It’s nearly 50 years since Ralph Nader’s landmark “Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile,” exposing the Big Three automakers’ resistance to basic safety features such as seat belts.
Our kids marvel at baby boomers’ accounts of rattling around in cars as if they were Jungle Jim’s on wheels. Laundry baskets served as makeshift car seats. “And we all survived,” my peers sometimes marvel, as if the current penchant for auto safety were some sort of moral weakness.
Except, of course, tens of thousands of kids didn’t survive, the casualty of the Big Three’s desire to save a buck or two. These days, thankfully, it’s impossible to buy a car without seat belts or air bags. Yet how often do we fail to take advantage of them, especially when we’re only a few miles from home?
Several New Year’s weekend traffic deaths brought this home. On Jan. 2, 34-year-old Bryan Johnson was killed after being ejected from his pickup truck, which rolled over him. Road conditions were icy, but Johnson wasn’t wearing a seat belt. With his last breath, he yelled for his wife to remove their 5-year-old son from the truck.
On Dec. 30, in Waynesville, 43-year-old Jill Williams and her 7-year-old son, Cole, were killed when her Volkswagen Beetle went off the road and struck a utility pole not far from their home. Neither was belted in.
Mother and son lived only a few blocks from the crash site on Lytle Ferry Road near Elm Tree in Wayne Twp. “In the country, a road that may not be marked, the pavement markings are less visible, and maybe you’re not familiar with the roadway — or, in this case, you’re too familiar with it,” said Lt. Mike Sanders of the Ohio State Highway Patrol in Warren County.
We break out our St. Christopher medals and take other precautions before embarking on a long trip. Sanders said that the real danger most often lies closer to home. “Maybe she didn’t take the time to seat belt the child, because it was such a short distance,” Sanders speculated.
Neither alcohol nor drugs appear to have been a factor in the crash, according to the initial report. Sanders said that slick roads were probably the biggest reason: “It was probably a combination of the weather and going a little too fast for road conditions, and maybe not paying attention. Take the time to pay attention even if you’re only going three or four blocks down the road.”
It’s not clear whether wearing seat belts would have saved either of these victims, since the convertible apparently rolled over and the utility pole struck the roof. “There’s a good possibility the seat belt may not have prevented this tragedy,” Sanders said, “but seat belts are your best chance of surviving death and serious injury in serious front or rear-end collision.”
Jill Williams, by all accounts was a loving mother who doted on Cole, a first-grader at Waynesville Elementary School. “Cole was the apple of Jill’s eye, which surely is the reason they were so bright,” wrote Melissa Orange of Mason on the Dayton Daily News memorial website. “Her smile lit up any room and they will both be dearly missed.”
Lori Wentzel of Kettering, one of Cole’s preschool teachers, wrote, “He was the sweetest little boy and would get so excited to see his mommy at pick-up time. It truly warmed my heart. Now they are together forever.”
She was a doting mom, who would have flung herself in front of a semi to save her child. She simply took one of the safety shortcuts so many of us take every day.
How many times do we pop open our cellphone, just to catch a glimpse of that text message, no matter how often we lecture our kids not to do the same? How many times do we leave a child strapped in a car seat so we can buy a gallon of milk?
How many times do we let the child sit in the front seat as a special treat or a comfort after a bad day?
How many times do we forget to ask, “Everybody buckled up?” because we are, after all, only going a short distance?
Next time, let’s pause a minute and remember.
Let’s do it in memory of Jill and Cole.
Contact this reporter at mmccarty@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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