So I'm reading the Examiner today and see the story about the annual crack down on drivers not wearing seat belts. Knowing me you might assume that this blog will be a commentary on how a law that was sold to voters as a "you'll only get a ticket if you're stopped for some other infraction" has morphed into what it's become today - but you'd be wrong! No, what has my ire is the opening line of the article, "In Maryland, 52 percent of drivers killed at night last year failed to wear sear belts."This is supposed to be a compelling statistic that makes the case for wearing a seat belt - that nearly just as many people wearing their seatbelt are killed as those who blithely disregard the law? Forgive me, but in the words of Dick Cheney, "So?"
Does anyone read these articles? I know we're not talking about an article for a peer reviewed journal but my rant today is that the article is really nothing but a press release and probably should have been paid for as advertising (wait - maybe it was....). The article then goes on to state that seat belts could have saved an estimated 180 lives, but then I'm wondering if we could also say that 170 lives could have been saved if people didn't wear them.
What's missing here of course is information on the percentage of people that routinely wear seatbelts. If the article had stated something along the lines of "while it's estimated that only 10% of drivers fail to buckle up they accounted for over half of the nighttime fatalities last year", then you have compelling statistics for buckling up. So while pouring resources into this enforcement campaign is not a great ROI in my opinion, what troubles me more is the lack of critical writing (which probably comes about from a lack of critical thinking).
For the record:
- I wear my seatbelt religiously
- I make all human passengers wear their seatbelt
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