OPP calling on drivers, buckle up

By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express

It is a message that has been engrained in the minds of just about everyone – if you are getting in a car, do up your seatbelt.

However, not everyone is paying attention.

The Ontario Provincial Police has launched its annual fall seatbelt campaign, focusing even more on ensuring that those behind the wheel, as well as their passengers, are buckled in.

After all, it is five seconds that could save your life.

“For the most part, we have a really good compliance rate in the province, in the high 90s I’d estimate, but we’ve already seen people being ejected and being injured because they weren’t wearing their seatbelts,” says Sgt. Kerry Schmidt, an officer with the OPP’s Highway Safety Division.

“We see it every year.”

According to data from the OPP, there have been 347 deaths in the past five years caused by drivers and passengers not doing up their seatbelts. In fact, one group, Schmidt says, crowds those stats, as well as for those that have been injured.

“Within the demographics, men are 75 per cent of our injured or deceased victims in these cases. We need to get the message out to the guys that they’ve got to put their seatbelts on. And young adults as well – 24 to 35 is the highest percentage (in the demographic), and for women as well,” he says.

“Maybe it’s just complacency or laziness, thinking they won’t be involved in a collision and they don’t want to bother putting it on. It really is important, and not just as a driver but a passenger as well. You need to have that buckle on because if not, you can become a projectile in the vehicle and everyone else becomes a target and becomes vulnerable.”

Seatbelt use in vehicles has been the law of the land in Ontario since 1976. Those caught not wearing a seatbelt can face fines of between $200 and $1,000, along with two demerit points.

However, even with all of these incentives – not having to pay fines and staying alive – Schmidt says that some do not heed the message, and he has seen what can happen as a result.

“For me, from my perspective, I get called out to all the serious collisions that people often don’t get to hear about. And when you see someone lying on the ground dead, and you look at the vehicle and the safety cage is completely intact…if they had been wearing a seatbelt, they’d probably be alive right now,” he says.

“It’s pretty sobering to think that all it would have taken is a second or two to put that seatbelt on, and that person might be alive, and they didn’t. It’s tragic. We see it all the time. Sitting in a vehicle, thinking that the airbag and the crumple zones and the traction control and the yaw control and the stability will keep you from having a collision or protect you in a crash, it’ll help. But if you’re not in that seat, these aren’t going to be any good to you because you’re getting ejected out of the vehicle.”