Earlier this month, three students of a Lubavitch yeshiva were killed when their car careened off a Rockland County road and crashed as they were returning to Brooklyn from a camp in the Catskills. The boys were not wearing seat belts.Last year, four female students celebrating the end of their first year in graduate school at Baruch College were killed when their van swerved on the highway to avoid hitting a squirrel. Only the driver, who was wearing a seat belt, escaped without injury.Two years ago, a van crashed on a Pennsylvania highway, killing two Brooklyn girls on their way home from a day-camp outing. Neither was wearing a seat belt.Every 12 minutes someone in America is killed in a traffic accident; every 14 seconds someone is injured.Spurred by the Rockland incident, rabbis throughout Brooklyn last Shabbat admonished their congregants to wear seat belts while driving.For Rabbi Yanki Mayer of Borough Park, reaching out to the Jewish community took a different course.After being called to the scene of numerous accidents as a volunteer medic, he was inspired in 1997 to establish the International Resource Center, a not-for-profit organization devoted to road safety, and to launch his annual safety awareness campaign.“As a longtime volunteer for bikur cholim, Hatzoloh and many other causes, I felt it was my calling to address road safety, especially during the summer months, when there’s so much commuting to and from the [Catskill] Mountains,” said the rabbi, who noted that the frequency of fatalities in the Jewish community convinced him to act.Eliciting the support of the Hospital for Joint Diseases in Manhattan, Rabbi Mayer circulated thousands of flyers and bumper stickers. He posted billboards along upstate New York vacation routes reminding travelers to observe traffic regulations, wear seat belts and say the traveler’s prayer, Tefilas Haderech.“My children are proud of me! I buckle up! I say Tefilas Haderech! I drive safely!” blare his blazing red-and-white, 12-by-40-foot highway posters on Route 17 between exits 117 and 118 at Fair Oaks and other strategic points.“You get into the car and you forget,” says Dr. Isaac Pinter, administrative director of the Pain Center at the hospital, adding that he has been inundated with phone calls from bungalow colonies requesting billboards. “Suddenly the sign hits you between the eyes, and you buckle up!”Highway traffic will be terrible this Labor Day weekend, warns the rabbi, a printing broker. “People must take extra precautions,” he advised.State Police Superintendent James McMahon heartily agrees. “Traditionally, the Labor Day weekend has been one of the most hazardous for highway travel. The higher traffic volume and excessive speed ... can lead to tragic consequences.”Although the death rate on U.S. thoroughfares has dropped to its lowest level since Model T’s were rattling over unpaved roads, car wrecks are still one of the country’s major killers — the third leading cause of death for all Americans after cancer and heart attacks, according to federal health officials.In fact, the National Safety Council estimates there will be 468 traffic fatalities during the Labor Day weekend, with nonfatal disabling injuries as high as 24,800. The average number of traffic occurrences during the past six Labor Days was 8.3 percent above similar non-holiday periods.Wearing a seat belt can cut those numbers drastically. “It is estimated that 328 people will not die this Labor Day holiday because they will wear their safety belts, but an additional 130 lives could be saved if all wore safety belts,” said Alan Hoskin, research manager of statistics for the NSC.Studies show that if a driver is belted, children and babies are far more likely to be properly restrained.Surveys conducted this month indeed indicate that seat-belt use has increased from 74 percent to 81 percent, the highest rate ever. From 1975 through 1997, an estimated 101,000 lives were saved by safety belts. Nearly 4,000 lives were saved by child restraints.Still, many fail to buckle up.“It is astonishing that three decades after all cars were first required to have safety belts, about 40 percent of children and adults are unprotected and not obeying the law,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater.Drivers who violate the New York State Traffic Law are fined $50 per offense. Within a 10-day patrol period in May, the city Police Department and local municipalities — as part of a major crackdown and to implement the new statewide Buckle Up New York campaign — issued more than 45,000 tickets. Some 5,000 were for child safety violations.“No one would want their trip to be ruined by receiving a summons for something as simple and avoidable as that,” said Rabbi Mayer.President Bill Clinton is intent on keeping belts buckled.“Automobile accidents are the leading cause of death for America’s young people,” the president has pointed out. “It is tragic that a high proportion of these deaths could be prevented but are not.”Clinton’s goal is to increase seat-belt use to 85 percent by the year 2000 and 90 percent by 2005. He also wants to reduce child occupant fatalities by 15 percent in 2000 and 25 percent in 2005.“By raising seat-belt use to 85 percent,” Slater said, “every year we will save more than 4,000 lives, prevent more than 100,000 injuries and save $6.7 billion in related costs.”Rabbi Mayer believes the Jewish community should participate in the national effort by using restraints on every trip. (The rabbi did not want to be photographed for this story.)“It is the responsibility of the individual to buckle up and ensure that all children in a motor vehicle are properly restrained, and that groups and organizations find ways to help non-users and part-time users get into the healthy habit.“After all is said and done,” he cautioned, “the life you save may be your own or that of a loved one.”
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