ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 24, 1997 TAG: 9702240043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
The program seemed well-intentioned enough, a way to remind motorists to properly restrain their young children in vehicles.
But it apparently was a little too invasive for some tastes.
The Virginia Department of Health six months ago put the brakes on Please Be Seated, a 6-year-old program that allowed people to report incidents of children riding unrestrained or improperly in vehicles.
The program - based on an idea conceived by Roanoke lawyer Kenneth Ries - relied on driver participation. Motorists could fill out a mail-in post card giving the license number and description of the vehicle in which unrestrained children were observed.
The cards would be mailed to the Health Department's Division of Child and Adolescent Health, which would in turn send a letter reminding the owner of the vehicle in question about the child-safety law in Virginia and proper use of child-safety seats.
Last August, the division was directed to quit processing the mail-in cards and sending letters to vehicle owners. The division was told it could continue educating the public about the value of child-safety seats and their proper installation.
But the mail-in cards are still out there - in pediatricians' offices, with rescue crews, restaurants, fire stations. And people are still filling them out and mailing them in, still under the impression that they are doing public good, said Karen Kern, who coordinated Please Be Seated from its inception in 1991 until September.
The Department of Health has given no notice to the public that the mail-in card portion of the program has been discontinued.
Kern said the Division of Child and Adolescent Health continues to receive the cards. What's being done with them? "Nothing," she said.
"There had been some concerns about privacy," Deborah Kallgren, Health Department spokeswoman, said Friday. "There was no way to really verify what people had seen in the vehicle, apart from someone sending us a letter. It was an issue of privacy."
Kallgren said from time to time people who received the letters would call or write with complaints.
"Put yourself on the receiving end, receiving a letter that someone anonymous has written in that they'd seen your child not buckled up properly," she said.
Kern said the number of complaints was small. From 1994 through 1996, for every 100 letters the division sent, about seven recipients called or wrote back with comments, Kern said.
Slightly more than 3 percent of those stated the reported incidents were correct, Kern said, and about 4 percent stated the reported incidents were incorrect.
The Health Department was aware of the argument that the program had an invasive quality, Kern said.
"The reason given me on why they decided to lose the program was philosophical concerns over the privacy issue," she said. "And the lack of true evaluation."
Kern did oversee an evaluation of the program before leaving her position as Please Be Seated coordinator - but only after the administrative decision was made to discontinue the mail-in cards. The evaluation results - given to the Department of Health two weeks ago - "were very positive," she said.
Surveys were sent to 721 people who had received letters. Twenty-eight percent of them responded.
Some of the findings:
* 80 percent said they supported the concept of the program.
* 25 percent said they purchased or obtained a child safety seat as a result of having received a letter from the division.
* 39 percent of respondents with children younger than 4 started using a child-safety seat after receiving a letter.
* 17 percent of respondents with children 4 to 6 years old started using a safety seat instead of a safety belt. (The average 6-year-old weighs 60 pounds, Kern said. State law requires children younger than 4 to be properly secured in a child-safety seat, regardless of weight. Though not required by law, safety seats are recommended for children under 60 pounds.)
The program, which had its roots in former Gov. Douglas Wilder's administration, may simply have been viewed differently by Gov. George Allen's administration.
"It's a program that has the potential to be controversial, depending on citizens' feelings and the current political climate," Kern said.
In 1995, Allen rejected a bill to outlaw children under 16 from riding unrestrained in the backs of pickup trucks. In justifying his veto, Allen did not dispute the safety aspect, but he said, "We must be mindful that people inevitably exercise less personal responsibility when paternalistic government repeatedly intervenes to protect them from dangers that common sense should tell them to guard against on their own."
During this year's General Assembly session, the legislature passed a bill requiring adult drivers to make backseat passengers under 16 use seat belts. Violators would be subject to a $25 civil fine but would not get demerits on their driving record.
Opponents said the governor was expected to veto it. A spokesman in Allen's office said he had expressed "several concerns" about the bill's merits.
Please Be Seated still exists, but without its main component - the mail-in cards. The program's focus has been revamped to place more emphasis on outreach and education, Kallgren said.
Please Be Seated was funded by a grant from the Federal Highway Administration. In 1991, the program received $15,000. For the 1995-96 fiscal year, that grant had grown to $90,000.
In six years, an estimated 46,000 Please Be Seated cards were mailed in.
The program has won several state and national awards, including a 1993 Program of Excellence award from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It has been used as a model for programs in more than 20 states and Ontario, Canada.
The program was featured on an ABC-TV news magazine show and on the Japanese News Network.
"A state that was on the cutting edge is no longer cutting at all," said Ries, who suggested the child-restraint program after reading a newspaper article about a similar program to help control litter.
The Department of Environmental Quality discontinued the litter program several years ago for the same reason Please Be Seated's mail-in cards were discontinued, Health Department spokeswoman Kallgren said.
"Privacy," she said.
LENGTH: Long : 117 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART STAFF. Roanoke lawyer Kenneth Ries suggestedby CNBthe child-restraint program after reading a newspaper article about
a similar program to help control litter. color.