May | June 2006 Volume 80 Issue 3 |
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Commentary Seat belt update At press time, HB 1125—the bill that would change Colorado's seat belt law from a secondary to a primary, or standard, offense—had successfully passed through the House and Senate. Because the Senate placed two minor amendments on the bill, it returned to the House for another vote. No vote had been taken as of press time. For a current update go to the Colorado Safety Belt Coalition website at www.buckleupcolorado.org, or www.aaa.com/safety. Booster-seat usage The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety recently sponsored research to determine the most effective methods to raise awareness and increase child booster-seat use in motor vehicles. Researchers found that education in combination with discount incentives or giveaways was most effective in increasing parents' purchase and use of booster seats. While nearly all infants and 90% of children aged 1-3 routinely are restrained in safety seats, only 37% of children aged 4-8 use booster seats, according to an observational study commissioned by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Since children aged 4-8 are more likely to die in motor-vehicle crashes than from any other cause, increasing the use of booster seats is critically important. AAA and other safety experts recommend that children use booster seats until the vehicle's lap-and-shoulder belt can fit them properly—typically when they are at least 8 years old and approximately 4 feet 9 inches tall.
While many older patients are comfortable talking to a health-care professional about the most sensitive details of their health, there is a crucial aspect of senior well-being that is usually missing from the conversation—a discussion of their driving. A new survey conducted by AAA and the U.S. Bone a nd Joint Decade reveals that older patients do not ask about driving during medical visits, even though older drivers experience elevated crash risks and are more likely to die when they are in a crash. Ninety percent of the 1,030 doctors and nurses surveyed reported that less than a quarter of their older patients had ever asked about their physical and mental ability to drive. AAA is teaming up with leading medical associations to provide tools that encourage conversations among health-care providers and older patients about driving. One such tool is AAA's home-based CD-ROM—AAA Roadwise Review: A Tool to Help Seniors Drive Safely Longer. This interactive computer program screens for the eight physical and mental abilities scientifically shown to be the strongest predictors of crash risk among older drivers and then provides feedback to guide the user's driving decisions.
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