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Give gift of love by wearing seatbelt

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News from Lake County Health Department, Buckle Up program

LAKE COUNTY — Keeping yourself and your love ones safe is the best gift you could give to anyone. As a driver, it is your responsibility to make sure you and your loved ones are buckled up. Using your seatbelt is one of the easiest, most useful ways to stay safe in a vehicle. If one person is not buckled, then everyone in the vehicle is at risk. Even if you are in the back seat, remember that you will keep moving forward at the speed the car was traveling before the crash. The force of your collision with another person could hurt or kill them.

In 2012, 73 percent of the motor vehicle fatalities in Montana were not wearing seat belts. Many of those were single, run off the road crashes where, if a seat belt had been worn, chances are they would have remained inside the vehicle. Montana Department of Transportation’s new campaign motto is “Vision Zero.” They are working to get the motor vehicle fatality rate to zero. If we all take responsibility for ourselves and our passengers, we can move towards this goal. 

Montana has only a secondary law on buckling up for adults, but there is a primary law for children under 6 years old and 60 pounds. Law or not, we need to take responsibility.

When you are the driver, people are putting their trust and life in your hands. We cannot avoid all crashes, but we can do our best to protect ourselves and our passengers by buckling up each and every time, short and long distances. 

Aim for Vision Zero. One person, one life, is too many. 

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