Last month, my colleague Tara Helm, who leads the Minnesota Safety Council’s Occupant Protection Program, and I spent several enjoyable days at Farmfest near Morgan, Minn. If you’re unfamiliar, this annual event brings together and showcases the full spectrum of all that Minnesota agriculture has to offer.
It was great fun to interact with so many attendees. We had a wonderful time demonstrating best practices in occupant safety, especially the changes required by the state’s new child passenger safety law.
But we also came away with some up-close-and-personal insights about life on the road in rural Minnesota.
Many drivers told us “This is rural Minnesota, it’s different out here on the roads. We don’t need to wear seatbelts.” Those statements were backed up anecdotally by what we saw – a significant percentage of drivers, especially those behind the wheels of trucks, were not wearing safety belts.
Unfortunately, the reality of “it’s different out here,” is borne out by the statistics. The seven-county metro area is home to over half of the state’s population, and the majority of traffic crashes occur there. Over three-fourths of all crashes happened inside cities of 5,000 or more population; these areas are defined as urban cities. Fatal crashes, however, tend
to occur on roads in rural areas that permit high speeds and do not have interstate-type safety designs. While the 80 counties of greater Minnesotans combined represent just half of our population, 56% of the state’s fatal crashes happen on rural roads.
Changing behaviors and mindsets is not easy. But as safety professionals it’s our responsibility to continuously educate drivers on safe practices and traffic safety law – and that includes seat belts. We hope our conversations at Farmfest planted a few seeds.
Yours in Traffic Safety,
Lisa Kons
Minnesota NETS Coordinator
Recent Comments