Home for the holidays: Dinner display urges drivers to be safe

POLSON — Diana Schwab will tell you she’s not a big fan of statistics, but the numbers 79 and 61 are the focus of her “Empty Dinner Party” display, which you can see at Polson’s First Interstate Bank all week.

The display is in memory of the lives lost to vehicle accidents caused by impaired driving or lack of seat belt use, and serves as a haunting reminder that more people die in fatal accidents this time of year than any other.

“This Thanksgiving holiday, it is predicted that 79 people in Montana will lose their lives due to impaired driving crashes,” Schwab, Lake County’s Buckle Up program coordinator, said. “Sixty-one of those people will not have been wearing their seat belts.”

The visual was a collaborative effort between the Safe Kids Safe Communities, DUI Task Force and Buckle Up Montana. Statistically, Montana has one of the highest alcohol related fatality rates in the nation per vehicle mile traveled. However, these deaths represent more than statistics, they are real people — real mothers, fathers, children and friends — and their senseless, tragic deaths leave an empty place at the dinner table every year thereafter.

“A lot of people travel to visit their families this time of year,” Schwab said. “I tried to display the three place settings and on either end of the table there were no place settings because those family members didn’t show up to dinner.”

The AAA reported that approximately 38.2 million people (90 percent of holiday travelers) plan to take to the nation’s roadways this Thanksgiving holiday weekend, a four percent increase compared to Thanksgiving 2010 when auto travelers totaled 36.8 million.

Automobile travel remains the preferred choice of transportation for holiday travelers as it is often more affordable, convenient and flexible.

According to the Montana Department of Transportation, there were 189 fatalities on Montana highways in 2010. There have been 178 fatalities on Montana highways already this year. In 2000, 49.4 percent of the state’s fatality rate were alcohol related. In 2009, the percentage of alcohol-related fatalities was 41.6.

“To increase the state-wide fines would be a deterrent to that,” Schwab said. “Now, it’s really just a slap on the wrist.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says regular seat belt use is the single most effective way to protect people and reduce fatalities in motor vehicle crashes and research has shown that when lap and shoulder belts are used properly, the risk of fatal injury to front-seat passenger car occupants is reduced by 45 percent, and the risk of moderate to serious injury is reduced by 50 percent.

“That’s why we have a higher fatality rate here,” Schwab said. “It is on the rise, ever so slightly, about 78 percent use seat belts in Montana.”

Across Northwest Montana, the seat belt use among youth is up to about 80 percent, Schwab said, because of the driver’s education program and the emphasis they put on wearing a seat belt. She added, if one person in the car is not buckled up, they are like “an elephant in the car.” Since the force of the person is their weight times the speed, which equals the force (i.e. 100 pounds x 55 m.p.h. = 5,500 pounds of force).

Until this past legislative session, Montana was the only state in the nation with a secondary enforcement clause on the enforcement of the state’s child passenger safety law, and one of a diminishing number with a secondary enforcement provision on seat belt enforcement. That means, in Montana, a law enforcement officer may not stop a vehicle simply because the officer observes an unrestrained child or adult in the vehicle.

“We’ve finally passed the first seat belt law for children,” Schwab said. “Children up to six years of age, or 60 pounds, must wear a seat belt or be in a proper car seat.”

While the vote count has been very close the last few sessions, the debate is now whether to go up incrementally to require seat belts until age 16, or to hope the general law passes for all adults.

“We are one of the only states in the nation that doesn’t have a primary law for everybody,” Schwab said. “That’s something that we’re going to be working toward in the next legislative session.”

Advocates for the law from the Montana Seat belt Coalition say that removing the secondary enforcement clause from Montana’s seat belt and child passenger safety laws will not only save lives and reduce injuries, but will also save Montana’s citizens substantial amounts of money in health care costs and save Montana’s businesses money spent on unnecessary workers compensation claims and lost productivity.

“We hope this change will impact the 21 percent of Montana’s population that routinely don’t buckle up,” the group says. “Twenty-one percent may not sound like much, but it accounts for almost 200,000 people, which is more than the combined populations of Billings, Bozeman and Great Falls. That’s a lot of Montanans who still aren’t buckling up.”