Studies from the National Safety Council show seat belts saved the lives of more than 75,000 motorists from 2004-08.
Research from the United States President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology concluded that students in classes using active learning methods learned twice as much as those taught in a traditional setting — simply put, showing sometimes tends to be more effective than telling.
Enter the Mississippi Department of Transportation’s “Seatbelt Convincer” and “Rollover Rover.”
Forty-three students from area schools in a driver’s education summer course held at Heritage Academy were reminded of the importance of buckling up Tuesday when MDOT representatives visited and held a safety education program.
The Seatbelt Convincer simulates what it would be like to be in a collision at 5 miles per hour and demonstrates the benefits of wearing a seat belt. Each student was given the chance to sit in the carriage at the top of a slide and decline until coming to a thud, hitting the bumpers at the bottom of the simulator.
The Rollover Roller, a pickup truck with machinery that allows the cab to spin on its own axis, demonstrates a more extreme situation — the effects of a rollover crash at 35 miles per hour and what happens when seat belts are not used. As the cab begins to spin, two cloth dummies inside the truck jostle around for several seconds before falling out of the windows.
Heritage Academy driver’s education instructor Lee Davis said having the simulators on hand was one of many activities he wanted to work into the course to teach teens who are about to get on the road for the first time the need for seat belts and general safety behind the wheel.
“We feel like you can put on a video and (students’) attention lasts for a certain while. You bring things like this, hands on, things that they can see, those are things that impact them for a long time, especially as young drivers,” Davis said. “I did (the Seatbelt Convincer) and I was surprised at what a 5-mile-an-hour collision is. That could be anywhere.”
Lisa Valadie, a contract employee with MDOT, said since the establishment of the Drive Smart Mississippi campaign, in which MDOT representatives go to schools statewide to encourage seat belt usage, traffic fatalities have dropped by about 200 a year.
“We always emphasize that fatalities are just the tip of the iceberg,” Valadie said. “For all the fatalities there are a lot more head injuries, spinal cord injuries and other life-changing injuries just by not wearing your seat belt. It’s a law that we do buckle up. It takes education and it takes enforcement. You’ve got to have the two. One without the other doesn’t work that well.”
Another teaching tool MDOT contractors used was a distracted driving simulator showing the perils of texting while behind the wheel. Emma Rose Davis, a student entering her sophomore year, said that simulator, coupled with the Seatbelt Convincer and the Rollover Rover, reinforced the importance of a being an attentive, careful driver.
“Texting and driving is a lot harder than it looks. (The distracted driving computer program) was a simulation of me taking one of my friends home and her telling me instructions, but I had to text her brother at the same time,” she said. “I forgot to stop at a stop sign. I didn’t see it because I was on a highway and then I didn’t realize that I had merged off the highway. I swerved and I wasn’t as focused.”
MDOT representative Amy Humphrey said bringing these activities to driver’s education programs reminds students that not only should they wear their seat belt when driving, but all passengers should be made to wear one as well.
“If there are passengers injured, (drivers) could be responsible for them,” she said. “There are court costs and jail time for not wearing a seat belt and not enforcing others in your vehicle to wear them.”
Nathan Gregory covers city and county government for The Dispatch.
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