Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 21, 1990                   TAG: 9003232498
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

SEAT BELTS

Six people died in four separate automobile accidents. That's an unusually high number of deaths, but the causes of the wrecks were not unusual. Two were single-vehicle accidents. Excessive speed was a cause of at least one crash; alcohol was involved in another. The oldest victim was 43. Three were teen-agers.

What a sad waste.

And sadder still is the fact that at least five of the deaths might have been prevented if the people involved had simply buckled their seat belts.

Consumer demand for comfort and technological improvements have made the interiors of most cars deceptively quiet, agreeable places. It's easy for drivers and passengers to forget how fast they are moving; how vulnerable they really are. Advances in noise reduction and suspension systems insulate them from the road and from the rest of the world outside the car.

At 60 miles per hour, a false sense of safety is the last thing anyone needs.

Seat belts provide real safety. But warning bells and blinking red lights on the dashboard haven't persuaded everyone to use the belts. Neither has the new state law. Surveys have shown that since the mandatory-use law went into effect in January 1988, seat-belt use has actually declined. You can't legislate common sense.

Seat belts save lives: That's a cliche that has been supported by studies and statistics beyond counting. Too many Virginians still don't believe it.