President's Message
AAA, child safety, and Colorado's seat belt legislation
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Tony DeNovellis
President and CEO
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Since AAA's founding more than 100 years ago, it has been committed to traffic safety—for drivers, passengers and pedestrians. To AAA, the words safety, security and peace of mind are not just slogans, they are the foundations from which this organization was built and served its members. Most AAA members know about the roadside assistance program, but many others aren't aware that AAA created the first-ever mature driver instructional/test CD-ROM program, and offers numerous educational brochures covering everything from distracted driving to how to buy a safer car. The AAA Association's efforts include lobbying the federal government on transportation issues and supporting the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, a not-for-profit, publicly supported charitable educational and research organization. Underlying AAA Colorado's lifelong mobility initiative is its passion for the youngest members of our society. AAA Colorado has a full-time traffic safety specialist who conducts free safety checks for child seats and booster seats, operates the pre-teen Traffic Safety Village , and makes school presentations about child-related traffic safety issues. In the legislative arena, last year, with your overwhelming support, AAA Colorado helped form a Teen Driving Coalition that aided in the passage of the Minor Passenger Restrictions bill (SB-036), which will make Colorado roads safer and save the lives of drivers in all age groups by restricting the number of non-family minor passengers allowed in a newly licensed driver's car. Now, AAA Colorado is turning its attention to another vital traffic safety issue that involves children—seat belt usage. Statistics indicate that six out of 10 children who die in crashes are unrestrained. And further, adults who do not buckle up are far less likely to buckle up their children. How do you get parents to buckle up? Twenty-two states have already found that making the non-use of seat belts a primary offense rather than a secondary offense raises driver seat belt usage by 11 to 14 percent. And the studies indicate that if parents buckle up, they are 87.5 percent more likely to buckle up their children—therefore saving children's lives in the event of an accident. Because Colorado's current seat belt law is still only a secondary offense, AAA Colorado has helped form the Colorado Safety Belt Coalition, comprised of a wide variety of agencies, corporations and individuals dedicated to saving more lives on Colorado 's highways by changing the current secondary seat belt law to a primary, or “standard,” one. The Coalition includes, among others, CDOT (Colorado Department of Transportation); the Colorado State Patrol; Colorado Chiefs of Police and other law enforcement interests; the insurance, automobile and health care industries; Children's, Craig, Exempla and other local hospitals and organizations such as MADD; the Brain Injury Association; and the trucking industry association. To effect such change, though, your help and support are needed—especially because it is a change that has failed to pass twice before in recent years. I urge you all to read about this safety issue. With your support—and the efforts of the Colorado Safety Belt Coalition—we can make Colorado's roads safer for all drivers and passengers. Tony DeNovellis
President and CEO
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