CHR Program : seat belt safety

By: Vanessa Smith
CHR Outreach Specialist, Certified CPS Technician and National Registry First Responder

The Seminole CHR Program completed a survey last month for a child passenger safety grant that the program is applying for.

The BIA Indian Highway Safety Program is collaborating with the Indian Health Service Injury Prevention Program. The IHS IP program will serve as the primary technical advisor to Tribes in implementing a coordinated community CPS program, including best practices in child safety seat distribution.

Our goal is to educate tribal members and other individuals in Seminole County regarding seat belt and car seat safety. We want to make the community aware of how important safety is for the future of our people.

We completed four surveys: two in Wewoka and two in Seminole. The overall results that the CHR program found in Wewoka had about the same results as Seminole.

The first survey in Wewoka was located at Highway 56 and 270 Junction. The second one was at 1st and Mekusukey Street. We completed the survey between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.

In our findings, males were more likely to be driving around this time of the survey than females. Findings were 79 males and 40 females that we observed.

There were more cars out at this time than any other vehicles. Findings were 52 cars, 14 SUVs, 44 pick ups, and 10 other vehicles.

Of the drivers and passengers that we observed at this time, we noticed that some of the drivers were wearing their seat belts, but the passengers were not. And also the other way around, with the passenger wearing their seat belt but not the driver.

Findings were 72 drivers that were belted and 47 people that were not, with the findings of passengers belted at 18, and 12 that were not belted.

The first check in Seminole was located at Wrangler Blvd. and Milt Phillips. The second observation was at Milt Phillips and Broadway Street. We completed the survey between 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

In our findings, males were more likely to be driving around this time of the survey than females. Findings were 68 males and 50 females that we observed.

There were more cars out at this time than any other vehicle also. Findings were 48 cars, 19 SUVs, 39 pick ups, and 14 other vehicles.

Of the drivers and passengers that we observed at this time, we noticed that there were several that were wearing their seat belt. Some saw us, knew what we were doing and put their seat belts on.

A total of 79 drivers were belted and 39 people were not, with the findings of passengers belted at 21 people and 7 people that were not belted.

The Seminole Nation CHR programs want to provide training to Native Americans in Seminole County communities on seat belt and car seat safety. With this grant we can train our community on how important seat belts and car seats are, and how they can prevent injuries in car crashes.

Our community may not know that using the correct car seat for a child can safe their life.

We would like to thank Shane Marshall of the Seminole Police Department and the Chief of Wewoka Police Department for letting the CHR program complete these surveys in their communities. And we would also like to thank Dustin Gray from the Seminole Nation Communications Department for coming out to take pictures. MVTO.