Students from Stafford Technical Center’s SADD Chapter and Rutland High School’s GMTI Program recently did a traffic safety survey at the entrance to the schools in the morning for about two and a half hours. The students, Christopher Crout, a senior at Stafford Technical Center from Rutland High School, Nate Hance, a senior at Stafford Technical Center from Mill River Union High School, Jackie Fitz-Gerald, a senior at Stafford Technical Center from Chittenden, Kayla Stewart, a Stafford Technical Center junior from West Rutland HS, and Joey Trevino, a freshman member of Rutland High School’s GMTI program, looked at 558 vehicles that morning. Overall, 87.1% of the operators or occupants were observed wearing their safety belts. There were, however significant differences among the sexes and depending where the person was seated in the level of compliance.
The students had decided also to monitor operators to see if they were “distracted driving”, as there has been a lot of research that says how dangerous this practice is. For example, texting while driving is supposed to be 2.5 times as dangerous as driving drunk. The students were amazed to find a driver who was eating a bowl of ramen noodles while driving, and another who had a bowl of cereal that she was eating. The students also observed at least 25 more drivers who were either speaking on the cell phone, texting while driving, or eating or drinking while driving. The real numbers would be higher, as some people apparently hid their phones or food when they saw the reflective vests the students were wearing. The students were appalled at the speeds that some people came flying into the schools with.
The drivers were the most responsible group as far as wearing safety belts was concerned, with an overall compliance rate of 92%. Men were properly restrained in 83.2% of those surveyed, and with 89% of male operators belted. Women had a better overall rate of 89.5% in compliance, but an even better 94.9% rate of female operators. Front seat passengers also showed the same higher rate of compliance among women than men, with an 87.5% to 83.6% advantage to females. Men did show an advantage over females in the rear seat category; both had horrible rates of compliance, but the females were worse, with only a 45% rate of compliance; the male rate was a 63.3% compliance rate. One of the reasons that the rear seats had such bad compliance rates was that there were a few vans with up to 5 unrestrained passengers in the two back seats.
The spring safety belt survey will focus again on distracted drivers and encouraging increasing safety belt usage among teens.
Pictured in photo are two students from Public Safety Services: Foreground: Nate Hance (Mill River Union High School and Chris Crout (RHS)