Friday, October 10, 2008 Sanchez: Buckle up By Benedicto Q Sanchez Nature speaks
ALTHOUGH the campaign to enforce Bacolod City Ordinance 466-2008 is visibly slackening, motorcyclists and their passengers by and large continue to wear crash helmets. Strict enforcement and fines forced them not to trifle with the city law.
I said "by and large," because some riders flout the ordinance, like daring the Traffic Management Unit to make their day by apprehending them. Well, let the traffic enforcers do that-throw the book at them.
Otherwise, if the TMU becomes wimpy and look the other way around, motorcyclists will eventually wise up and many will ditch the helmets altogether.
But it's not just the city ordinance that needs relentless enforcement. Another is Republic Act 8750, or the Seat Belt Law. Enacted since 2000, enforcement in Bacolod, not to mention the entire province, has been extremely spotty.
The law requires that drivers and passengers seated in the front seat of a vehicle, especially automobiles, sports utility vehicles (SUV) and utility vehicles (UV), whether private or public, brand new or old, should use seat belts. For buses, drivers, passengers seated directly behind the driver and passengers seated by the doors of the vehicle are required to wear seat belts.
Ride any bus or jeep in Negros, however, and you realize that RA 8750 might as well be nonexistent.
You don't need to be a lawyer, a Land Transportation Office personnel to know that enforcement is more on the breach than on compliance. Heck, I'll bet even LTO law enforcers violate RA 8750.
I became aware of the necessity of seat belts way back in 1987 when Jack Palance used to host the series "Ripley's Believe It or Not." One episode pitched for the use of seat belts.
In that episode's segment, road tests-video-taped and played back in slow motion-showed unrestrained crash test dummies pitching forward on series of head-on crashes. Their skulls usually get banged up on windshields. At just 50 kilometers per hour, an unharnessed occupant gets thrown forward with a force 30 to 60 times their body weight.
The visual impact of those dummy heads crashing through the windshields of head-on collisions seared through my brain. Since then, even without the law, I buckle up when I sit in front of a vehicle. I avoid the seat as much as I can if there are no seat belts.
In car crashes, studies in the USA shows that wearing a belt reduces the risk of death by 45 percent for the driver and front-seat passengers in a sedan, and 60 percent in minivans such as our multicabs, pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles. Minivans, canter trucks and SUVs are more deadly to unbelted occupants because they are stiffer, and transmit more of the shock to the passengers than do cars, which absorb some of the impact in their structures.
Another study put it this way. When the front of a car hits something at 24 kph, it stops in the first tenth of a second. But unbelted drivers keep on going until something stops them-the steering wheel, dashboard or windshield. At 48 km you hit "those walls" four times as hard as you would at 28 kph, the same impact on the pavement if you fell three stories.
Who are the victims of unbuckled front seat occupants of speeding vehicles?
According to the World Health Organization, globally, road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among young people aged 10-24 years. Most of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries such as the Philippines. Blamed for the deaths are risk factors such as speeding, drink-driving, not using helmets or not wearing seat-belts.
So, if you love life and want to live longer: buckle up!
