So. 500 W. Bountiful, Utah 84010 Guest editorial Children dying as half the population ignores Utah law By TOM METCALF, MD What if Utah had a law that half the population ignored? And, ignoring this law cost Utah taxpayers millions of dollars each year and caused at least two deaths a week. Would Utahns want to change this situation? I think so. Utah does, in fact, have two such laws the Safety Belt Law of 1986 and the Child Restraint Law of 1984. While virtually every licensed Utah driver is aware of these laws, a recent survey revealed only 50 percent of Utahns wear safety belts and only 56 percent of our children are protected with child restraints. Compare those figures to California where usage rates are 70 percent; Hawaii 80 percent; and Canada 86 percent with proportional decreases in deaths, injuries and costs. All of us continue to see shoulder straps hanging limply from door posts, oung children standing on car seats and kids riding in the open beds of pick-u- p trucks. We see vans full of kids, too many children for the number of safety belts and mothers with babies in their arms. These situations are not only illegally, they are totally irrational! We know safety belts and child restraint devices decrease the number of deaths and serious injuries from motor vehicle crashes by 50 percent. Why don't people protect their lives and the lives of their family? Don't they know the consequences of motor vehicle crashes? What are the consequences of motor vehicle crashes to our society? First, Fatalities: According to the Utah Traffic Accident Summary, 255 people died in motor vehicle crashes in Utah in 1992. One hundred and ninety eight or 78 percent of those killed were not wearing safety restraints. No children were killed while in child safety restraint devices and none of the 198 fatalities involved cars with air bags. Second, Injuries: Last year 22,490 people were injured in Utah in 15,665 crashes. Of those, 7,222 were not restrained. Third, Cost: "The Economic Cost of Motor Vehicle Crashes, 1990," states that expense to society insurance employers, companies, government from one fatality (including emergency, medical, funeral, lost productivity, insurance administration, legal and court costs) to be about $702,000. Multiple that by the 255 fatalities last year in Utah, and you get a staggering figure of $179,010,000 per year lost to Utah's economy! Nonfatal injuries often involve lengthy, even lifetime, medical care. Lifetime costs of serious injuries average between $159,000 and $589,000. In 1992, 4,089 Utahns suffered incapacitating injuries, ranging from minor loss of work or school time to critical injuries involving long term disability. The total cost of these injuries to Utahns is hundreds of millions of dollars! Fourth, Emotional Cost: The effect on a family when a father, mother or child is killed cannot be measured. Some people still insist, "If I don't buckle up, it's my choice and suffer the consequences." But, very few things we do affect only ourselves; to think otherwise is naive. The void left in a home, a school, a church or a business when a person dies or is permanently injured is perhaps the most effective argument to those who seek their own freedom at other's expenses. What is the solution for this continuing, costly drain on our state's finances and people? We have educational programs, child safety seats are more affordable and "user friendly," and safety features are now more frequently installed in new cars. But, with all these efforts only half the population chooses to protect themselves. The solution is a better law. Utah's existing safety restraint law is a secondary offense. This means a driver cannot be cited for that offense alone. Many drivers have learned this and don't take the law seriously. In states with a primary law, an officer can ticket a driver or passenger for observed failure to wear a safety beltshouldcr harness. It has been proven that conversion of a secondary to a primary safety belt law, with attendant enforcement, increases a state's safety belt use rates substantially and decreases injury and death. If enough Utahns are tired of seeing children and adults unrestrained in cars and trucks; if Utahns are tired of paying tax dollars and increased insurance premiums for needless injuries and death; if Utahs health care reform addresses our most expensive and preventable medical costs, then we must enact more comprehensive restraint laws and ask for strict enforcement by law officers and the courts. The existing laws must be rewritten to cover all drivers and passengers, to provide for primary enforcement, to eliminate the use of pickup truck bedsshells to carry passengers. Then, when a officer observes a passenger or driver unrestrained in a vehicle or riding in an area not designed for passengers, the officer will be able to stop the vehicle for that offense alone, issue a citation and be confident of the ability of the court to back the citation. Requiring the use of safety restraints and enforceable laws make sense - just as laws requiring obedience to traffic signals and prohibiting drunk driving make sense. -- The people of Utah who believe in this issue must take a stand and support upcoming safety restraint bill in the 1994 State Legislature. This issue should have wide backing in the legislature - it would cost nothing and save millions of dollars for Utahns. But, Legislators vote for or against bills based on their own view or on what they hear from their constituents. this issue. They need to know how you, the voters, feel about Contact your State Senator and Representative by phone or letter and let them know you want a better, more enforceable law a law that will save lives and money. The Coalition for Utah Traffic Safety welcomes your input and asks for your help to gain grassroots support for this important. legislation. 3 ext. 124, for more information. Please call -- 255-057- Don't let trash talkers make you feel guilty Since some of my readers claim that I regularly write "garbage," it's only fair that actually write I what I have something about it-to say will probably sour the a few of stomachs and environmentalists who regularly jabber about an America drowning in its own waste. Garbage never used to be a problem. For some two million years, humans simply left their garbage where it fell a banana peel here and a dinosaur rib over there. Humans let the garbage stay; it was the humans that moved. In fact, garbage never was a problem until the humans decided to stick around in one place. If the humans didn't move, then the garbage must. rather have a degradable piece of despicably roll around a landfill paper which, when it decomposes, while the orange rinds degrade in can contaminate your ground water? their natural splendor. But the That question was never asked. degrading process will also produce Of course, the challenge has changed. It's easier to throw away a banana peel than a VCR, and the buzz word of the 1980s and 1990's is recycling, an laudable activity pressed into young minds by environmentally correct school teachers. But along with recycling, the environmentalists also make us feel guilty by pointing to. ugly, smelly landfills. The guilt already spread to McDonald's, that great American institution that addicted us to pickles. mayonnaise and mini-siz- e When McDonald's switched from paper packaging to polystyrene foam many years ago, the company was praised for saving the country's trees. But in the late 1980's McDonald's became the target of the landfill nuts. Those plastic foam Big Mac containers, they Instead, McDonald's sw itched back to paper containers and became a corporate hero. But I have to believe that its heroism was linked more to public image than sound chemistry. Another garbage myth is that natural is always better than manmade, that Mother Nature is infinitely more wise than a container manufacturer. Not necessarily. And a good example involves orange juice. Environmentalists believe an orange is environmentally safer than a package of frozen orange juice. An orange rind will degrade naturally, Waste Collection Day. The used oil was recycled, the paint (930 gallons) was recycled and the (150 gallons) was recycled. It was a good thing for the landfill and it was a good thing for future human beings, too. But let's not go berserk every time our neighbor tosses a disposable diaper or a chicken bone in his garbage can. We can handle the garbage more easily than we can handle the guilt tossed around by whereas the frozen juice container will dissolve slowly, if at all. But the argument doesn't hold water (or juice)! In order to produce the juice in a container, a person would have to dispose of 19 oranges. That's a lot more waste than a small tin container, to say nothing of the added energy costs of shipping 19 oranges as compared to a compact tin. Once discarded, container will of course, the just degrade. ..Fifty years from now, some poor soul could still see the remnants of my sesame seed bun encased in a plastic shell. That's true of course. But, more importantly, is that really a problem? Would you rather have a plastic container in your back yard, an inert plastic which dons nothing useful or obnoxious? Or would you anti-free- four-oun- environmental extreme the z. movement. z. He's a young man going out of thedoor "Turn around and he's a young man going out of the door." I don't know whether to laugh or cry. My son is 18. I have certainly made the effort to raise him as an independent person. For some reason, I didn't expect "total independence to strike the minute he blew out the 18 candles on his birthday cake. Before the smoke had cleared, he was announcing that he was preparing to move to Idaho. I had been expecting some transition time, like maybe five years. Soon after the great announcement, my son and his friend packed overnight bags and took a train to Pocatello for a few days to see if they wanted to settle in that city. That was one of the longest weekends of my life. I realized how empty the house was without the phone constantly ringing and his little friends running in and out. When he returned the next weekend, I gave a sigh of relief. He had actually survived a whole weekend out from under his mom's watchful eye. The phone began ringing again. So much so that I was ready to tear it from the wall. Those "little" friends I had pictured have somehow turned into big lugs who consume the entire contents of the refrigerator on the way to my son's room. Why didnt I enjoy that wonderful weekend of solitude while they were gone? I am fully aware that there is a whole new world out there waiting for this lad. I know he thinks he is ready to conquer it, but my concerns haunt me. How can a young man hold down a job when he can't pick up his dirty clothes? How will he ever be able to follow the instructions of an employer? This is the boy I told not to leave dirty dishes on the floor of his room, so he put them in the dresser drawer, complete with pizza crust. This is the guy who borrowed my car and fell asleep on the couch when it was time to pick me up after work. This is the kid who gets tickets from photo-cofalls for a sleazy sales pitch from the neighbor selling a junk car at a premium price, and the person who can't think straight when there is a pretty young lady in the room. and I couldn't find him for the next four hours? (Even then, a young at his age, my son most assuredly didn't want me checking up on him. woman (five) had distracted him and he had followed her home.) I was embarrassed when I went to a parent teacher conference when he was in the second grade and they gave me a stack of Playboy pictures he had somehow accumulated? But I didn't move out! As I said, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Part of the problem is that the last 18 years have flown still sees by so rapidly. My heart me for to ran who this little guy his off tricycle. after comfort falling On the other hand, I My eyes see this maturing young adult who is ready for life's adventures. was out on particularly fun date the other evening. At one point my "Mom" mode took over. I figured I had better call to be sure my son was a p, So, world, I give my son. He is my pride and my joy. But keep this in mind, I give him to you "as is." I dont take returns or give refunds. Good luck! OK. Suddenly, it dawned on me. I didn't want to disrupt the date, and. But whats a mom to do? He is now totally deaf to my helpful hints (nagging). He stands several inches taller than I and has this way of trying not to snicker when I turn red in the face because he forgot to call, as promised, when he got to Idaho. His excuse? "Well, we kind of got to partying." Published semi-weekl- by Clipper Publishing Co., Inc. 9 John Stahle, Jr. publisher y John Stahle, Sr. publisher j 1954-198- 1892-195- 4 R. Gail Stahle publisher j 1990-prese- Judy Jensen managing editor j 1370 South 500 West, Bountiful, Utah 84010 On the other hand, I was set to go to Seattle a few weeks ago for a training program through my work. I got up at 6 a.m. to wake my son to take me to the airport. I stepped off the bottom step leading to the basement. My foot sank into six inches of water. The yard sprinklers had stuck on all night and water had flooded in through the basement windows. My son jumped out of ISSN: 1061-122- J 3 on No. Publication published (USPS 149-18Years at Bountiful, Tuesday and Friday except the week of Christmas and New all Utah. Second class postage paid at Bountiful, Utah. Address correspondence to P.O. Box 267, Bountiful, Utah 84011-026Subscription rate: 50c per copy. semi-weekl- Hand-delivere- 295-225- 292-202- FAX 295-304- Office Hours: 8:30-5.3- 0 DEADLINES 1 292-205- Classified bed, said, "Not to worry," and took me to the airport. He saved our furniture, cleaned up the entire mess, and removed the sodden carpet before I got home. Mon. 8 2 4 thru Monday Noon Thurs. 5pm Classified Ads II Proof Required and Color News Articles & Photos Obituaries Public Notices DEADLINES Display Advertising Classified Ads Fri. TUESDAY PAPER Display Advertising Where is the justice? As soon as he is old enough to help around the house, he is too old to live with his mother. "It's soooo embarrassing," he explains. I was embarrassed when I called the entire police department when he was only six and had gone into the yard to play y $20.00 per year, Mailed: $30.00 per year. News Advertising Circulation 24 Hours In Advance Wed. 5pm Accepted Until 11am Mon. Friday 5pm FRIDAY PAPER Tuesday 5pm Wednesday Noon POSTMASTER: Send change of address to Davis County Clipper, P.O. Box 267, Bountiful, Utah V s greatcr-than-anticipat- number of households participating in last month's Household Hazardous the (680 gallons) say environmentalists, snoozed underground. ..Plastic didn't claimed, a methane-- , greenhouse gas. In contrast, all the container will do is take up space. Packaging as any parent on Christmas morning can tell you is an annoying waste of natural resources. At the same time, however, packaging has given us the lowest food spoilage rate in the world. This is not to say that Utahns should not be environmentally aware. Bountiful City had a 84011-026- 7 |