Buckle Up This Thanksgiving

You’ve packed baggy clothes to accommodate your mother’s out-of-this-world Thanksgiving turkey and sweet potatoes. You stuff all the gifts in your bag you barely had time to buy. You reach for your keys and get in your car, ready for a road trip.

Stop for a second…Did you Buckle Up?

Between all the excitement and the rush to reach home in time, quite a few safety measures are overlooked by most of us, one of them being wearing a safety seat belt.

Lives Saved and Lives Lost

Data published by Traffic Safety Marketing reveals that 52 percent of the 303 passengers who died in motor vehicle crashes nationwide during the Thanksgiving holiday travel season were unrestrained. Approximately 49% of the 115 passengers killed during the daytime and 54% of the 187 passengers killed during the nighttime following a motor vehicle crash were not wearing a seat belt.

Seatbelts are the most basic and the most effective safety measure found in almost all motor vehicles. An estimated 12,713 lives were saved in the year 2009 due to seatbelt usage.

The advantages of seatbelt are known to all, yet many people do not wear seatbelts while driving. Reports published by TSM shows that one in five Americans still fail to buckle up. There are many reasons behind people neglecting the importance of seatbelts, such as secondary enforcement laws, habit failure, personal and psychological beliefs.

How Seatbelt Signs can help

The above obstacles can be successfully tackled with the use of signs and in this case seatbelt and buckle up signs.

Seatbelt Signs constantly remind drivers to buckle up. Strategic placement of seatbelts can prevent potential accidents from taking place in the absence of restraints. Seat belt Signs mounted in parking lot, at gas stations, outside restaurants etc. can grab instant attention and remind drivers to buckle up. Signs can also wake up the guilty consciences of people who look at seatbelts as an unnecessary piece of equipment. Constant prompts can make even the most inflexible of people to wear a seat belt.

This Thanksgiving, head for home and not an emergency room. Buckle up, not just for you but also for the one’s waiting for you at the dinner table.