New Child Passenger Safety Advocates in NW Lower Michigan

From left to right you see Deputy Marty Makowski of the Benzie County Sheriff's Department, Michelle Stagman of Munson Medical Center Neonatal Intensive-Care Unit (NICU), Captain Anthony Posey of Grand Traverse Metro Fire Department, Nicole Beebe, Debbie Hessem and Michelle Bratschi also of Munson Medical Center's NICU, and Injury Prevention Coordinator Jennifer Ritter of Munson Medical Center Trauma Services, MSU Extension and the Director of North Shore Safe Kids. Me? I'm the one sticking my head out of the cab of Engine 11, courtesy of our hosts: the Grand Traverse Metro Fire Department.

This photo shows six of Michigan's newest Child Passenger Safety (CPS) technicians. They just completed 32 hours (four days) of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's certification course that prepared them to educate families on how to protect everyone in the family car from unnecessary injuries and death. Yes, deaths and injuries from something that has the real potential of being easily prevented or mitigated: car crashes.

Jennifer Ritter and myself are the Child Passenger Safety Instructors for North Shore Safe Kids, and it was our privilege to spend this past week meeting these motivated individuals and facilitating their certification. They were advocates for children and traffic/public safety to begin with. Now, they are advocates armed with knowledge that will help them to expand their advocacy influence. You might refer to them as "child seat inspectors," but they really are educators and nationally certified public safety professionals. They join a great group of other CPS technicians here locally and nationwide that have a unique motivation that can only be understood by those with a similar calling. You can seek them out for advice and counsel here in Michigan by contacting michigansafekids.org or nationally at safekids.org .

Just one more thing: These advocate/volunteers are normally only able to do this because their employers have allowed and encouraged them to pursue such a course. The time commitment and expense are not trivial, especially in these tight times. The agencies that sponsor your local Child Passenger Safety Technicians deserve special recognition and thanks. Our North Shore Safe Kids group, for example, enjoys just such support from Grand Traverse County and our Sheriff, GT Metro Fire, the City of Traverse City and our Chiefs (Police and Fire), Benzie County and their Sheriff, Elmwood Township Fire, the State of Michigan and MSU Extension, Leelanau County, Munson Medical Center, Blair Township and their Fire Chief, the Michigan Department of Transportation, The Michigan State Police, The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Interlochen for the Arts, Traverse City Area Public Schools and others. They all see the reason for advocacy that leads to injury prevention.

If you see any of our new graduates around town congratulate them, and then show them your baby (no matter what age your baby happens to be). You might be surprised about what they'll tell you.

Be safe.

Dental Floss and Bike Helmets = The Doak TC Weekly Safety Reminder

It's the Doak TC Weekly Safety Reminder #9.

They say (whoever they are) that you only need to floss around the teeth that you want to keep. So, when kids ask me "when don't I have to wear my bike helmet?," I tell 'em "whenever you know for certain that you're not going to fall." Of course they roll their eyes at me and remind me that they can never know that. "Well, I guess that's answers your question, then" I reply.

Most people think that their greatest danger on a bike comes from being hit by a car, but the majority of bike injuries come from the rider simply falling down due to something unexpected or an error. The head that's on top of that falling body is going to hit the ground from a pretty good height. The skull hits the ground and then the brain hits the skull: kind'a like smacking it into a mixing bowl. Obviously that's why we wear a bike helmet. Any reasonable parent wants their little kid to have that helmet on. After all, kids can get hurt.

Yup, I saw one of those reasonable parents when I was driving on Front Street in Traverse City last week. He was riding his bike and had his really small child riding along on the same bike, nestled in front of him, between his legs on some sort of seat thing. Of course, this reasonable parent had a helmet on the kid just in case they fall and the kid's head hits the street from a height of about five feet. So, he's assuming there could be a falling hazard. This reasonable parent did not seem concerned about his own unhelmeted brain which will drop from about eight feet and smack the pavement in that same fall. After all- he's an adult and not as important as the child. He's also demonstrating to the child that someday he too will grow up to be less important and have no need for silly childhood protections.

Parents, if you're asking the question "when don't I have to wear my bike helmet?," here is the answer: when you're certain that you will not leave your family grieving for you due to a fall, and when there is no chance that your kids will see you do it. When those kids get to be near driving age and are still watching your every move ask me the question "when don't I have to fully stop my car at a stop sign."

I gotta go floss now.

Be safe.

Speed x Weight = Buckle Up. WSR #8

It's the eighth Weekly Safety Reminder, and many of us thought we were done with this one, but I guess not.

Over the past few weeks it seems like we've had a rash of traffic crashes where someone ended up being spewed out of the vehicle. Out of the vehicle is a very bad place to be during a crash. The modern vehicle is built to be a crash absorbing and occupant protecting marvel. Unfortunately, it can only protect the occupant if they remain inside the vehicle. This is accomplished by simply wearing a seat belt. Seems simple enough, but everyone still doesn't seem to be convinced.

The real tragedy here is that some people were killed as a result of traffic crashes recently even though they didn't do any of the crashing themselves. They were passengers in vehicles driven by drunk drivers or hit by stop sign runners. It appears that those killed ended up being tossed and left to end their lives in the unforgiving world outside of the vehicle.

How does a 150 pound human get pulled from their own grip and tossed so violently against their will? Here is a simple equation that we teach in Child Passenger Safety Class: Speed x weight = approximate restraining force. So, our 150 pound human going 45 mph ends up with a relative weight of 6,750 pounds to hold back. Humans can't do that, but seat belts can. Next time you let someone sit unbelted in your back seat imagine yourself being held in place by your seat belt, but your passengers smacking into you with over 6,000 pounds of force.

It's simple, it's physics, it's an unnecessary risk, it's an easily avoidable tragedy. It's time to agree to have everyone (pets included) buckle up.

Be safe.

It's Round, Safe and even Green.

No, obviously this is not a photo of a roundabout. It's just a planter in the middle of a local intersection. It is pretty, though, isn't it? See, I like to use my own photos, but I can't afford to just drive to Gaylord or Clare to photograph a roundabout for today's blog post. Actually, this intersection makes for an interesting story, but we'll leave that for another time.

So, we all know that real roundabouts are really safe intersections and that they make for great jokes in towns that haven't used them yet. But, besides being about the safest intersections, they're also environmentally friendly and less expensive to run.

Did I say that two of the primary benefits of a roundabout are their environmental friendliness and frugality? Yup, they use no electricity to run signals that they don't need, and they require no maintenance of the nonexistent signals. Here's the other big environmental saver, though: Imagine 24, 000 cars a day traveling though a roundabout that doesn't require those 24,000 cars to stop and go and stop and go and stop and go and,,,, well, you get the picture. Can't say that about an intersection controlled by a stop sign or traffic light can you?

But then, I guess we all know that not everyone chooses to actually stop at the stop signs and stop lights all of the time. I guess they'll lose that bit of freedom in roundabouts and be forced to act a bit more like everyone else in there (predictably). Darn, there go those safety people limiting our personal freedoms to endanger ourselves again.

Be safe.